Al Buzjani
Tuesday, 01 April 2008
He was born in Buzjan (Quhistan) but he flourished in Baghdad where he died. He was an astronomer and mathematician. Abu Al-Wafa was the greatest mathematician of the tenth century
He wrote on solutions of geometrical problems with one opening of the compass; He wrote commentaries on Euclid, Diophantos and Al-Khwarizmi (all lost); astronomical tables (zij Al-wadih) of which we possibly have a later adaptation; a practical arithmetic; "the complete book" (Kitab Al-kamil) and a book of applied geometry (Kitab al handasa). Abu Al-Wafa contributed considerably to the development of trigonometry.
He was probably the first to show the generality of the sine theorem relative to spherical triangles; he gave a new method of constructing sine tables, the value of sin 30° being correct to the eighth decimal place. He made a special study of the tangent; calculated a table of tangents;
Concerning some of the influence of Abu Al-Wafa on subsequent Western science, a return must be made to the work by Sedillot, unfortunately extant only in French and dating from the 19th century. Baron Carra de Vaux holds that the secant can be found in Abu Al-Wafa, something he calls `the diameter of the shadow' and whose introduction is credited to Copernicus
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