Cornel Wilde
Wilde in Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
Born	Kornél Lajos Weisz (Americanized to Cornelius Louis Wilde) (1912-10-13)October 13, 1912[1] Prievidza, Hungary (now Slovakia)
Died	October 16, 1989(1989-10-16) (aged 77) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of death	leukemia
Other names	Clark Wales
Occupation	Actor, director
Years active	1936–87
Spouse	Patricia Knight (m. 1937–1951) «start: (1937)–end+1: (1952)»"Marriage: Patricia Knight to Cornel Wilde" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Cornel_Wilde)(divorced) 1 child Jean Wallace (m. 1951–1981) «start: (1951)–end+1: (1982)»"Marriage: Jean Wallace to Cornel Wilde" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Cornel_Wilde) (divorced) 1 child
Children	Wendy Wilde (b. 1943) Cornel Wallace Wilde Jr. (b. 1967)

Cornel Wilde (October 13, 1912 – October 16, 1989) was an American actor and film director.

Early life[link]

Kornél Lajos Weisz was born in 1912^[2][3] in Prievidza, Hungary (now Slovakia),^[4][5] although his year and place of birth are usually and inaccurately given as 1915 in New York City.^[6][7] His Hungarian Jewish parents were Vojtech Weisz (Americanized to Louis Bela Wilde) and Renée Mary Vid. He was named for his paternal grandfather, and upon arrival in the U.S. at age 7 in 1920,^[4] his name was Americanized to Cornelius Louis Wilde.^[2]

A talented linguist and an astute mimic, he had an ear for languages which became apparent later in his acting career. Wilde attended the City College of New York as a pre-med student, completing the four-year course in three years and winning a scholarship to the Physicians and Surgeons College at Columbia University.^[8]

He qualified for the United States fencing team prior to the 1936 Summer Olympic Games, but quit the team just prior to the games in order to take a role in the theater. In preparation for an acting career, he and his new wife Marjory Heinzen (later to be known as Patricia Knight) shaved years off their ages, three for him and five for her. As a result, most publicity records and subsequent sources wrongly indicate a 1915 birth for Wilde.

Career[link]

from The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)

After study at Theodora Irvine's Studio of the Theatre, Wilde began appearing in plays in stock and in New York. He made his Broadway debut in 1935 in Moon Over Mulberry Street. He wrote a fencing play, Touché, under the pseudonym Clark Wales in 1937.^[9] Wilde was hired as a fencing teacher by Laurence Olivier for his 1940 Broadway production of Romeo and Juliet and was given the role of Tybalt in the production. His performance in this role netted him a Hollywood film contract.^[9]

He had several small film roles until he played the role of Frédéric Chopin in 1945's A Song to Remember, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actor. In 1945 he also starred in A Thousand and One Nights with Evelyn Keyes.^[10] He spent the rest of the decade appearing in romantic and swashbuckling films, but he also appeared in some significant films noir, opposite Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven (1945), Road House (1948) and Shockproof (1949), the latter film also starring his then wife Patricia Knight.^[9]

In the 1950s, Wilde created his own film production company and produced the film noir The Big Combo (1955). Wilde played the male lead alongside his second wife Jean Wallace. That same year, he appeared in an episode of I Love Lucy as himself. In 1957, he guest starred on an episode of Father Knows Best as himself. Also in 1957, he played the role of the 13th century Persian poet Omar Khayyam in the film Omar Khayyam.

He produced, directed, and starred in The Naked Prey (1966), in which he played a man stripped naked and chased by hunters from an African tribe affronted by the behavior of other members of his safari party. The original script for The Naked Prey was largely based on a true historical incident about a trapper named John Colter being pursued by Blackfeet Indians in Wyoming. Lower shooting costs, tax breaks, and material and logistical assistance offered by Rhodesia convinced Wilde and the other producers to shoot the film on location in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

Wilde's other notable directing efforts include Beach Red (1967) and No Blade of Grass (1970).

During the early 1970s, Wilde took a break from motion pictures and theater to turn toward television. He appeared as an unethical surgeon in the 1971 Night Gallery episode "Deliveries in the Rear" and portrayed an anthropologist in the 1972 TV movie Gargoyles. He returned to film shortly thereafter and wrote, directed, and starred in the exploitation film Sharks' Treasure, a 1975 film intended to capitalize on the "Shark Fever" popular in the mid-1970s in the wake of the success of Peter Benchley's Jaws.

Personal life[link]

He married the actress Patricia Knight in 1937. She appeared with him in Shockproof (1949). They had a daughter, Wendy (born February 22, 1943), and divorced in 1951.

He married the actress Jean Wallace in 1951. Wallace, formerly married to actor Franchot Tone, co-starred with Wilde in several films including The Big Combo (1955), Lancelot and Guinevere, aka Sword of Lancelot (1963), and Beach Red (1967). Her two children from her marriage to Franchot Tone became Wilde's stepsons. They also had a son together, Cornel Wallace Wilde Jr. (born December 19, 1967). They divorced in 1981.

Death[link]

Wilde died of leukemia three days after his 77th birthday. He was survived by a daughter and a son (one from each marriage); two stepsons, Pascal Franchot Tone and Thomas Jefferson Tone; and three grandchildren. Wilde is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Cornel Wilde has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1635 Vine Street.

