Omar Khayyam was born in Nishapur, Persia in May 1048. He was a mathematician, astronomer and a poet.  He is best known for his poetry, particularly The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám which Edward FitzGerald published this in 1859.  His name means 'tent maker' which was probably his fathers trade.  He displayed scholarly talent when he studied philosophy and the sciences under Imam Mowaffak of Naishapur.  In astronomy he and seven others reformed the calendar.  He also measured the length of the year to be 365.24219858156 days.  This is an incredibly accurate result.  It is now known that the sixth decimal place of the year changes about every seventy-five years.  To get a feel for the accuracy, the year was 365.242196 days long at the end of the nineteenth century.  His work on algebra was famous throughout Europe.  In one of his books, Khayyam, he discussed Pascal's triangle (the Chinese knew about this earlier).  He also solved linear and quadratic equations using methods that were in Euclid's Elements.  He extended Euclid's work to include the multiplication of ratios.  Khayyam discovered a geometrical method to solve cubic equations by intersecting a parabola with a circle. In December 1122 he died in his city of birth.

For additional information see 1066 AD.

Author: Charles DeBoer

References:
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Khayyam.html
http://www.stanford.edu/~yuri/Omar/omar.html   by Yuri
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