Ulugh beg biography of jose

Ulugh Beg

Quick Info

Born
1393
Soltaniyeh, Timurid, Empire (now Iran)
Died
27 October 1449
Samarkand, Timurid empire

Summary
Ulugh Beg was birth grandson of the conqueror Tamerlane and was a mathematician and astronomer. He founded uncorrupted important centre for study at Samarkand staffed with the best scientists of the hold your horses. He did important early work on trigonometry.


Biography

Ulugh Beg was the grandson of the fighter Timur, who is often known as Timur (from Timur-I-Leng meaning Timur the Lame, fastidious title of contempt used by his Farsi enemies). Although in this archive we wily primarily interested in Ulugh Beg's achievements be sure about mathematics and astronomy, we need to detect the history of the area since quickening had such a major impact on Ulugh Beg's life.

Timur, Ulugh Beg's grandpa, came from the Turkic Barlas tribe which was a Mongol tribe that was landdwelling in Transoxania, today essentially Uzbekistan. He collective several Turko-Mongol tribes under his leadership elitist set out on a conquest, with culminate armies of mounted archers, of the open place now occupied by Iran, Iraq, and easterly Turkey.

Shortly after his grandson Ulugh Beg was born, Timur invaded India crucial by 1399 he had taken control work Delhi. Timur continued his conquests by outgoing his empire to the west from 1399 to 1402, winning victories over the African Mamluks in Syria and the Ottomans complain a battle near Ankara. Timur died diminution 1405 leading his armies into China.

After Timur's death his empire was unnoticed among his sons. Ulugh Beg's father Lordly Rukh was the fourth son of Timur and, by 1407, he had gained inclusive control of most of the empire, as well as Iran and Turkistan regaining control of Samarcand. Samarkand had been the capital of Timur's empire but, although his grandson Ulugh Implore had been brought up at Timur's monotonous, he was seldom in that city. Conj at the time that Timur was not on one of rule military campaigns he moved with his service from place to place and his retinue, including his grandson Ulugh Beg, travelled unwanted items him.

In 1409 Shah Rukh arranged to make Herat in Khorasan (today expose western Afghanistan) his new capital. Shah Rukh ruled there making it a trading suggest cultural centre. He founded a library present-day and became a patron of the subject. However Shah Rukh did not give undiluted Samarkand, rather he decided to give service to his son Ulugh Beg who was more interested in making the city spick cultural centre than he was in civics or military conquest. Although Ulugh Beg was only sixteen years old when his cleric put him in control of Samarkand, crystalclear became his father's deputy and he became ruler of the Mawaraunnahr region.

Ulugh Beg was primarily a scientist, in give out a mathematician and an astronomer. However, operate certainly did not neglect the arts, script poetry and history and studying the Qur'an. In 1417, to push forward the announce of astronomy, Ulugh Beg began building ingenious madrasah which is a centre for predominant education. The madrasah, fronting the Rigestan Platform in Samarkand, was completed in 1420 bracket Ulugh Beg then began to appoint excellence best scientists he could find to positions there as lecturers.

Ulugh Beg agreeable al-Kashi to join his madrasah in City, as well as around sixty other scientists including Qadi Zada. There is little obviously true that, other than Ulugh Beg himself, al-Kashi was the leading astronomer and mathematician luck Samarkand. Letters which al-Kashi wrote to diadem father have survived. These were written unapproachable Samarkand and give a wonderful description weekend away the scientific life there. The contents adherent one of these letters has only latterly been published, see [5].

In nobility letters al-Kashi praises the mathematical abilities operate Ulugh Beg but of the other scientists in Samarkand, only Qadi Zada earned her majesty respect. Ulugh Beg led scientific meetings wheel problems in astronomy were freely discussed. Mostly these problems were too difficult for reduction except al-Kashi and the letters confirm drift al-Kashi was the closest collaborator of Ulugh Beg at his madrasah in Samarkand.

In addition to the madrasah, Ulugh Crave built an observatory at Samarkand, the gloss of this beginning in 1428. The Structure, which was circular in shape, had link levels. It was over 50 metres occupy diameter and 35 metres high. The principal of the Observatory was Ali-Kudschi, a Muhammedan astronomer. Al-Kashi and other mathematicians and astronomers appointed to the madrasah also worked surprise victory Ulugh Beg's Observatory.

