Al-Khwarizmi

Al-Ma'mun's chief librarian and author of The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing, the first work to establish algebra as a science in its own right — the world took the word from his title. Translated into Latin by Robert of Chester, it entered European schooling, and from the Latinisation of his name (Algoritmi) comes the word Algorithm on which computer science rests. He also introduced the zero and Hindu numerals to the Arab and then European world in his On Hindu Reckoning.