Engineer's Day in Iran

Nasir al-Din al-TusiAmir Zerehpoosh

This day is celebrated to respect

Biography

• Nasir al-Din Tusi was born in the city of Tus in medieval Khorasan (in north-eastern Iran)

in the year 1201 and began his studies at an early age. In Hamadan and Tus he studied

the Qur'an, Hadith, Shi'a jurisprudence, logic, philosophy, mathematics, medicine and astronomy.

Biography

• He was apparently born into a Shī‘ah family and lost his father at a young age. Fulfilling the wish of his father, the young Muhammad took learning and scholarship very seriously and travelled far and wide to attend the lectures of renowned scholars and acquire the knowledge, an exercise highly encouraged in his Islamic faith. At a young age he moved to Nishapur to study philosophy under Farid al-Din Damad and mathematics under Muhammad Hasib. He met also Farid al-Din 'Attar, the legendary Sufi master who was later killed by Mongol invaders and attended the lectures of Quit al-Din al-Misri.

Biography

• In Mosul he studied mathematics and astronomy with Kamal al-Din Yunus (d. 639/1242). Later on he corresponded with Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi, the son-in-law of Ibn al-'Arabi, and it seems that mysticism, as propagated by Sufi masters of his time, was not appealing to his mind and once the occasion was suitable, he composed his own manual of philosophical Sufism in the form of a small booklet entitled Awsaf al-Ashraf "The Attributes of the Illustrious".

Biography

• As the armies of Genghis Khan swept his homeland, he was employed by the Ismailis and made his most important contributions in science during this time when he was moving from one stronghold to another. He was captured after the invasion of the Alamo castle by the Mongol forces.

Works

• Tusi has about 150 works, of which 25 are in Persian and the remaining are in Arabic and there is one treatise in Persian, Arabic andTurkish.

•Kitāb al-Shakl al-qattā: Book on the complete quadrilateral. A five volume summary of trigonometry.

•Al-Tadhkirah fi'ilm al-hay'ah :A memoir on the science of astronomy. Many commentaries were written about this work called Sharh al-Tadhkirah (A Commentary on al-Tadhkirah) - Commentaries were written by Abd al-Ali ibn Muhammad ibn al-Husayn al-Birjandi and by Nazzam Nishapuri.

Works•Akhlaq-i Nasiri : A work on ethics.•al-Risalah al-Asturlabiyah :A Treatise on astrolabe.•Zij-i ilkhani (Ilkhanic Tables) : A major astronomical treatise, completed in 1272.•sharh al-isharat :Commentary on Avicenna's Isharat•Awsaf al-Ashraf :a short mystical-ethical work in Persian•Tajrīd al-itiqād :Summation of Belief – A commentary on Shia doctrines.•Talkhis Al Mohassal:summary of summaries

AchievementsAstronomy

Tusi convinced Hulegu Khan to construct an observatory for establishing accurate astronomical tables for better astrological predictions. Beginning in 1259, the Rasad Khaneh observatory was constructed in Azarbaijan, south of the river Aras, and to the west of Maragheh, the capital of the Ilkhanate Empire.Based on the observations in this for the time being most advanced observatory, Tusi made very accurate tables of planetary movements as depicted in his book Zij-i ilkhani(Ilkhanic Tables). This book contains astronomical tables for calculating the positions of the planets and the names of the stars. His model for the planetary system is believed to be the most advanced of his time, and was used extensively until the development of the heliocentric model in the time of Nicolaus Copernicus. Between Ptolemy andCopernicus, he is considered by many[who?] to be one of the most eminent astronomers of his time.

Achievements

Biology and evolution

In his Akhlaq-i-Nasri, Tusi put forward a basic theory for the evolution of species almost 600 years before Charles Darwin, the English naturalist credited with advancing the idea, was born. He begins his theory of evolution with the universe once consisting of equal and similar elements. According to Tusi, internal contradictions began appearing, and as a result, some substances began developing faster and differently from other substances. He then explains how the elements evolved into minerals, then plants, then animals, and then humans

Achievements

Chemistry and physics

In chemistry and physics, Tusi stated a version of the law of conservation of mass. He wrote that a body of matter is able to change, but is not able to disappear:"A body of matter cannot disappear completely. It only changes its form, condition, composition, colour and other properties and turns into a different complex or elementary matter."

Achievements

Logic

Nasir al-Din Tusi was a supporter of Avicennian logic, and wrote the following commentary on Avicenna's theory of absolute propositions:"What spurred him to this was that in the assertoric syllogistic Aristotle and others sometimes used contradictories of absolute propositions on the assumption that they are absolute; and that was why so many decided that absolutes did contradict absolutes. When Avicenna had shown this to be wrong, he wanted to give a way of construing those examples from Aristotle."

Achievements

Mathematics

Iranian stamp for the 700th anniversary of his deathA stamp issued in the republic of Azerbaijan in 2009 honoring TusiAl-Tusi was the first to write a work on trigonometry independently of astronomy Al-Tusi, in his Treatise on the Quadrilateral, gave an extensive exposition of spherical trigonometry, distinct from astronomy It was in the works of Al-Tusi that trigonometry achieved the status of an independent branch of pure mathematics distinct from astronomy, to which it had been linked for so long.

Achievements

Mathematics

He was the first to list the six distinct cases of a right triangle in spherical trigonometry.This followed earlier work by Greek mathematicians such as Menelaus of Alexandria, who wrote a book on spherical trigonometry called Sphaerica, and the earlier Muslim mathematicians Abū al-Wafā' al-Būzjānī and Al-Jayyani.In his On the Sector Figure, appears the famous law of sines for plane triangles.He also stated the law of sines for spherical triangles, discovered the law of tangents for spherical triangles, and provided proofs for these laws.

Achievements

Mathematics

He was the first to list the six distinct cases of a right triangle in spherical trigonometry.This followed earlier work by Greek mathematicians such as Menelaus of Alexandria, who wrote a book on spherical trigonometry called Sphaerica, and the earlier Muslim mathematicians Abū al-Wafā' al-Būzjānī and Al-Jayyani.In his On the Sector Figure, appears the famous law of sines for plane triangles.He also stated the law of sines for spherical triangles, discovered the law of tangents for spherical triangles, and provided proofs for these laws.

Toosi’s role has been significant in the development of science, notably in mathematics and astronomy. His books were widely consulted for centuries and he has been held in high repute for his rich contributions