Selected filmography[link]

As director[link]

• General Electric Theater (1955) (episode "The Blond Dog")
• Storm Fear (1955)
• The Devil's Hairpin (1957)
• Maracaibo (1958)
• Constantine and the Cross (1962)
• Lancelot and Guinevere (1963)
• The Naked Prey (1966)
• Beach Red (1967)
• No Blade of Grass (1970)
• Sharks' Treasure (1975)

As actor[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Cornel Wilde

• Cornel Wilde at the Internet Movie Database
• Cornel Wilde at Find a Grave

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (November 2009)

Lee Majors
Lee Majors, 2008
Born	Harvey Lee Yeary (1939-04-23) April 23, 1939 (age 73) Wyandotte, Michigan, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1964–present
Spouse	Kathy Robinson (1961-1964) Farrah Fawcett (1973-1982) Karen Velez (1988-1994) Faith Noelle Cross (2002-present)
Children	3 sons, 1 daughter

Lee Majors (born Harvey Lee Yeary on April 23, 1939) is an American television, film and voice actor, best known for his roles as Heath Barkley in the TV series The Big Valley (1965 - 1969), as Colonel Steve Austin in The Six Million Dollar Man (1973–1978) and as Colt Seavers in The Fall Guy (1981–1986).

He is also known as Owen Marshall's law partner/friend, Jess Brandon, in the 1971–1974 series Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law. In the late 1980s and 1990s he reprised the role of Steve Austin in a number of TV movies, and appeared in a number of supporting, recurring and cameo roles in feature films and TV series, and lent his voice to a number of animated TV series and video games.

Early life[link]

Majors was born in the Detroit suburb of Wyandotte, Michigan. Parents Carl & Alice Yeary were both killed in separate car accidents (prior to his birth and when he was one year old respectively) and at age two, Majors was adopted by an uncle and aunt, Harvey and Mildred Yeary, and moved with them, and their biological son, Bill, to Middlesboro, Kentucky.^{[citation needed]}

Since his adoptive older brother had been a football star in school, Majors tirelessly committed himself to the sport. While a student at Middlesboro High School, he participated in many sports from track to football. He graduated in 1957, and earned a scholarship to Indiana University, where he again competed in sports. Majors transferred to Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky, in 1959. He played in his first game the following year, but suffered a severe back injury which left him paralyzed for two weeks, and ended his college football career. Following his injury, he turned his attention to acting and performed in plays at the Pioneer Playhouse in Danville, Kentucky. Majors graduated from Eastern in 1962 with a degree in History and Physical Education.^{[citation needed]}

After college, he received an offer to try out for the St. Louis Cardinals football team. Instead, he moved to Los Angeles and found work at the Los Angeles Park and Recreation Department as the Recreation Director for North Hollywood Park. This was after a brief stint playing for the new football franchise Boston Patriots as a safety. In LA, Majors met many actors and industry professionals, including Dick Clayton, who had been James Dean's agent, and Clayton suggested he attend his acting school. After one year of acting school, Clayton felt that Majors was ready to start his career. At this time, he picked up the stage name Lee Majors as a tribute to childhood hero Johnny Majors who was a player and future coach for the University of Tennessee. Majors also studied at Estelle Harmon's acting school at MGM.^{[citation needed]}

Career[link]

Early roles[link]

At age 25, Majors landed his first, although uncredited, role in Strait-Jacket (1964), which starred Joan Crawford. After appearing in a 1965 episode of Gunsmoke, he starred as Howard White in an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, “The Monkey’s Paw - A Retelling,” based on the short story by W. W. Jacobs later the same year.

Majors got his big break when he beat out over 400 young actors, including Burt Reynolds, for the co-starring role of Heath Barkley in a new ABC western series, The Big Valley, which starred Barbara Stanwyck. Also starring on the show was another newcomer, Linda Evans, who played Heath's younger sister, Audra. Richard Long and Peter Breck played his brothers Jarrod and Nick, respectively. One of Heath's frequently used expressions during the series was "Boy howdy!" Big Valley was an immediate hit. During the series, Majors co-starred in the 1968 Charlton Heston film Will Penny, for which he received an "Introducing" credit, and landed the lead role in The Ballad of Andy Crocker (1969), a made-for-television film which was first broadcast by ABC. The film is notable as being one of the very first films to deal with the subject matter of Vietnam veterans "coming home". That same year, he was offered the chance to star in Midnight Cowboy (1969), but The Big Valley was renewed for another season and he was forced to decline the role (which later went to Jon Voight). When The Big Valley was cancelled in 1969, he signed a long-term contract with Universal Studios. In 1970, Majors joined the cast of The Virginian for its last season.

In 1971, he landed the role of Arthur Hill's partner, Jess Brandon, on Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law, which garnered critical acclaim during its three seasons on ABC. In one episode, his then girlfriend, Farrah Fawcett, guest-starred.

[edit] The Six Million Dollar Man

Majors' co-starring role on Owen Marshall led him to a starring role as Colonel Steve Austin, an ex-astronaut with bionic implants in The Six Million Dollar Man, a 1973 television movie broadcast on ABC.

In 1974, the network decided to turn it into a weekly series. The series became a huge international success, being screened in over 70 countries, turning Majors into one of the leading pop icons of the 70's, and, along with his then wife Farrah Fawcett, who herself was soon to become a leading pop icon of the 70's, into one of Hollywood's high-profile power couples with both appearing on the cover of magazines everywhere.

Majors also made his directorial debut in 1975, on an episode called "One of Our Running Backs Is Missing" which co-starred professional football players such as Larry Csonka and Dick Butkus.

