Comments by "" (@tinkeringtim7999) on "When Descartes Challenged Fermat (and Lost)" video.

False history. Ibn Sina used algebraic expressions for lines and even directed lines we'd recognise as unit vectors. Crediting Descartes is common and really irritating because he was probably taught it by arabs on his travels.
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@AnotherRoof Hi, I have his works in 2 books; in arabic with some English commentary, and one mixed language Arabic and French with quite detailed translations to French. They are both rare, almost impossible to find, expensive, and not on pdf! It's not your fault, it's a systemic failing due to "The Arabs" being synonymous with "Mystical barbaric enemy" during all the crucial development of the story of the history of mathematics. I'm a complete geek on this topic, I have many hundreds of original books charting the real course of development of mathematics - although focussed on Enlightenment (in particular, how it's viewed and taught, and why Quaternions and constrictivists "lost" etc.) My degree was in theoretical physics, but I didn't stay in the field. How can I contact you and show you these particular books? I'd love to have a proper geek out video chat about maths with you anyway tbh. update: I submitted a message through your site.
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@AnotherRoof Thought I'd add too that Ibn Sina clearly uses co-ordinate axes across much of the work, but places them at appropriate points for the problem and doesn't make such a big deal about the method. To my (by now probably biased eyes), Ibn Sina's analytical geometry was leages ahead of descarte's system. The problem was, the Europeans didn't understand spherical and projective geometry anything like the the Arabs did ... that held pretty much until Gauss I would say.
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@AnotherRoof oh for sure, I tried to be clear I'm not casting aspertions on you. I've noted you're familiar with the morsels of credit Academia has started handing back to the Arabs, and keen for more. Do you follow Norman Wildberger? He has some excellent history of mathematics content. IMO he "gets it" better than most, although he too isn't as familiar as he'd like to be with how advanced Arab geometry was.
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@CliffSedge-nu5fv No, but there was a hell of a lot more around and fed into Europe than has been given credit for. The fact is from chemistry to mathematics a huge part of western science history is either direct stolen valour or indirectly "inventing" an idea by reverse engineering their technology and methods. The reason being for about a thousand years crediting the "infidel barbarian" muslims with anything good was practically a death sentence. It was especially heretical if the Arabs believed it. They embraced science with both hands while Europe was burning people for daring to question. So, now theres a huge amount of re-writing to do, you will and should be seeing a regular slew of these re-alignements to reality. I have actual original sources, you have scepticism and incredulity. If you didn't apply double standards you'd doubt everything you've ever been told about Europeans inventing anything at all. That's how much evidence there is you just don't know about.
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@CliffSedge-nu5fv You have no idea what you're talking about. Your pride and arrogance dislike having history corrected. If you understood that there's 1000 years of maths and science that suddenly unleashed in the enlightenment giving zero credit since the Greeks, and the geopolitical reasons for it, you'd realise how absolutely naive and vapid your current beliefs on who to credit for what are.
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