Question

What were the contribution of European scholars?

Answer 1

Answer:

MEDIEVAL MATHEMATICS

Medieval abacus, based on the Roman/Greek model

Medieval abacus, based on the Roman/Greek model

During the centuries in which the Chinese, Indian and Islamic mathematicians had been in the ascendancy, Europe had fallen into the Dark Ages, in which science, mathematics and almost all intellectual endeavour stagnated. Scholastic scholars only valued studies in the humanities, such as philosophy and literature, and spent much of their energies quarrelling over subtle subjects in metaphysics and theology, such as "How many angels can stand on the point of a needle?"

From the 4th to 12th Centuries, European knowledge and study of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music was limited mainly to Boethius’ translations of some of the works of ancient Greek masters such as Nicomachus and Euclid. All trade and calculation was made using the clumsy and inefficient Roman numeral system, and with an abacus based on Greek and Roman models.

By the 12th Century, though, Europe, and particularly Italy, was beginning to trade with the East, and Eastern knowledge gradually began to spread to the West. Robert of Chester translated Al-Khwarizmi's important book on algebra into Latin in the 12th Century, and the complete text of Euclid's “Elements” was translated in various versions by Adelard of Bath, Herman of Carinthia and Gerard of Cremona. The great expansion of trade and commerce in general created a growing practical need for mathematics, and arithmetic entered much more into the lives of common people and was no longer limited to the academic realm.