In 1977, with The Six Million Dollar Man still a hit series, Majors tried to renegotiate his contract with Universal Television. The studio in turn filed a lawsuit to force him to report to work due to stipulations within his existing contract that had not yet expired. When he did not report to work that June, studio executives relented and offered Majors a raise.^{[citation needed]} However, ratings began to decline and The Six Million Dollar Man was cancelled in March 1978 (as was The Bionic Woman). In November 2010, Time Life released a 40 DVD set featuring every episode and bonus features from the show.^[1]

[edit] The Fall Guy

In 1981, Majors returned in another long-running television series. Producer Glen A. Larson (who had first worked with Majors on Alias Smith and Jones, where Majors had a one-episode part, and later on The Six Million Dollar Man) asked him to star in the pilot of The Fall Guy. Majors played Colt Seavers, a Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a bounty hunter. Majors was also a producer and a director on the show, and even sang its theme song, the self-effacing "Unknown Stuntman." Majors also invited several longtime friends, Linda Evans, Peter Breck, Lindsay Wagner and Richard Anderson, to guest-star in various episodes. The series ran for five seasons until it was cancelled in 1986.

1987 - present[link]

Between 1987 and 1994, Majors and Lindsay Wagner reunited in three The Six Million Dollar Man/The Bionic Woman TV movies. Majors also made a cameo appearance in the 1988 holiday comedy Scrooged.

In 1990, he had a recurring role in Tour of Duty, and a recurring role in the short-lived 1992 series, Raven. He also made cameo appearances in Out Cold (2001) Big Fat Liar (2002) and The Brothers Solomon (2007) The Story of Bonnie and Clyde (2010)

Majors voiced the character of "Big" Mitch Baker in the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Majors played Jaret Reddick's disconnected father in Bowling For Soup's 2007 video, "When We Die." That same year, he played Grandpa Max in Ben 10: Race Against Time, and voiced a character on the APTN animated children's program Wapos Bay: The Series that was named "Steve from Austin". He also played a minor role in Stephen King's The Mist.

Majors played Coach Ross on the CW Network's television series The Game, which ran from October 1, 2006 to May 20, 2009.^[2]

Majors appeared in the role of God in "Jim Almighty" a 2007 episode of According to Jim. He would later return to the role in that show's 2009 series finale, "Heaven Opposed to Hell". Also in 2008, Majors played a member of the Minutemen (dedicated to preventing illegal border crossings) in Season Four of the Showtime series Weeds, where he recruits Kevin Nealon’s character.

Lee Majors appeared on ITVs The British Comedy Awards 2009 on December 12, 2009 alongside Claudia Winkleman.

In March 2010 Majors played the crusty sailing instructor in the Community episode "Beginner Pottery". The following month, he appeared as the mentor of the series lead in "Christopher Chance", the 12th episode of Human Target. Later that year, he provided the voice of General Abernathy in G.I. Joe: Renegades. He would later reprise the role in a 2011 episode. In 2011 he also made a brief appearance as Don Reger in the 2011 episode "Well Suitored" of the CBS series $#*! My Dad Says.

In March to April 2012, Majors will be in a film in Seattle called Matt's Chance alongside Edward Furlong, Margot Kidder and Gary Busey.

Personal life[link]

Majors has been married four times:

• Kathy Robinson (married 1961, divorced 1964). The couple had one child, Lee Majors II (born April 8, 1962) who would later appear in an episode of The Fall Guy and the three Six Million Dollar Man/Bionic Woman reunion movies with his father.
• Farrah Fawcett, actress, (married July 28, 1973, separated 1979, divorced February 16, 1982). During the first six years of their marriage, she was billed as Farrah Fawcett-Majors. In 1976, the couple simultaneously starred in separate top-rated shows (The Six Million Dollar Man and Charlie's Angels). After they split, Fawcett famously said, "If he's the six-million-dollar man, I'm the ten-billion-dollar woman." When Fawcett died on June 25, 2009, after her three-year-long battle with anal cancer, Majors issued a statement which read, "She fought a tremendous battle against a terrible disease. She was an angel on earth and now an angel forever." Besides attending her funeral, several reports indicated that Majors reconnected with Fawcett before her death.^[3]
• Karen Velez, Playboy Playmate, (married 1988, divorced 1994); one daughter, Nikki Loren, and twin sons, Dane Luke and Trey Kulley.^[4]
• Faith Majors, actress and model, (married on November 1, 2002).

In the middle of 2003, Majors had heart bypass surgery.^[5]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lee Majors

• Lee Majors at the Internet Movie Database

Omar Khayyám
عمر خیام

A depiction of Omar Khayyám, in the works of Edward FitzGerald
Born	18 May[1] 1048[2]
Died	1131 (aged 82/83)[2]
School	Persian mathematics, Persian poetry, Persian philosophy
Main interests	Mathematics, Philosophy, Astronomy, Poetry
Influenced by Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, Avicenna
Influenced Attar of Nishapur

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131; Persian: ‏عمر خیام‎) was a Persian polymath: philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet. He also wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, mineralogy, music, climatology and Islamic theology.^[3]

Born in Nishapur, at a young age he moved to Samarkand and obtained his education there, afterwards he moved to Bukhara and became established as one of the major mathematicians and astronomers of the medieval period. He is the author of one of the most important treatises on algebra written before modern times, the Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra, which includes a geometric method for solving cubic equations by intersecting a hyperbola with a circle.^[4] He contributed to a calendar reform.

