The History Desk Mathematics & Science · Edition 01 azizsaif.com
The Formula We Forgot
Based on a video essay by Shabnam Nasimi Filed under: History of Science A research & history resource
The Named vs the Renamed

When Europe named it, the rest of the world had already found it

A pattern in how science honours its founders: discoveries credited to European scholars carry their names — Gauss, Euler, Bernoulli. The same insights, originating centuries earlier in Baghdad, Persia, India, China or Babylon, were renamed into anonymity.

Curated by Aziz Saif · Source: Shabnam Nasimi (YouTube Shorts, 2025)
~600+
Avg years the credit lagged the original work
6
Discoveries in this story
5
Civilizations: Babylon, Persia, India, China, Arab world
2
Concepts every student memorizes that carry no founder's name
0
Named for their non-European originator
The gaps Pythagorean theorem ~1,000 yrs Snell's law ~637 yrs Pascal's triangle ~600 yrs Calculus core ~300 yrs
A voice reads the page aloud and highlights as it goes — turn your sound on. Or tap the mic, bottom-right, to ask about any scholar.
01 — The named vs the renamed

Six examples — and who got there first

The rule is quiet but consistent: when Europe discovers it, we use the name; when the rest of the world did it first, we use a description — or someone else's name.

ConceptCredited name (West)Earlier originWhat it does
Law of CosinesGeneric name · no eponym Al-KāshīPersia · ~1427 CE — same scholar —No European eponym Solves any triangle, not just right-angled ones — generalizes Pythagoras for navigation & geometry.
Quadratic FormulaGeneric name · no eponym Brahmagupta & al-KhwārizmīIndia 628 CE · Baghdad ~820 CE — same scholars —al-Khwārizmī's work gave us the word "algebra" Every student on Earth memorizes it. Credited to no one.
Snell's LawName kept · 1621 Willebrord SnellNetherlands · 1621 CE Ibn SahlPersia · ~984 CE~637 yrs earlier How light bends through water or glass — refraction.
Pascal's TriangleName kept · 1654 Blaise PascalFrance · 1654 CE Persian & Chinese mathematicians~1050 CE~600 yrs earlier The triangle of numbers underlying probability & binomials.
CalculusName kept · 1670s Newton & LeibnizEngland / Germany · ~1670s The Kerala SchoolSouthern India · ~1350 CE~300 yrs earlier · uncredited Infinite series and the foundations of differential calculus.
Pythagorean TheoremName kept · ~530 BCE PythagorasGreece · ~530 BCE Babylonian scribesClay tablets · ~1800 BCE~1,000 yrs earlier a² + b² = c². Carved into clay long before Greece.
02 — The time gap

How many centuries the credit lagged

Each bar spans from the earliest known origin to the date the Western name took hold. A longer bar is a bigger gap between discovery and credit.

Pythagorean theorem · Babylon ~1800 BCE → Greece ~530 BCE~1,000 yrs
Snell's law · Ibn Sahl ~984 → Snell 1621~637 yrs
Pascal's triangle · Persia/China ~1050 → Pascal 1654~600 yrs
Calculus core · Kerala ~1350 → Newton/Leibniz ~1670s~300 yrs
Quadratic formula · Brahmagupta 628 CEnever credited
Law of cosines · al-Kāshī 1427 CEnever credited
4 of 6
Western eponym kept
2 of 6
Renamed to a description
0 of 6
Non-European founders honoured by name
03 — The people

The faces — real where they survive, honest where they don't

Genius came from everywhere. Below is each figure with a biography link. An honesty flag matters here: for several medieval scholars no authentic likeness survives — those images are later depictions or a page of their own manuscript, and are labelled as such.

The originators — Baghdad · Persia · India · China · Babylon
A page from Ibn Sahl's manuscript on burning mirrors and lenses.IS

Ibn Sahl

c. 940 – 1000 CE · Persia

Described the law of refraction — what we call Snell's law — around 984 CE, some 637 years before Snell.

