代數”一詞來自阿拉伯文，為什麽不是希臘文？因為希臘字母與數字用一樣的符號，不能直接寫公式。另外加標簽，還是會眼花繚亂。代數的字源推翻了源自希臘的數學，既然沒有代數，幾何也不能做。歐幾裏得幾何原本之說，大有問題。
代數”與“阿拉伯數字”，歐洲人認為是Khwarizmi 花剌子米在九世紀創造的。以前阿拉伯人幾千年用什麽數字？為什麽不用阿拉伯所在地巴比倫的數字？因為巴比倫文字/數字不先進，被淘汰了。
維基百科：
The word "algebra" is derived from the Arabic word ????? al-jabr, and this comes from the treatise written in the year 830 by the medieval Persian mathematician, Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, whose Arabic title, Kitāb al-mu?ta?ar fī ?isāb al-?abr wa-l-muqābala, can be translated as The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing. The treatise provided for the systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations. According to one history, "[i]t is not certain just what the terms al-jabr and muqabalah mean, but the usual interpretation is similar to that implied in the previous translation. The word 'al-jabr' presumably meant something like 'restoration' or 'completion' and seems to refer to the transposition of subtracted terms to the other side of an equation; the word 'muqabalah' is said to refer to 'reduction' or 'balancing'—that is, the cancellation of like terms on opposite sides of the equation. Arabic influence in Spain long after the time of al-Khwarizmi is found in Don Quixote, where the word 'algebrista' is used for a bone-setter, that is, a 'restorer'."[1] The term is used by al-Khwarizmi to describe the operations that he introduced, "reduction" and "balancing", referring to the transposition of subtracted terms to the other side of an equation, that is, the cancellation of like terms on opposite sides of the equation.[2]
