Google celebrates Persian maths genius Khayyam

Saturday, 18 May 2019

Google on Saturday dedicated a creative and special doodle to Persian mathematician Omar Khayyam on his 971st birthday. He was best known for his work on the classification and solution of cubic equations.

Apart from his maths skills, he was also a well-known astronomer and poet. Born in Nishapur in northeastern Iran, Khayyam spent most of his life near the court of the Karakhanid and Seljuq rulers in the period which witnessed the First Crusade.

His work on the classification and solution of cubic equations is phenomenal of those times as he had provided geometric solutions by the intersection of cones.

Khayyam was first to give a general method for solving cubic equations. Although he didn't consider negative roots, his methods were sufficient to find geometrically all real (positive or negative) roots of cubic equations.

In 2012 as well, Khayyam's 964th birthday was also celebrated by the search engine with a special doodle which was very well received by users.

Courtesy of the Pioneer