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Sijzi
Abu Sa'id Ahmed ibn Mohammed ibn Abd Jalil Sijzi (short for Sijistani) (Persian: ابوسعید سجزی) was a Persian astronomer and mathematician from Sistan, a region lying in the south-west of Afghanistan and south-east of Iran.
Sijzi is thought to have been born around 945 CE, and lived through about 1020. His main scientific focus was astronomy. He had a deep knowledge of literature which he used to his advantage. He dedicated work to 'Adud al-Daula and the prince of Balkh. He also worked in Shiraz making astronomical observations from 969 to 970. He also did a lot of geometry work.
Astronomy
Biruni wrote that Sijzi believed in a heliocentric system in which the Earth was moving and that he invented an astrolabe called the "Zuraqi" based on this idea:[1]
"I have seen the astrolabe called Zuraqi invented by Abu Sa'id Sijzi. I liked it very much and praised him a great deal, as it is based on the idea entertained by some to the effect that the motion we see is due to the Earth's movement and not to that of the sky. By my life, it is a problem difficult of solution and refutation. [...] For it is the same whether you take it that the Earth is in motion or the sky. For, in both cases, it does not affect the Astronomical Science. It is just for the physicist to see if it is possible to refute it."
Mathematics
Sijzi was a mathematician who made a special study of the intersections of conic sections and circles. He replaced the old kinematical trisection of an angle by a purely geometric solution (intersection of a circle and an equilateral hyperbola.)
Notes
^ Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1993), An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines, pp. 135–136. State University of New York Press, ISBN 0791415163.
References
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Abu Said Ahmad ibn Muhammad Al-Sijzi", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.
Hogendijk, Jan P. (1996). Al-Sijzi's Treatise on Geometrical Problem Solving. Tehran: Fatemi Publishing Co. ISBN 964-318-114-6.
Suter, Heinrich: Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber und ihre Werke (80–81, 224, 1900).
External links
Brummelen, Glen van (2007). "Sijzī: Abū Saʿīd Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al‐Jalīl al‐Sijzī". In Thomas Hockey et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. p. 1059. ISBN 9780387310220. (PDF version)
Dold-Samplonius, Yvonne (2008) [1970-80]. "Al-Sijzī Abū Sa‘īd Aḥmad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn ‘Abd Al-Jalīl". Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Encyclopedia.com.
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