His significance as a philosopher and teacher, and his few remaining philosophical works, have not received the same attention as his scientific and poetic writings. Al-Zamakhshari referred to him as “the philosopher of the world”. Many sources have testified that he taught for decades the philosophy of Avicenna in Nishapur where Khayyám was born and buried and where his mausoleum today remains a masterpiece of Iranian architecture visited by many people every year.^[5]

Outside Iran and Persian speaking countries, Khayyám has had an impact on literature and societies through the translation of his works and popularization by other scholars. The greatest such impact was in English-speaking countries; the English scholar Thomas Hyde (1636–1703) was the first non-Persian to study him. The most influential of all was Edward FitzGerald (1809–83),^[6] who made Khayyám the most famous poet of the East in the West through his celebrated translation and adaptations of Khayyám's rather small number of quatrains (Persian: رباعیات‎ rubāʿiyāt) in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Omar Khayyám died in 1131 and is buried in the Khayyam Garden at the mausoleum of Imamzadeh Mahruq in Nishapur. In 1963 the mausoleum of Omar Khayyam was constructed on the site by Hooshang Seyhoun.

Early life[link]

Khayyám's full name was Ghiyāth ad-Din Abu'l-Fath 'Umar ibn Ibrāhīm an-Nīshāpūrī al-Khayyāmī (Persian: غیاث الدین ابو الفتح عمر بن ابراهیم خیام نیشاپوری‎). He was born in Nishapur, modern-day Iran, but then a Seljuq capital in Khorasan,^[7][8][9] which rivaled Cairo or Baghdad in cultural prominence in that era. He is thought to have been born into a family of tent-makers (khayyami "tent-maker"), which he would make this into a play on words later in life:

Khayyám, who stitched the tents of science,
Has fallen in grief's furnace and been suddenly burned,
The shears of Fate have cut the tent ropes of his life,
And the broker of Hope has sold him for nothing!

— Omar Khayyám^[4]

He spent part of his childhood in the town of Balkh (present northern Afghanistan), studying under the well-known scholar Sheikh Muhammad Mansuri. He later studied under Imam Mowaffaq Nishapuri, who was considered one of the greatest teachers of the Khorasan region. Throughout his life Omar Khayyám was dedicated to his efforts and abilities, in the day he would teach Algebra and geometry in the evening he would attend the Seljuq court as an adviser of Malik-Shah I^[10] and at night he would study Astronomy and complete the important aspects of the Jalali calendar.

Omar Khayyám's years in Isfahan were very productive ones but after the death of the Seljuq Sultan Malik-Shah I (presumably by the Assassins sect), the Sultan's widow turned against him as an adviser and soon therefore Omar Khayyám set out on his Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. He was then allowed to work as a court astrologer and was permitted to return to Nishapur where he was famous for works and continued to teach mathematics, astronomy and even medicine.^[1]

Mathematician[link]

Khayyám Sikander was famous during his times as a mathematician. He wrote the influential Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra (1070), which laid down the principles of algebra, part of the body of Persian Mathematics that was eventually transmitted to Europe. In particular, he derived general methods for solving cubic equations and even some higher orders.

In the Treatise he wrote on the triangular array of binomial coefficients known as Pascal's triangle. In 1077, Khayyám wrote Sharh ma ashkala min musadarat kitab Uqlidis (Explanations of the Difficulties in the Postulates of Euclid) published in English as "On the Difficulties of Euclid's Definitions".^[11] An important part of the book is concerned with Euclid's famous parallel postulate, which attracted the interest of Thabit ibn Qurra. Al-Haytham had previously attempted a demonstration of the postulate; Khayyám's attempt was a distinct advance, and his criticisms made their way to Europe, and may have contributed to the eventual development of non-Euclidean geometry.

Omar Khayyám had notable works in geometry, specifically on the theory of proportions, his notable contemporary mathematicians included Al-Khazini and Abu Hatim al-Muzaffar ibn Ismail al-Isfizari^[12]

Theory of parallels[link]

"At the Tomb of Omar Khayyam", by Jay Hambidge

Khayyám wrote a book entitled Explanations of the difficulties in the postulates in Euclid's Elements. The book consists of several sections on the parallel postulate (Book I), on the Euclidean definition of ratios and the Anthyphairetic ratio (modern continued fractions) (Book II), and on the multiplication of ratios (Book III).

The first section is a treatise containing some propositions and lemmas concerning the parallel postulate. It has reached the Western world from a reproduction in a manuscript written in 1387-88 AD by the Persian mathematician Tusi. Tusi mentions explicitly that he re-writes the treatise "in Khayyám's own words" and quotes Khayyám, saying that "they are worth adding to Euclid's Elements (first book) after Proposition 28."^[13] This proposition^[14] states a condition enough for having two lines in plane parallel to one another. After this proposition follows another, numbered 29, which is converse to the previous one.^[15] The proof of Euclid uses the so-called parallel postulate (numbered 5). Objection to the use of parallel postulate and alternative view of proposition 29 have been a major problem in foundation of what is now called non-Euclidean geometry.

The treatise of Khayyám can be considered as the first treatment of parallels axiom which is not based on petitio principii but on more intuitive postulate. Khayyám refutes the previous attempts by other Greek and Persian mathematicians to prove the proposition. And he, as Aristotle, refuses the use of motion in geometry and therefore dismisses the different attempt by Ibn Haytham too.^[16] In a sense he made the first attempt at formulating a non-Euclidean postulate as an alternative to the parallel postulate,^[17]

Geometric algebra[link]

Omar Khayyám's geometric solution to cubic equations.

