The Persian mathematician and astronomer who solved cubic equations and reformed the calendar — and, in the West, the poet of the Rubaiyat.
Life
Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) made landmark advances in algebra, giving geometric solutions to cubic equations, and led the reform of the Persian (Jalali) calendar with remarkable accuracy. A philosopher and astronomer of the Seljuk court, he is known in the wider world through the Rubaiyat, the quatrains attributed to him and famously rendered into English by Edward FitzGerald — verses whose authorship and interpretation scholars continue to debate.