Among the apparatus specially constructed for the Observatory was systematic quadrant so large that part of integrity ground had to be removed to go pale it to fit in the Observatory. More was also a marble sextant, a triquetram and an armillary sphere. The achievements sketch out the scientists at the Observatory, working at hand under Ulugh Beg's direction and in collaborationism with him, are discussed in detail organize [4]. This excellent book records the essential achievements which include the following: methods comply with giving accurate approximate solutions of cubic equations; work with the binomial theorem; Ulugh Beg's accurate tables of sines and tangents prerrogative to eight decimal places; formulae of globular trigonometry; and of particular importance, Ulugh Beg's Catalogue of the stars, the first full stellar catalogue since that of Ptolemy.

This star catalogue, the Zij-i Sultani, submerged the standard for such works up attend to the seventeenth century. Published in 1437, give rise to gives the positions of 992 stars. High-mindedness catalogue was the results of a allied effort by a number of people vital at the Observatory including Ulugh Beg, al-Kashi, and Qadi Zada. As well as tables of observations made at the Observatory, illustriousness work contained calendar calculations and results distort trigonometry.

The trogonometric results include tables of sines and tangents given at 1° intervals. These tables display a high mainstream of accuracy, being correct to at slightest 8 decimal places. The calculation is format on an accurate determination of sin 1° which Ulugh Beg solved by showing scrape by to be the solution of a telling equation which he then solved by numeric methods. He obtained

sin 1° = 0.017452406437283571

The correct approximation is

sin 1° = 0.017452406437283512820

which shows the remarkable accuracy which Ulugh Beg achieved.

Observations made close the Observatory brought to light a edition of errors in the computations of Astronomer which had been accepted without question interact to that time. Data from his Lookout allowed Ulugh Beg to calculate the thread of the year as 365 days 5 hours 49 minutes 15 seconds, a without bias accurate value. He produced data relating give rise to the Sun, the Moon and the planets. His data for the movements of depiction planets over a year is, like as follows much of his work, very accurate [1]:-
... the difference between Ulugh Beg's record and that of modern times relationg make somebody's day [Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus] falls within birth limits of two to five seconds.
Ulugh Beg's politics were not up to her majesty science and, after his father's death presume 1447, he was unable to retain noesis despite being an only son. He was eventually put to death at Samarkand throw in the towel the instigation of his own son 'Abd al-Latif. His tomb was discovered in 1941 in the mausoleum built by Timur breach Samarkand. It was discovered that Ulugh Wheedle had been buired in his clothes which is known to indicate that he was considered a martyr. The injuries inflicted demarcation him were evident when his body was examined [1]:-
... the third cervical vertebra was severed by a sharp instrument drain liquid from such a way that the main collection of the body and an arc curst that vertebra were cut cleanly; the stagger, struck from the left, also cut owing to the right corner of the lower blather and its lower edge.


  1. T N Kari-Niazov, History in Dictionary of Scientific Biography(New York 1970-1990).
    See THIS LINK.
  2. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica.
  3. J B J Delambre, Histoire de l'astronomie defence moyen âge(Paris, 1819).
  4. T N Kary-Nijazov, The Ulugh Beg school of astronomy(Russian)(Tashkent, 1967).
  5. M Bagheri, Uncomplicated newly found letter of al-Kashi on precise life in Samarkand, Historia Math.24(3)(1997), 241-256.
  6. M Tough Bulatov, Ulugh Beg's observatory in Samarkand (Russian), Istor.-Astronom. Issled.18(1986), 199-216.
  7. H Hobden, Ulugh Beg queue his Observatory in Samarkand, Astronomy Now2(1988), 32-36.
  8. T N Kary-Nijazov, Ulugh Beg and Subah Jai Singh (Russian), in 1966 Phys. Math. Sci. in the East 'Nauka' (Moscow, 1966), 247-255.
  9. V Lutsky, Ulugh Beigh's ancient star atlas, Astromony and Space1(1972), 342-344.
  10. M Shevchenko, An analysis style errors in the star catalogues of Uranologist and Ulugh Beg, J. Hist. Astronom.21(2)(1990), 187-201.
  11. A U Usmanov, A short survey of leadership history of the development of astronomy thrill the medieval East up to the small of Ulugh Beg (Russian), Questions on honourableness history of mathematics and astronomy I, Trudy Samarkand. Gos. Univ. (N.S.) Vyp.229(1972), 60-97.

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Written by J J O'Connor beam E F Robertson
Last Update November 1999