markable translation movement that went on for two centuries there wouldn't have been a golden age at all. the health of wisdom was much more than just a library or translation house this was the high point of islamic civilization an unrivaled center of scholarship and learning drawing on greek persian and indian texts the scholars there amassed a collection of world knowledge and then built on it through their own discoveries . the significance example of this use and development of knowledge from other civilizations was in geometry. decoration is famous for its intricate patterns and geometric designs developed

over the centuries very often these were derived from earlier cultures greek roman buys and her asian and central asia they took that knowledge and created from it these beautiful patterns. geometry wasn't just about beauty of heart is me and other scholars from the house of wisdom translated books about mathematics and geometry in order to apply that knowledge to their world to very very practical reasons for studying geometry. the arabs have now an enormous empire need to measure it into taxing the book of elements of euclid euclid's elements with your suzumiya barriers some closed. building on the translations they studied the stalins of battle heckman improved upon the measurements of the greeks enabling them to create more accurate maps of the world . their mastery of geometry also allowed the scholars to make astronomical

calculations and describe the movements of the moon planets and stars. as in merchants one of the most fundamental aspects of mathematics was simply how to write numbers down in the golden age there were several systems in use including using arabic letters for numbers similar to roman numerals. advocated a different number system. the number system we use today the decimal system is called the hindu arabic numeral system called hindu because it comes recently from india arabic because it came by the islamic world and scholars in baghdad like me transmitted it first. and then to the rest of the world everywhere today we use this decimal system one to nine and the zero and we forget how difficult it was

before it existed. so imagine if i wanted to add up my bill but not using the decimal system using roman numerals instead let's see how awkward that would be if i first write these numbers down using hindu arabic numerals forty two sixteen and fourteen now i can add these up very easily the sixteen forty makes thirty plus the forty two is seventy two. in roman numerals forty two would be x l r. sixteen is x v. fourteen is x v. i have to break this down now how many x. is forty so that actually four x. . and then. and then i have another. we are. going to have an. and for. ok so now i have six x.'s

x x x. x and then i have a v. and then i have one two three four seven so that's another v. . they give me another x. so finally one two three four five six seven that. x. x. . which is seventy two so i've got the right number but it took a lot longer to calculate. in the late twelfth century the italian mathematician fibonacci travelled the world and came across these numbers in the islamic empire in twelve zero two he wrote his book lieber abaci the book of calculation in which he promoted the use of hindu

arabic numeral system over the roman numerals describing its many benefits for both merchants and mathematicians alike. uptake of the system was slow both in the islamic world and in europe in florence in twelve ninety nine they banned these numerals on the pretext that they were easier to falsify than roman numerals however common sense eventually prevailed and the numeral system was adopted throughout europe in the fifteenth century six hundred years after it was introduced to the islamic world. one of the most important fields of modern mathematics is computer encryption from email confidentiality to government security encryption plays a big role in an increasingly online digital world. and the study of encryption goes all the way back to the ninth century and the work of another famous mathematician from beta hickman. this is

a very interesting book i'm trying to figure out exactly what it's telling us is a book by l. kin the the philosophy of the arabs now kindi was a great polymath he was a philosopher he was a mathematician he was a musician and i think the part here he talks about he's got a disk with the arabic alphabet and he talks about towns in the number a particular symbol appears kindi figures out the idea or frequency analysis that when a letter appears a certain number of times it's more common than other letters you can work out what it is can these text is the earliest known description of frequency analysis but that text was only discovered in one thousand nine hundred eighty seven before that we had no idea that this supposedly modern technique for studying cryptic messages was in use over a thousand years ago now one of the oldest and most simplest ways to encrypt

a message to make it secret is simply by substituting each letter by a different one let me show you. imagine we have a simple sentence al-kindi was a famous scholar now provided we have the key. key which is also called the cipher which by the way comes from the arabic word which means zero with i represent each letter with a different one so by looking at the table i would see that a corresponds to l. and l. corresponds to k. . kafer kindi k. corresponds to v. and so on in this way i can turn this sentence into something that's not readable and less you have the cipher. what if we have a paragraph like this which looks completely but. without the key without the cipher i can't work it out now if you don't have the cipher you can use frequency

analysis to try and figure out the meaning i know that the five most common letters in english language are e c i o n r i so far i replace these into that text i can start to see patterns emerging for instance if i look at the most frequently occurring letter in the text is w. so i'm guessing w. is most likely. and i carry on like this until i start to recognise individual words so for instance a three letter word that begins with t. in with is most likely that gives me the code for the letter h. and so on. if. the.

