To Simplify, or Not To Simplify? A Lesson from Medieval Iraq: About the Authors

Valerio De Angelis received his B.Sc. in Mathematics from Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, in 1982. He then spent some time at the University of Rochester (where he received an MS degree and met Jeff Oaks) before completing his Ph.D. studies in mathematics at the University of Washington, Seattle, in 1992, under the guidance of Selim Tuncel. He joined the mathematics faculty at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans in 1998. He has published articles in dynamical systems, number theory and combinatorics.

Jeffrey A. Oaks received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Rochester in 1991, and he has taught mathematics at the University of Indianapolis since 1992. He began the study of history of mathematics in 1999, and has since published many studies in history of algebra, particularly in medieval Arabic algebra.