The numerals we call Arabic numerals actually come from India, and are called Hindu numerals by most people outside Europe. The Indian decimal system is actually extremely old, certainly older than any culture or religion we know today. They are only called Arabic numeral in Europe, because European scholars first learned them from Arabs who had travelled to India. Although zero and a decimal system were already invented in Europe before the Indian numerals arrived, they were just not widely used.
And the idea that Muslims invented fighting on horseback is rather bizzare, considering the epic cavalry battles of the Roman empire, the Romans went up against everything from British chariots to Hannibal's elephants on horseback. Maybe your thinking of horseback archery, which they didn't invent, but were very proficient at.
Atomism as a theory developed independently in Greece and India at about the same time, however the Greek theory had the important concept of Void as well. Of course the mechanics of both theories was utter bollocks of course and remember the indivisible particles are quarks, not atoms, physicists just got ahead of themselves and called it on Atomism too soon.
It alway seems to bother me when all the developments of the middle east and india are called Islamic inventions and Islamic science. There's something about the way people say Islam gave us algebra, or Islam invented whatever.
No on would claim Christianity discovered gravity and calculus, or that Paganism gave us trigonometry and mechanical computers, why is it that Islam takes credit for all the inventions developed in the Islamic empire, in a way that no one would with any other religion?
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07-13-2008
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