developments in mathematics were the only legacy of the golden age the translation movement had introduced scholars to a wide range of subjects and they made advances in fields as diverse as astronomy and medicine they took the mathematics they developed and applied it to things chemistry and engineering science was now no longer just a philosophical pursuit the math matteis zation of science pave the way to a multitude of scientific advances. next time we look at state of the art robotic engineering you can see it moves like a robot work a very human fluid but discovered that the idea of automatic machines goes back over a thousand years. that's what's asked it in a sense this is an early programmable fears right about the way. we find out about

complex mechanisms such as clocks musical instruments and water pumps as the more to lose the water wheel round that's moving back because of forces like a piston. and investigate without a possible for knox could fly all the way back in the ninth century. in the next episode of science in a golden age i'll be exploring the contributions made by scholars during the medieval islamic period in the field of engineering. the heights of sophistication in mechanics at the time was the extravagant elephant cloak. written around eight fifty a.d. the book contains a range of ingenious inventions and contraptions science in a golden age with jim alkalinity on al-jazeera and hundred forty eight world on. u.s. and british companies have announced the biggest discovery of natural gas in west

africa but what to do with these untapped natural resources is already a source of heated debate nothing much has changed they still spend most of their days looking forward to for the dry river beds like this one five years on the syrians still feel battered or even those who managed to escape their country have been truly unable to escape the warm. water an essential resource for all humankind across europe pressure to recognize water as a human right and put its management back into public hands is increasing i think that the european commission would be very very glad this was a problem with us is should anybody say anything. those people who seem ever to have something to invest the profit of a one dollar up to the last drop on al-jazeera.

al-jazeera. that's. where ever you. celebrations in democratic republic of congo as an opposition candidate for one of the country's long delayed election.

headquarters in doha with the problem also ahead crisis in the capital president. of the democrats as the government shutdown continues. to wreck the economy venezuela prepares for presidential. loss. the u.k. parliament. with the make or break vote for next week. opposition candidate kerry has been declared the winner at the democratic republic of congo's presidential election that is according to provisional results announced by the national election commission the preferred candidate of outgoing president joseph kabila if the long awaited result is confirmed it will pave the way for the country's first peaceful handover of power since independence from belgian and nine hundred sixty. six. having gained more than seven

million votes or thirty eight point five percent of the votes. mr felix is provisionally declared the elected president of the democratic republic of congo that's going to our correspondent is joining us live from the capital kinshasa electoral commission surprisingly giving it to felix chester katy how do and that is already being disputed by the country's powerful catholic church. exactly the catholic church in that according to their own a private tally they say the other opposition leader martin for you lou is meant to have won the election he ditched the kid he has just spoken and he called president joseph kabila the father of democracy he said he is willing to be a president for all people of congo and he thanked the and the other candidates martin for you and emmanuel us adare if he is willing to work of them to build

a better congo we also just heard from martin for you the man who opinion polls there was going to win the election he says he rejects the results you called his supporters to rise up and defend their vote and he fav people but president kabila made some kind of deal with you the k.t. so that they could feel the vote from him so you are supporters to be vigilant and you did bend their votes so be vigilant what does that mane because they have been concerns that people want to accept the results and there are security forces i believe on the streets of can shall serve to make sure that any protests weren't turning to violence. exactly there's a heavy security presence in kinshasa we see in riot police and the army doing patrols and people have been warned that if they do take the street there must be karma and there mustn't be violent anything from people they were breaking people

who the porches the cavy are in terms of margin for you you must understand the context here is a coalition candidate so you have the backing of either big opposition leaders like moyers katoomba who is in exile or is allowed back into the country to campaign and he was allowed to participate in this election so i believe the fight has a lot more support not to think about outside the capital as well for example in the congo province and in the east so those people who support him say that they are in the majority and they feel that for you lose one with the post of one now the question is are people going to take to the streets and protest the have the option of going to court but he feels that's not a viable option for him what will you tell a supporters to do the next coming hours i think will be telling once the sun comes up people wake up and gone to the street and face what's happening on the ground we could see been reaction from supporters of there's a heart attack you very much for that for now that is how to live in kinshasa we will of course be going back to her for all the developments in the story thank you

but let's move on to other news now and u.s. president donald trump has walked out of a meeting with the democrats after they again refused to fund a border war with mexico the standoff has seen the government in a partial shutdown for two and a half weeks now mike hanna has more from washington d.c. . the bill is passed another spending bill is passed in the house significantly republicans break ranks and vote to the democratic majority but there's little possibility this legislation will go to the senate republican leader there insistent he will not allow the passage of any bill that does not have the approval of the president who continues to insist he will veto any measure that does not include funding for the border wall you can never have border security or less you have a steel barrier. a concrete war pro whatever you want but without it you'll never have you can have the greatest challenge in the world you will never ever in a million years you will not have more secure care that the majority of federal

employees who will not be paid this week would appear to disagree some being urged to speak out by democrats we are the faces behind this shutdown we are the real people working in the bureau of prisons in the transportation security administration and other federal agencies today doing so without federal pay democrat leaders went to the white house for another round of talks but the meeting ended in failure when the president abruptly walked out then sending out this tweet in reference to democrat leaders of senate and house just left a meeting with chuck and nancy a total waste of time he says i asked what's going to happen in thirty days if i quickly opened things up are you going to approve border security which includes a wall all steel beriah nancy said no i said bye bye nothing else works it's cold out here and at the temperature wasn't much warmer in the situation room again we

saw a temper tantrum because he couldn't get his way and he just walked out of the meeting the vice president asserted that was that democrats were blocking reopening the government not president trump yes speaker pelosi that if he opened things up quickly if we reopen the government quickly would she be willing to agree to funding for a wall or a barrier on the southern border and when she said no the president said goodbye. earlier the president walked up to the hill for a meeting with the republican caucus and tonight there was any division within the party the democrats have a lot of support there is tremendous republican support unwavering.