This philosophical view of mathematics (see below) has had a significant impact on Khayyám's celebrated approach and method in geometric algebra and in particular in solving cubic equations. In that his solution is not a direct path to a numerical solution and in fact his solutions are not numbers but rather line segments. In this regard Khayyám's work can be considered the first systematic study and the first exact method of solving cubic equations.^[19]

In an untitled writing on cubic equations by Khayyám discovered in 20th century,^[18] where the above quote appears, Khayyám works on problems of geometric algebra. First is the problem of "finding a point on a quadrant of a circle such that when a normal is dropped from the point to one of the bounding radii, the ratio of the normal's length to that of the radius equals the ratio of the segments determined by the foot of the normal." Again in solving this problem, he reduces it to another geometric problem: "find a right triangle having the property that the hypotenuse equals the sum of one leg (i.e. side) plus the altitude on the hypotenuse.^[20] To solve this geometric problem, he specializes a parameter and reaches the cubic equation Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): x^3+200x=20x^2+2000 .^[18] Indeed, he finds a positive root for this equation by intersecting a hyperbola with a circle.

This particular geometric solution of cubic equations has been further investigated and extended to degree four equations.^[21]

Regarding more general equations he states that the solution of cubic equations requires the use of conic sections and that it cannot be solved by ruler and compass methods.^[18] A proof of this impossibility was plausible only 750 years after Khayyám died. In this paper Khayyám mentions his will to prepare a paper giving full solution to cubic equations: "If the opportunity arises and I can succeed, I shall give all these fourteen forms with all their branches and cases, and how to distinguish whatever is possible or impossible so that a paper, containing elements which are greatly useful in this art will be prepared."^[18]

This refers to the book Treatise on Demonstrations of Problems of Algebra (1070), which laid down the principles of algebra, part of the body of Persian Mathematics that was eventually transmitted to Europe.^[19] In particular, he derived general methods for solving cubic equations and even some higher orders.

Binomial theorem and extraction of roots[link]

This particular remark of Khayyám and certain propositions found in his Algebra book has made some historians of mathematics believe that Khayyám had indeed a binomial theorem up to any power. The case of power 2 is explicitly stated in Euclid's elements and the case of at most power 3 had been established by Indian mathematicians. Khayyám was the mathematician who noticed the importance of a general binomial theorem. The argument supporting the claim that Khayyám had a general binomial theorem is based on his ability to extract roots.^[23]

Khayyám-Saccheri quadrilateral[link]

The Saccheri quadrilateral was first considered by Khayyám in the late 11th century in Book I of Explanations of the Difficulties in the Postulates of Euclid.^[24] Unlike many commentators on Euclid before and after him (including of course Saccheri), Khayyám was not trying to prove the parallel postulate as such but to derive it from an equivalent postulate he formulated from "the principles of the Philosopher" (Aristotle):

Two convergent straight lines intersect and it is impossible for two convergent straight lines to diverge in the direction in which they converge.^[25]

Khayyám then considered the three cases (right, obtuse, and acute) that the summit angles of a Saccheri quadrilateral can take and after proving a number of theorems about them, he (correctly) refuted the obtuse and acute cases based on his postulate and hence derived the classic postulate of Euclid.

It wasn't until 600 years later that Giordano Vitale made an advance on Khayyám in his book Euclide restituo (1680, 1686), when he used the quadrilateral to prove that if three points are equidistant on the base AB and the summit CD, then AB and CD are everywhere equidistant. Saccheri himself based the whole of his long, heroic, and ultimately flawed proof of the parallel postulate around the quadrilateral and its three cases, proving many theorems about its properties along the way.

Astronomer[link]

The Jalali calendar was introduced by Omar Khayyám alongside other Mathematicians and Astronomers in Nishapur, today it is one of the oldest calendars in the world as well as the most accurate solar calendar in use today. Since the calendar uses astronomical calculation for determining the vernal equinox, it has no intrinsic error, but this makes it an observation based calendar.^{[26][27][28][29]}

Like most Persian mathematicians of the period, Khayyám was famous as an astronomer. In 1073, the Seljuq Sultan Jalal al-Din Malik-Shah Saljuqi (Malik-Shah I, 1072–92), invited Khayyám to build an observatory, along with various other distinguished scientists. According to some accounts, the version of the medieval Iranian calendar in which 2,820 solar years together contain 1,029,983 days (or 683 leap years, for an average year length of 365.24219858156 days) was based on the measurements of Khayyám and his colleagues.^[30] Another proposal is that Khayyám's calendar simply contained eight leap years every thirty-three years (for a year length of 365.2424 days).^[31] In either case, his calendar was more accurate to the mean tropical year than the Gregorian calendar of 500 years later. The modern Iranian calendar is based on his calculations.

Heliocentric Theory[link]

It is sometimes claimed that Khayyam demonstrated that the earth rotates on its axis^[32] by presenting a model of the stars to his contemporary al-Ghazali in a planetarium.^[33] Whether or not the story is apocryphal, it would only demonstrate the mathematical equivalence of a rotating earth to rotating spheres, as was well known to Khayyam's immediate predecessors, e.g. al-Biruni, and says nothing about heliocentrism, as a spinning earth can be made entirely consistent with geocentric models.

