Omar Khayyam

This post is in honor of mathematician Omar Khayyam who died on this date, December 4, in the year 1131AD. As well as having been a mathematician, Khayyam was a poet, astronomer and philosopher. His astronomial work lives on through his development of the Jalali calendar, which forms the basis for the Persian calendar still in use today. In mathematics, he is most remembered for his work on solving cubic equations, involving a geometrical approach including conic sections. But he is probably best known generally for the poetry attributed to him, which was translated into English in the mid-19th century by British poet Edward FitzGerald.

This is a mathematical travel blog, and, sadly, I have not had opportunity to travel to Khayyam's hometown of Neyshabur (Nishapur), Iran where his magnificent mausoleum stands, made of marble and calligraphied with his poems. But I was reminded of him in some of my other travels, including a visit to London's Highgate Cemetery where I saw a tombstone with one of his famous "rubaiyat" (quatrains) on it.

The poem jumped out at me immediately, as it was one of my grandmother's favorites - and subsequently one of my favorites. You can also see the attribution to Omar Khayyam below the lines and to the right. I find it to be a good reminder of how to live.

“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”

I cannot tell whose tombstone this is, as the letters identifying the person and their dates have become dislodged from the stone, as have the last three words of the first line of the poem.

Another of my favorites among his writing is the following, for which I created a photographic illustration many years ago using my chess pieces and a wooden chessboard and jewelry box my grandfather made for me:

“Tis all a Chequer-board of nights and days
Where Destiny with men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the closet lays.”

I have a special place in my heart for mathematicians who are also poets. And, as the great 19^th-century mathematician Karl Weierstrass once said, “A mathematician who is not also something of a poet will never be a complete mathematician.” This is echoed by his student, Sophia Kovalevskaya, who said, “It is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in soul.”

The amazing 'lines' of Khayyam's life have all been written; he has left the 'chequer-board.' I can only hope that the finger writing my life and that my checkerboard of nights and days can leave behind even the tiniest fraction of what the great Omar Khayyam accomplished - and if not that, then my hope would be that when I come to my final square on the board I don't feel a need to weep in an attempt to wash out any of the lines I'll leave behind.