The Ball visits the home of Mathematics
The Ball at the Registan
The Registan in Samarkhand is where Al Ghorasmi wrote his famous text “Al Jabr”. I feel particularly privileged to have sat where he most probably sat - we now recognise his name as ‘algorithm’ and his book gave us ‘algebra’ - I use these every day of my programming life.
A Buckyball
The Ball itself is another mathematical object, named much more recently after R. Buckminster Fuller, another scientific visionary - its basic form is called a Fullerine or a Buckyball. In nature this shape occurs as Carbon 60, a molecular-sized football which can bounce even when travelling at half the speed of light. You can read more about it in this article on soccerballworld.com
Posted by Christian
Tim says:
April 20th, 2002 at 9:08 pm
This week’s Sesame Street was brought to you by the letters x and y , and the cube root of 2.
Rob says:
April 21st, 2002 at 2:59 pm
Apparently he spelt his name “al Khwarizmi”, though his full name was the rather less succinct “Abu Abd-Allah ibn Musa al’Khwarizmi”.
He wrote “al Jabra” (full title “Hisab al-jabr w’al-muqabala” - try getting that on Amazon) in 830 AD and, funnily enough Tim, its first chapter is about how to solve simple quadratic equations such as x squared = the square root of 2. Cube roots weren’t solved until 1515 though, and that was by an entirely different person.
At least that’s what I overheard down the pub.
Rob says:
April 21st, 2002 at 3:06 pm
I did try searching on Amazon! Here is what it said:
“Availability: We are currently unable to offer this title. It may be out of stock with the publisher or out of print.”
Tim says:
April 21st, 2002 at 9:56 pm
In the photo on the music page(if you remember that) why is Richard in a tree wearing an Argentinian shirt?
Chris says:
April 23rd, 2002 at 9:01 am
Rob: Ah, the Statisticians Arms - I love that place. Will you drink a pint of Arctangent for me and toast the Ball… this Kyrgyz beer tastes of, er, 10-10…