The other source for the claim that Khayyam believed in heliocentrism are Edward Fitzgerald's popular but anachronistic renderings ^[34] of Khayyam's poetry, in which the first lines are mistranslated with a heliocentric image of the Sun flinging "the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight".^[35]

Calendar Reform[link]

Khayyám is claimed to be a member of a panel that introduced several reforms to the Iranian calendar.^{[citation needed]} On March 15, 1079, Sultan Malik Shah accepted this corrected calendar as the official Persian calendar.^[36]

This calendar was known as the Jalali calendar after the Sultan, and was in force across Greater Iran from the 11th to the 20th centuries. It is the basis of the Iranian calendar which is followed today in Iran and Afghanistan. While the Jalali calendar is more accurate than the Gregorian, it is based on actual solar transit, similar to Hindu calendars, and requires an ephemeris for calculating dates. The lengths of the months can vary between 29 and 31 days depending on the moment when the sun crosses into a new zodiacal area (an attribute common to most Hindu calendars). This meant that seasonal errors were lower than in the Gregorian calendar.

The modern-day Iranian calendar standardizes the month lengths based on a reform from 1925, thus minimizing the effect of solar transits. Seasonal errors are somewhat higher than in the Jalali version, but leap years are calculated as before.

Poet[link]

Omar Khayyám was a notable poet during the reign of the Seljuk ruler Malik-Shah I and his contributions to the developments of Mathematics, Astronomy and Philosophy inspired later generations.

He is believed to have written about a thousand four-line verses or rubaiyat (quatrains). In the English-speaking world, he was introduced through the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám which are rather free-wheeling English translations by Edward FitzGerald (1809–1883). Other English translations of parts of the rubáiyát (rubáiyát meaning "quatrains") exist, but FitzGerald's are the most well known.

Ironically, FitzGerald's translations reintroduced Khayyám to Iranians "who had long ignored the Neishapouri poet." A 1934 book by one of Iran's most prominent writers, Sadeq Hedayat, Songs of Khayyam, (Taranehha-ye Khayyam) is said to have "shaped the way a generation of Iranians viewed" the poet.^[37]

Khayyam's poetry is translated to many languages.

Khayyám's personal beliefs are not known with certainty, but much is discernible from his poetic oeuvre.

Poetry[link]

A well decorated plaque containing poems from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.

Omar Khayyám's poems have been translated many times in many languages and many translators have claimed that their translations of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám literal, poetic and less controversial than that of Edward Fitzgerald.^{[citation needed]}

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
  Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit,
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
  Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

But helpless pieces in the game He plays,
  Upon this chequer-board of Nights and Days,
He hither and thither moves, and checks ... and slays,
  Then one by one, back in the Closet lays.

And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
  The Tavern shouted - "Open then the Door!
You know how little time we have to stay,
  And once departed, may return no more."

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
  A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou,
Beside me singing in the Wilderness,
  And oh, Wilderness is Paradise enow.

If chance supplied a loaf of white bread,
  Two casks of wine and a leg of mutton,
In the corner of a garden with a tulip-cheeked girl,
  There'd be enjoyment no Sultan could outdo.

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
  Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
  Came out of the same Door as in I went.

With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
  And with my own hand labour'd it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd -
  "I came like Water, and like Wind I go."

Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
  Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
  I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.

And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
  Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help - for It
  Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

.........................................

Views on religion[link]

There have been widely divergent views on Khayyám. According to Seyyed Hossein Nasr no other Iranian writer/scholar is viewed in such extremely differing ways. At one end of the spectrum there are nightclubs named after Khayyám, and he is seen as an agnostic hedonist. On the other end of the spectrum, he is seen as a mystical Sufi poet influenced by platonic traditions.

The verse: "Enjoy wine and women and don't be afraid, Allah has compassion," suggests that he was not an atheist. He^[who?] further believes that it is almost certain that Khayyám objected to the notion that every particular event and phenomenon was the result of divine intervention. Nor did he zealously believe in an afterlife with a Judgment Day or rewards and punishments.^[38] Instead, he supported the view that laws of nature explained all phenomena of observed life. One contemporary writes: "I did not observe that he had any great belief in astrological predictions or speculations; nor have I seen or heard of any of the great (scientists) who had such belief."^{[citation needed]}

The following two quatrains are representative of numerous others that serve to reject many tenets of religious dogma:

An excerpt from the "al-Risålah fil-wujud" (Treatise on Being), one of Omar Khayyám's major works on Islamic theology.

خيام اگر ز باده مستى خوش باش

با ماه رخى اگر نشستى خوش باش

چون عاقبت كار جهان نيستى است

انگار كه نيستى، چو هستى خوش باش‎

which translates in FitzGerald's work as:

And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,

End in the Nothing all Things end in — Yes —

Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what

Thou shalt be — Nothing — Thou shalt not be less.

A more literal translation could read:

If with wine you are drunk be happy,

If seated with a moon-faced (beautiful), be happy,

Since the end purpose of the universe is nothing-ness;

Hence picture your nothing-ness, then while you are, be happy!

آنانكه ز پيش رفته‌اند اى ساقى

درخاك غرور خفته‌اند اى ساقى

رو باده خور و حقيقت از من بشنو

باد است هرآنچه گفته‌اند اى ساقى‎

which FitzGerald has erroneously and mistakenly interpreted as:

Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d

Of the Two Worlds so learnedly — are thrust

Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn

Are scatter’d, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.

A literal translation, in an ironic echo of "all is vanity", could read:

Those who have gone forth, thou cup-bearer,

Have fallen upon the dust of pride, thou cup-bearer,

Drink wine and hear from me the truth:

(Hot) air is all that they have said, thou cup-bearer.