Manuscript · no portrait existsBiography
A page of al-Kashi's Miftah al-Hisab (Key of Arithmetic).AK

Jamshīd al-Kāshī

c. 1380 – 1429 · Persia

Stated the law of cosines (still called théorème d'Al-Kashi in French) and computed π to remarkable precision.

Manuscript · no portrait existsBiography
A modern depiction of al-Khwārizmī.AK

al-Khwārizmī

c. 780 – 850 CE · Baghdad

Founder of algebra (al-jabr); the word "algorithm" comes from his name. Gave the systematic solution to quadratics.

Modern depictionBiography
A 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle woodcut used for Brahmagupta.B

Brahmagupta

c. 598 – 668 CE · India

Gave the first formal rules for zero and negative numbers, and a solution to the quadratic equation in 628 CE.

Later imaginative depictionBiography
A modern statue of Omar Khayyam at the UN in Vienna.OK

Omar Khayyam

1048 – 1131 · Persia

Worked out the binomial / "Pascal" triangle and the geometry of cubic equations — six centuries before Pascal.

Modern statueBiography
Yang Hui's triangle as printed in a period Chinese text.YH

Yang Hui

c. 1238 – 1298 · China

Published the "Pascal" triangle — known in China as Yang Hui's triangle — long before it reached Europe.

Period diagram · no portraitBiography
A modern artist's impression of Madhava of Sangamagrama.M

Madhava · Kerala School

c. 1340 – 1425 · India

Founded the Kerala school, which derived infinite series for π, sine and cosine — the core of calculus — by ~1350.

Modern impressionBiography
The Plimpton 322 Babylonian clay tablet listing Pythagorean triples.P322

Babylonian scribes

c. 1800 BCE · Babylon

The Plimpton 322 tablet lists Pythagorean triples — a millennium before Pythagoras. This is a photo of the real object.

The actual tabletAbout the tablet
The names we kept — Europe
A Roman-era bust of Pythagoras, Capitoline Museums.P

Pythagoras

c. 570 – 495 BCE · Greece

His name is on the theorem — though Babylonian scribes carried the same rule a thousand years earlier.

Ancient Roman bustBiography
A portrait of Willebrord Snellius.WS

Willebrord Snell

1580 – 1626 · Netherlands

The law of refraction carries his name (1621) — Ibn Sahl had it ~637 years before.

Authentic portraitBiography
A portrait of Blaise Pascal.BP

Blaise Pascal

1623 – 1662 · France

The triangle bears his name (1654) — Khayyam in Persia and Yang Hui in China had it ~600 years earlier.

Authentic portraitBiography
Godfrey Kneller's 1689 portrait of Isaac Newton.IN

Isaac Newton

1643 – 1727 · England

Co-invented calculus in the 1670s — the Kerala school reached its core results ~300 years earlier.

Authentic portrait · 1689Biography
Christoph Bernhard Francke's portrait of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.GL

G. W. Leibniz

1646 – 1716 · Germany

Co-invented calculus and gave us its notation — the dx and ∫ every student still uses today.

Authentic portraitBiography
Every one of these was a chance to show a kid that genius comes from everywhere — Baghdad, Persia, India, China, Babylon — not just Europe.
Source & method

Where this comes from

This page is a research & history resource built from the one-page infographic "The Formula We Forgot," itself based on a video essay by Shabnam Nasimi — YouTube Shorts, "Western Discoveries vs the Rest of the World" (2025). The original infographic was designed by Perplexity.

Each figure above links to their English-language Wikipedia biography. An honesty note on the images: most ancient and medieval scholars left no authentic likeness, so several portraits here are later artistic depictions, a modern statue, or a page of the scholar's own manuscript — each is labelled accordingly. Authentic portraits exist only for Snell, Pascal, Newton and Leibniz; Pythagoras survives as an idealized ancient bust; and Plimpton 322 is a photograph of the actual Babylonian tablet. Dates are approximate where the historical record is.

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