Here is the synopsis of our sample research paper on The History of Algebra
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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 3 page paper is a brief overview of the history of algebra. Bibliography lists 3 sources.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HValgbra.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
this paper will of necessity only skim the surface. Algebra is a way to generalize mathematical problems by "using symbols, usually letters, to represent numbers" (Introduction to algebra: History). The
statement "2 + 3 = 3 + 2" is obviously true, but it can also be expressed this way: "x + y = y + x" where x and y
can have any value (Introduction to algebra: History). Egyptian, Chinese and Babylonian mathematicians all solved word problems, known as "rhetorical algebra," but it wasnt until the 3rd century that algebra
began to take on the form it has today (Introduction to algebra: History). In was in the 3rd century that Diophantus, a Greek, wrote a 13-part book called Arithmetica, and
although only six sections still survive, they show us that Diophantus was using symbols to represent unknowns, the same system that is in use today (Introduction to algebra: History). The
next developments come from India, where mathematicians worked on algebra in the 6th and 7th centuries; a man named Aryabhatta, "whose book entitled Aryabhatta included work on linear and quadratic
equations, and Brahmagupta, who presented a general solution for a quadratic equation" (Introduction to algebra: History). The next important development in algebra was a book entitled al-Kitab al-muhtasar fi
hisab al-jabr wal-muqabala which translates as Compendium on calculation by completion and balancing (Introduction to algebra: History). It was written in the 9th century by an Arabic mathematician, Al-Khwarizmi,
and in fact the word "algebra" comes from the Arabic "al-jabr," or "completion" (Introduction to algebra: History). This book "developed methods for solving six different types of quadratic equations" (Introduction
to algebra: History). The next advance came in about 1100, when the Persian Omar Khayyam "wrote a treatise on algebra based on Euclids methods" (Introduction to algebra: History). Khayyam identified
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