Omar Khayyam's full name was Ghiyath al-Din Abu'l-Fath Umar ibn Ibrahim Al-Nisaburi al-Khayyami. A literal translation of the name al-Khayyami (or al-Khayyam) means tent maker and this may have been the trade of Ibrahim his father. Khayyam played on the meaning of his own name when he wrote:-
Khayyam, who stitched the tents of science,Has fallen in grief's furnace and been suddenly burned,The shears of Fate have cut the tent ropes of his life,And the broker of Hope has sold him for nothing!
The political events of the 11th Century played a major role in the course of Khayyam's life. The Seljuq Turks were tribes that invaded southwestern Asia in the 11th Century and eventually founded an empire that included Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and most of Iran. The Seljuq occupied the grazing grounds of Khorasan and then, between 1038 and 1040, they conquered all of north-eastern Iran. The Seljuq ruler Toghrïl Beg proclaimed himself sultan at Nishapur in 1038 and entered Baghdad in 1055. It was in this difficult unstable military empire, which also had religious problems as it attempted to establish an orthodox Muslim state, that Khayyam grew up.
Khayyam studied philosophy at Naishapur and one of his fellow students wrote that he was:-
... endowed with sharpness of wit and the highest natural powers ...
Outside the world of mathematics, Khayyam is best known as a result of Edward Fitzgerald's popular translation in 1859 of nearly 600 short four line poems the Rubaiyat. Khayyam's fame as a poet has caused some to forget his scientific achievements which were much more substantial. Versions of the forms and verses used in the Rubaiyat existed in Persian literature before Khayyam, and only about 120 of the verses can be attributed to him with certainty. Of all the verses, the best known is the following:-
The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ,Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor WitShall lure it back to cancel half a Line,Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
Adapted from an Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
Quotations by Omar Khayyam
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,Moves on : nor all thy Piety nor WitShall lure it back to cancel half a Line,Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
Myself when young did eagerly frequentDoctor and Saint, and heard great ArgumentAbout it and about: but evermoreCame out by the same door as in I went.
Khayyam, who stitched the tents of science,Has fallen in grief's furnace and been suddenly burned;The shears of Fate have cut the tent ropes of his life,And the broker of Hope has sold him for nothing!'[His name means a tent maker.]
For in and out, above, about, below,'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,Played in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.
Ah, but my Computations, People say,Have Squared the Year to human Compass, eh?If so, by striking from the CalendarUnborn Tomorrow, and dead Yesterday.The Rubaiyat translated by E Fitzgerald.
By the help of God and with His precious assistance, I say that Algebra is a scientific art. The objects with which it deals are absolute numbers and measurable quantities which, though themselves unknown, are related to "things" which are known, whereby the determination of the unknown quantities is possible. Such a thing is either a quantity or a unique rlation, which is only determined by careful examination. What one seaches for in the algebraic art are the relations which lead from the known to the unknown, to discover which is the object of Algebra as stated above. The perfection of this art consists in knowledge of the scientific method by which one determines numerical and geometric unknowns.Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra (1070)
I was unable to devote myself to the learning of this algebra and the continued concentration upon it, because of obstacles in the vagaries of time which hindered me; for we have been deprived of all the people of knowledge save for a group, small in number, with many troubles, whose concern in life is to snatch the opportunity, when time is asleep, to devote themselves meanwhile to the investigation and perfection of a science; for the majority of people who imitate philosophers confuse the true with the false, and they do nothing but deceive and pretend knowledge, and they do not use what they know of the sciences except for base and material purposes; and if they see a certain person seeking for the right and preferring the truth, doing his best to refute the false and untrue and leaving aside hypocrisy and deceit, they make a fool of him and mock him.Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra (1070)
Algebras are geometric facts which are proved.
