The Timurid emperor, Ulugh Beg, was an accomplished mathematician and one of the greatest astronomers in history. He was born in Sultaniyeh, Timurid Empire, Persia.
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Ancestry of Ulugh Beg
The grandson of Amir Timur (Tamerlane) and the son of Shah Rukh, Ulugh Beg made some of the best astronomical observations of his time. Not only for mathematics and astronomy but he is also remembered as a great patron of arts and scholarship.
When his father, Shah Rukh, captured the city of Samarkand, he gave it to his son Ulugh Beg who made it a center of Muslim culture and scholarship. He built an observatory (around the 1420s) at Samarkand.
In his observations, he discovered several errors in the computations of the 2nd-century Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy, whose figures were still being used. He and his assistants made a catalogue of stars from observations with a large quadrant.
Ulugh Beg’s Zij-i Sultani
Ulugh Beg is associated with a Persian astronomical handbook called the Zij-i Sultani that stands out for the accuracy with which its tables were computed. It consists of four chapters dealing with chronology, trigonometry and spherical astronomy, planetary positions, and astrology.
In mathematics, Ulugh Beg wrote accurate trigonometric tables of sine and tangent values, correct to at least eight decimal places. Famous mathematician Ali Qushji was a student and co-worker of Ulugh Beg.
Legacy of Ulugh Beg
Our appreciation for Ulugh Beg’s work increases when we remember that he was working nearly two centuries before the invention of the telescope. His work eventually became known in Europe, with the publication of his works in London in 1650 in Latin and later the first of many European editions of his star tables.
Last updated on March 22nd, 2025 at 04:40 pm