Algorism

Algorism is the technique of performing basic arithmetic by writing numbers in place value form and applying a set of memorized rules and facts to the digits.

The word algorism comes from the name Al-Khwārizmī (c. 780–850), a Persian[2][3] mathematician, astronomer, geographer and scholar in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, whose name means "the native of Khwarezm", which is now in modern-day Uzbekistan.

[7] Al-Khwarizmi was the most widely read mathematician in Europe in the late Middle Ages, primarily through his other book, the Algebra.

[8] In late medieval Latin, algorismus, the corruption of his name, simply meant the "decimal number system" that is still the meaning of modern English algorism.

It begins thus: Haec algorismus ars praesens dicitur, in qua / Talibus Indorum fruimur bis quinque figuris.which translates as: This present art, in which we use those twice five Indian figures, is called algorismus.The word algorithm also derives from algorism, a generalization of the meaning to any set of rules specifying a computational procedure.

Calculating-Table by Gregor Reisch : Margarita Philosophica , 1503. The woodcut shows Arithmetica instructing an algorist and an abacist (inaccurately represented as Boethius and Pythagoras ). There was keen competition between the two from the introduction of the Algebra into Europe in the 12th century until its triumph in the 16th. [ 1 ]