Adelard of Bath
Adelard of Bath (; 1080 1152 AD) was a 12th-century English natural philosopher. He is known both for his original works and for translating many important Arabic and Greek scientific works of astrology, astronomy, philosophy and mathematics into Latin from Arabic versions, which were then introduced to Western Europe. He is known as one of the first to introduce the Arabic numeral system to Europe. He stands at the convergence of three intellectual schools: the traditional learning of French schools, the Greek culture of Southern Italy, and the Arabic science of the East.
Pythagoreanism
Nicomachus' treatises were well known in Greek, Latin and the Arabic worlds. In the 1st century an Arabic translation of Nicomachus’ "Introduction to Arithmetic" was published. The Arabic translations of Nicomachus' treatises were in turn translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona, making them part of the Latin tradition of numerology. The Pythagorean theorem was referenced in Arabic manuscripts. Scholars in the Arabic world displayed a strong interest in Pythagorean concepts. In the 1st century Abu al-Wafa' Buzjani discussed multiplication and division in a treatise on arithmetic for business administrators in reference to Nicomachus. However, the primary interest of Islamic arithmeticians was in solving practical problems, such as taxation, measurement, the estimation of agricultural values and business applications for the buying and selling of goods. There was little interest for the Pythagorean numerology that developed in the Latin world. The primary arithmetical system used by Islamic mathematicians was based on Hindu arithmetic, which rejected the notion that the relations between numbers and geometrical forms were symbolic.