Al-Khwarizmi's Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wal-muqabala (The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing) was a pioneering piece of work - offering practical answers for land distribution, rules on inheritance and distributing salaries. In this episode of Science in a Golden Age, theoretical physicist, Jim al-Khalili explores Al-Khwarizmi's 9th century treatise that also underpins the science of flight and the engineering behind the fastest car in the world.
