Chicago Educators Can Use New Animated Series to Teach the History of Algebra and Algorithms

As Chicago's students prepare to return to school next week, a Northwestern University professor has created a short-form video series that gives teachers a new way to introduce the historical roots of algebra, algorithms, and AI.

Al-Khwarizmi: Father of Algebra and the Algorithm is an AI-animated series presented in 30 90-second videos. It tells the story of Al-Khwarizmi, a scholar who lived in ninth-century Baghdad, which the series depicts as similar to Chicago's Silicon Prairie, where intellectuals competed with each other to secure funding for their passion projects.

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The young Al-Khwarizmi's contribution was combining Greek geometry and Indian arithmetic to create something new: the algorithm, which was named "Algoritmi" after a Latinized version of the author's name. The series shows how the algorithm that Al-Khwarizmi systematized more than 1,200 years ago would influence modern computer science and AI.

The scholar also had a hand in creating a math system that's likely familiar to Chicago's middle schoolers. Between 813 and 833, Al-Khwarizmi compiled Al-Jabr (The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing), which included Al-Khwarizmi's new system for solving linear and quadratic equations. When the term "al-jabr" was Latinized and later Anglicized, the system became known as Algebra.

The creator of the series, Spencer Striker, PhD has offered to share his production notes with Chicago-area high school teachers and college professors to use as a teaching tool for classes in AI animation and filmmaking.