P.S. Selected facts and about Mongolian mathematician Ulug Beh (1393-1449).
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/UlughBeg.html
Mongol astronomer who made the best astronomical
observations of his time. He prepared star tables superior to
Ptolemy's and compiled the first new
star 
map since
Hipparchus. His efforts were surpassed, however, by those of
Brahe.
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Ulugh_Beg.html
Timur, Ulugh Beg's grandfather, came from the Turkic Barlas tribe which was a Mongol tribe that was living in Transoxania, today essentially Uzbekistan. He united several Turko-Mongol tribes under his leadership and set out on a conquest, with his armies of mounted archers, of the area now occupied by Iran, Iraq, and eastern Turkey.
Ulugh Beg Observatory
http://www.cincinnatiobservatory.org/nwsltrs/aug02.pdf#search='Ulugh%20Beg%20mongolia'
A Letter From President Huber Ulugh Beg was an astronomer who. lived in Mongolia in the early 1400's
http://gorp.away.com/gorp/location/asia/uzbekistan/cities4.htm
Timur's cenotaph, six feet long, is a block of solid jade, brought from Mongolia in 1425 by Ulugh Beg. Once the largest piece of jade in the world, it split down the middle when the Persian conqueror Nadir Shah tried to make off with it in 1740
http://www.astrin.uzsci.net/gallery/maidanak.html In Uzbekstan, Department of galactic astronomy and cosmogony
http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/silkroad/cities/uz/samarkand/obser.html
Washington University
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulugh_Beg Wikedpedia
Facts from this book by J.L.Berggren, Episodes in the Mathematics of Medieval Islam
- (page 5) Four Muslim Scientists
- 1. Central Azian scholar, (p.s called the father of modern algebra) Al-Khwarizmi (780-850) came from old civilization, region Urgench in Russia on the Aral Sea
- 3. Omar Hayyam (1048-1131) was born in Iran. Famous mathematicians and poet.
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Khayyam.html
Mongol Empire in Middle Asia
Ilkhanate Dynasty in Persia,
Chagatai Khanate in central Asia
the Yuan Dynasty in China
Golden Horde in present-day Russia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_Empire
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2532/
- (page 15) Al-Khashi was born in the Persian town of Kashan. Some 90 miles north of Umar’s tomb. In 1414, he finished his revision of the great astronomical tables written 150 years, and he dedicated this revision to the Great Khan UlughBeg, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulugh_Beg, the grandson of Tamurlane (in Mongolian means Iron), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamerlane, (a descendant of Genghis Khan) whose capital was at Samarqand. In the introduction of these tables he speaks of the poverty he endured and how only the generosity of Ulugh Beg allowed him to complete the work.
- Exactly when Al-Kashi arrived in Samarqand we do not know, but during the year 1417 Ulug Beg began building a school there, whose remains still impress visitors to the site, and on its completion, began construction on an observatory.
- (page 17) Ulug Beg was himself an accomplished astronomer whose astronomical tables were used in Europe into the Seventeenth centery.
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Ulugh_Beg.html
- (page 19) The observatory. As the scientific institution we know today, was born and developed in the Islamic world. It was aligned in the north-south direction and was 11 meters deep at the south end. It was at this observatory that the greatest star catalog since the time of Ptolemy (85-165) Egypt, was compiled, and the observatory itself, as the scientific institution we know today, developed in the Islamic world.
- (page 21) Although this treatise on Pi (Pi in the Sky by John Barrow) bears no dedication, the work Al-Khashi completed two years, a compendium of arithmetic, algebra, measurement called The Calculator’s key, is dedicated to Ulug Beg, and as the crowning achievement of Islamic arithmetic is a gift fit for a king. It is also of interest that a copy of the Calculator’s key found in the British Museum http://www.british-museum.ac.uk/ was made by the great-great-great grandson of al-Kashi. After his death in 1429, Ulug Beg refers to Al-Khashi as “ the admirable mullah, known among the famous of the world, who had mastered and completed the sciences of the ancients, and who could solve the most difficult questions”.
- (page 144) Trigonometric tables: In 1030 al-Biruni calculated for sine and cosine functions in the intervals 15’, 1grad with 4 places, In 1440 Ulug Beg calculated for sine and tangent functions in the intervals 1’ with 5 places.
- (page 177) The work o f al-Khashi and Ulug Beg exemplifies the quantity of the best Muslim achievements in the production of accurate, extensive scientific tables of functions arising in spherical astronomy.
Other resources about Ulug Beg
- .
http://www.friesian.com/mongol.htm
http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/mongols.html
- 1420: Ulugh Beg begins to build the Registan in Samarkand
http://www.britannica.com/ebi/article?tocId=9276875
- From 1417 to 1420 Ulugh Beg founded a madrasah (Islamic school for the study of theology, law ... warriors conquered every territory from Mongolia in the east to the Mediterranean ...
http://www.unesco.org/culture/asia/html_eng/chapitre4218/chapitre2.htm
- In Samarkand, Ulugh Beg (prince in Transoxania 1409–47, ruler in Transoxania and Khurasan 1447–9) became the initiator of architectural projects, a role which was performed in Herat by his parents Shвh Rukh and Gawhar Shвd. Khwarazm did not recover, however, and remained a backwater for centuries. Building activity declined in Samarkand in the second half of the fifteenth century and by the end of the century had practically ceased.