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Saturday, May 18, 2019

Google Doodle honours Persian mathematician Omar Khayyam on 971st birthday


Omar Khayam or Abu'l Fath Omar ibn Ibrahim al-Khayyam, the famous Persian mathematician, astronomer and poet's 971st birthday is being celebrated by Google today Saturday May 18,2019

Omar Khayyam is most know for his Jalali calendar. Jalali is a solar calendar with quite accurate 33-year intercalation cycle. This calendar is now the basis for several other calendars.

Khayyam is also famous as a mathematician because of his study on classification and solution of cubic equations. He is the one who gave the world the solutions to these geometric problems by the intersection of conics.

In simpler terms, he was the one who gave us a general idea of the ways a cubic equation could be solved

He was the one who discovered about Pascal's triangle and triangular array of binomial coefficients

In 1077, he published a book on non-euclidean geometry 'Sharh ma ashkala min musadarat kitab Uqlidis' meaning 'Explanations of the Difficulties in the Postulates of Euclid'. This was later translated in English 'On the Difficulties of Euclid's Definitions'

He also wrote 'Problems of Arithmetic', a book on music and algebra

He was also as great a poet as he was a mathematician. His verse, "The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it," is very famous.

May 18, 2019, marks his 971st birthday. The astronomer died on December 4, 1131, he was buried in the Khayyam Garden.

Omar Khayyam's work and career at a glance

1. He honed his passion for maths, worked as an algebra and geometry teacher.
2. He was born in Nishapur, present-day Iran, where he used to teach medicine, astronomy and mathematics
3. He had also worked as the court astrologer after coming from Hajj pilgrimage.
His famous works, include 'Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra' which he completed in 1070.
4. He discovered about Pascal's triangle and triangular array of binomial coefficients
5. In 1077, he published a book on non-euclidean geometry 'Sharh ma ashkala min musadarat kitab Uqlidis' meaning 'Explanations of the Difficulties in the Postulates of Euclid'. This was later translated in English 'On the Difficulties of Euclid's Definitions'.
6. He also wrote 'Problems of Arithmetic', a book on music and algebra
7. He also a famous astronomer and invented Jalali Calendar became the base of other calendars and is also known to be more accurate than the Gregorian calendar
8. Apart from all these milestones, he had earned quite a name for his peoms. He wrote more than a thousand 'Rubaiyat' or verses. Edward Fitzgerald translated his work in 1859 known as 'Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám'



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