Omar Khayyám

Omar Khayyam (1048-1123) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet, renowned in his own country and time for his scientific achievements but largely known to the English-speaking world as the author of Edward Fitzgerald's collectionof translated quatrains, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. In addition to poetry, Khayyam also made major contributions to the fields of algebra and geometry. In The History of Western Philosophy Betrand Russell remarks that he was the only man known to him who was both a poet and a mathematician.