But some specialists, like Seyyed Hossein Nasr who looks at the available philosophical works of Khayyám, maintain that it is really reductive to just look at the poems (which are sometimes doubtful) to establish his personal views about God or religion; in fact, he even wrote a treatise entitled "al-Khutbat al-gharrå˘" (The Splendid Sermon) on the praise of God, where he holds orthodox views, agreeing with Avicenna on Divine Unity.^[5] In fact, this treatise is not an exception, and S.H. Nasr gives an example where he identified himself as a Sufi, after criticizing different methods of knowing God, preferring the intuition over the rational (opting for the so-called "kashf", or unveiling, method):^[5]

"... Fourth, the Sufis, who do not seek knowledge by ratiocination or discursive thinking, but by purgation of their inner being and the purifying of their dispositions. They cleanse the rational soul of the impurities of nature and bodily form, until it becomes pure substance. When it then comes face to face with the spiritual world, the forms of that world become truly reflected in it, without any doubt or ambiguity.

This is the best of all ways, because it is known to the servant of God that there is no reflection better than the Divine Presence and in that state there are no obstacles or veils in between. Whatever man lacks is due to the impurity of his nature. If the veil be lifted and the screen and

obstacle removed, the truth of things as they are will become manifest and known. And the Master of creatures [the Prophet Muhammad]—upon whom be peace—indicated this when he said: “Truly, during the days of your existence, inspirations come from God. Do you not want to follow them?” Tell unto reasoners that, for the lovers of God, intuition is guide, not discursive thought."

—Omar Khayyám^[39]

The same author goes on by giving other philosophical writings which are totally compatible with the religion of Islam, as the "al-Risålah fil-wujud" (Treatise on Being), written in Arabic, which begin with Quranic verses and asserting that all things come from God, and there is an order in these things. In another work, "Risålah jawåban li-thalåth maså˘il" (Treatise of Response to Three Questions), he gives a response to question on, for instance, the becoming of the soul post-mortem. S.H. Nasr even gives some poetry where he is perfectly in favor of Islamic orthodoxy, but expressing mystical views (God's goodness, the ephemerical state of this life, ...):^[5]

Thou hast said that Thou wilt torment me,

But I shall fear not such a warning.

For where Thou art, there can be no torment,

And where Thou art not, how can such a place exist?

The rotating wheel of heaven within which we wonder,

Is an imaginal lamp of which we have knowledge by similitude.

The sun is the candle and the world the lamp,

We are like forms revolving within it.

A drop of water falls in an ocean wide,

A grain of dust becomes with earth allied;

What doth thy coming, going here denote?

A fly appeared a while, then invisible he became.

Considering misunderstandings about Khayyám in the West and elsewhere, S.H. Nasr concludes by saying that if a correct study of the authentic rubaiyat is done, but along with the philosophical works, or even the spiritual biography entitled Sayr wa sulak (Spiritual Wayfaring), we can no longer view the man as a simple hedonistic wine-lover, or even an early skeptic, but a profound mystical thinker and scientist whose works are more important than some verses.^[5] C.H.A. Bjerregaard earlier summarised the situation:

"The writings of Omar Khayyam are good specimens of Sufism but are not valued in the West as they ought to be, and the mass of the people know him only through the poems of Edward Fitzgerald which is unfortunate. It is unfortunate because Fitzgerald is not faithful to his master and model, and at times he lays words upon the tongue of the Sufi which are blasphemous. Such outrageous language is that of the eighty-first quatrain for instance. Fitzgerald is doubly guilty because he was more of a Sufi than he was willing to admit."^[40]

Abdullah Dougan, a modern Naqshbandi Sufi, provides commentary^[41] on the role and contribution of Omar Khayyam to Sufi thought. Dougan says that while Omar is a minor Sufi teacher compared to the giants – Rumi, Attar and Sana’i – one aspect that makes Omar’s work so relevant and accessible is its very human scale as we can feel for him and understand his approach. The argument over the quality of Fitzgerald’s translation of the Rubaiyat has, according to Dougan, diverted attention from a fuller understanding of the deeply esoteric message contained in Omar’s actual material – "Every line of the Rubaiyat has more meaning than almost anything you could read in Sufi literature".

Philosopher[link]

Tomb of Omar Khayyám Neishapuri in Nishapur, Iran

An Ottoman Era inscription of a poem written by Omar Khayyám at Morića Han in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Khayyám himself rejects to be associated with the title falsafi "philosopher" in the sense of Aristotelianism and stressed he wishes "to know who I am". In the context of philosophers he was labeled by some of his contemporaries as "detached from divine blessings".^[42]

It is now established that Khayyám taught for decades the philosophy of Avicena, especially "the Book of Healing", in his home town Nishapur, till his death.^[5] In an incident he had been requested to comment on a disagreement between Avicena and a philosopher called Abu'l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī who had criticized Avicena strongly. Khayyám is said to have answered "[he] does not even understand the sense of the words of Avicenna, how can he oppose what he does not know?"^[42]

Khayyám the philosopher could be understood from two rather distinct sources. One is through his Rubaiyat and the other through his own works in light of the intellectual and social conditions of his time.^[43] The latter could be informed by the evaluations of Khayyám's works by scholars and philosophers such as Abul-Fazl Bayhaqi, Nizami Aruzi, and al-Zamakhshari and Sufi poets and writers Attar of Nishapur and Najm-al-Din Razi.

As a mathematician, Khayyám has made fundamental contributions to the Philosophy of mathematics especially in the context of Persian Mathematics and Persian philosophy with which most of the other Persian scientists and philosophers such as Avicenna, Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī and Tusi are associated. There are at least three basic mathematical ideas of strong philosophical dimensions that can be associated with Khayyám.

