Sharaf al-Dīn al-Tūsī
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Sharaf al-Dīn al-Muẓaffar ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Muẓaffar al-Ṭūsī (1135 - 1213) was a Persian mathematician of the Islamic Golden Age (during the Middle Ages).
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[edit] His Life
Tusi taught various mathematical topics including the science of numbers, astronomical tables and astrology, in Aleppo and Mosul. His best pupil was Kamal al-Din ibn Yunus. In turn Kamal al-Din ibn Yunus went on to teach Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, one of the most famous of all the Islamic scholars of the period. By this time Tusi seems to have acquired an outstanding reputation as a teacher of mathematics, for some travelled long distances hoping to become his students.
[edit] His works
Tusi wrote some treatises on algebra. There, he went on to give what we would essentially call the Ruffini-Horner method for approximating the root of a cubic equation. Although this method had been used by earlier Arabic mathematicians to find approximations for the nth root of an integer, Tusi is the first that we know who applied the method to solve general equations of this type.
Another famous work by Tusi is one in which he describes the linear astrolabe, sometimes called the "staff of al-Tusi", which he invented.
In his Al-Mu'Adalat, Tusi found algebraic and numerical solutions of cubic equations and was the first to discover the derivative of cubic polynomials, an important result in differential calculus.[1]
[edit] Notes
- ^ J. L. Berggren (1990). "Innovation and Tradition in Sharaf al-Din al-Tusi's Muadalat", Journal of the American Oriental Society 110 (2), p. 304-309.
[edit] References
- O'Connor, John J. & Robertson, Edmund F., “Sharaf al-Din al-Muzaffar al-Tusi”, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
- {{{last}}} (1970-80). "Ṭūsī, Sharaf al-Dīn al-Muẓaffar Ibn Muḥammad Ibn al- Muẓaffar al-". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 0684101149.
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