Al-Nayrizi
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Abū’l-‘Abbās al-Faḍl ibn Ḥātim al-Nairīzī (أبو العباس الفضل بن حاتم النيريزي Latin name: Anaritius), was a 9-10th century Persian mathematician and astronomer from Nayriz, a town near Shiraz, Fars, Iran.
He flourished under al-Mu'tadid, Caliph from 892 to 902, and compiled astronomical tables, writing a book for al-Mu'tadid on atmospheric phenomena.
Nayrizi wrote commentaries on Ptolemy and Euclid. The latter were translated by Gerard of Cremona. Nairizi used the so-called umbra (versa), the equivalent to the tangent, as a genuine trigonometric line (but he was anticipated in this by al-Marwazi).
He wrote a treatise on the spherical astrolabe, which is very elaborate and seems to be the best Arabic work on the subject. It is divided into four books:
- Historical and critical introduction.
- Description of the spherical astrolabe; its superiority over plane astrolabes and all other astronomical instruments.
- Applications.
- Applications.
Ibn al-Nadim mentions Nayrizi as a distinguished astronomer with Eight works by him listed in his book al-Fihrist.
[edit] References
- H. Suter: Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber (45, 1900)
- Nachtrage (164, 1902).
- O'Connor, John J. & Robertson, Edmund F., “Abu'l Abbas al-Fadl ibn Hatim Al-Nayrizi”, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
[edit] External links
[edit] Primary sources
- The (fragmentary) text of Nairizi's commentary on Euclid I. PDF scans from the edition of Codex Leidensis 399 (Classical Arabic)
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