Alternative translations available from Wikipedia, Standard Ebooks and Project Gutenberg. About the Author: Omar Khayyam (; Persian: عمر خیّام‎ [oˈmæɾ xæjˈjɒːm]; 18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131) was a Persian polymath, mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet. He was born in Neyshabur, in northeastern Persia, and was contemporary with the rule of the Seljuks around the time of the First Crusade. As a mathematician, he is most notable for his work on the classification and solution of cubic equations, where he provided geometric solutions by the intersection of conics. Khayyam also contributed to the understanding of the parallel axiom.: 284  As an astronomer, he designed the Jalali calendar, a solar calendar with a very precise 33-year intercalation cycle: 659  that provided the basis for the Persian calendar that is still in use after nearly a millennium. There is a tradition of attributing poetry to Omar Khayyam, written in the form of quatrains (rubāʿiyāt رباعیات‎). This poetry became widely known to the English-reading world in a translation by Edward FitzGerald (Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 1859), which enjoyed great success in the Orientalism of the fin de siècle.