1. Mathematical order: From where does this order issue, and why does it correspond to the world of nature? His answer is in one of his philosophical "treatises on being". Khayyám's answer is that "the Divine Origin of all existence not only emanates wujud "being", by virtue of which all things gain reality, but It is the source of order that is inseparable from the very act of existence."^[43]
2. The significance of axioms in geometry and the necessity for the mathematician to rely upon philosophy and hence the importance of the relation of any particular science to prime philosophy. This is the philosophical background to Khayyám's total rejection of any attempt to "prove" the parallel postulate, and in turn his refusal to bring motion into the attempt to prove this postulate, as had Ibn al-Haytham, because Khayyám associated motion with the world of matter, and wanted to keep it away from the purely intelligible and immaterial world of geometry.^[43]
3. Clear distinction made by Khayyám, on the basis of the work of earlier Persian philosophers such as Avicenna, between natural bodies and mathematical bodies. The first is defined as a body that is in the category of substance and that stands by itself, and hence a subject of natural sciences, while the second, called "volume", is of the category of accidents (attributes) that do not subsist by themselves in the external world and hence is the concern of mathematics. Khayyám was very careful to respect the boundaries of each discipline, and criticized ibn al-Haytham in his proof of the parallel postulate precisely because he had broken this rule and had brought a subject belonging to natural philosophy, that is, motion, which belongs to natural bodies, into the domain of geometry, which deals with mathematical bodies.^[43]

Legacy[link]

• A lunar crater Omar Khayyam was named after him in 1970.
• A minor planet called 3095 Omarkhayyam, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Zhuravlyova in 1980, is named after him.^[44]

See also[link]

	Iran portal
	Biography portal
	Poetry portal

• Astronomy in medieval Islam
• Mathematics in medieval Islam
• Nozhat al-Majales
• Omar Khayyam (film)
• The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Omar Khayyám

• Hashemipour, Behnaz (2007). "Khayyām: Ghiyāth al‐Dīn Abū al‐Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm al‐Khayyāmī al‐Nīshāpūrī". In Thomas Hockey et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. pp. 627–8. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0. http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/BEA/Khayyam_BEA.htm.  (PDF version)
• Umar Khayyam, at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Khayyam's works in original Persian at Ganjoor Persian Library
• Khayyam in Tarikhema.ir

• Listen to The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám audiobook at LibriVox
• The illustrated Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám at Internet Archive.
• Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat as translated by Edward Fitzgerald – 1st edition
• The Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam – The Internet Classics Archive
• Illustrations to the Rubaiyat by Adelaide Hanscom
• Panoramic Images of Khayyam’s Tomb

Richard Conte (born Nicholas Peter Conte; March 24, 1910 – April 15, 1975) was an American actor.^[1] He appeared in numerous films from the 1940s through 1970s, including I'll Cry Tomorrow and The Godfather.

Life and career[link]

Richard Conte was born Nicholas Peter Conte on March 24, 1910, in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of Italian-Americans Julia (Fina), a seamstress, and Pasquale Conte, a barber.^[2]

Conte held a variety of jobs before becoming a professional actor, including truck driver, Wall Street clerk and singing waiter at a Connecticut resort. In 1935, he was discovered by actors Elia Kazan and John Garfield during his job at the Connecticut resort, which led to Conte finding stage work. He eventually earned a scholarship to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, where he became a standout actor.

He made his Broadway debut late in Moon Over Mulberry Street in 1939, and went on to be featured in other plays, including Night Music and Walk Into My Parlor. That led to his first film performance in 1939, Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence, in which he was billed as Nicholas Conte. His career started to thrive during the Second World War, when many Hollywood actors were away in the military. In 1942 Conte signed a long-term contract with 20th Century Fox. He then changed his name to Richard Conte. His first Fox film was Guadalcanal Diary (1943). During the World War II years, Conte played mostly soldiers in war dramas, including A Walk in the Sun (1945).

Conte appeared in many films noir after World War II. Conte appeared in the espionage movie "13 Rue Madeleine" (1947) and in such Fox crime dramas as Cry of the City and Call Northside 777 (both from 1948), and Thieves' Highway. Conte appeared in Otto Preminger's classic film noir Whirlpool, co-starring Gene Tierney (1949). He also starred with Susan Hayward along with Edward G. Robinson and Luther Adler in House of Strangers (1949) as Max Monetti, a lawyer who defends his father (Robinson) against government charges of banking irregularities and goes to prison for jury tampering.

In the early-1950s, Conte, now not working for Fox, began appearing in films for various studios. Critics and fans consider his best films from that era include the film noir B-movies The Sleeping City (1950), The Raging Tide (1951), Highway Dragnet (1954), The Blue Gardenia (1953) and The Big Combo (1955). He also was featured in a leading role opposite Susan Hayward in the 1955 film production, I'll Cry Tomorrow, a biopic about singer/actress Lillian Roth. In 1959, Conte starred in The Twilight Zone episode Perchance to Dream.

He appeared as one of The Four Just Men (1959) in the Sapphire Films TV series for ITV.

Once film noir became less popular in the 1960s Conte’s career was at a standstill. In 1964, he and Anne Francis guest starred in the episode "Hideout" of CBS's short-lived drama The Reporter, starring Harry Guardino in the title role as New York City journalist Danny Taylor, with Gary Merrill as city editor Lou Sheldon. In 1966, Conte landed a supporting role in the short-lived CBS sitcom The Jean Arthur Show.^[3]

Conte appeared as Lieutenant Dave Santini in two Frank Sinatra crime films, Tony Rome (1967) and Lady in Cement (1968). He had also appeared with Sinatra in the 1960 film Oceans 11 and the 1966 movie Assault on a Queen.

Conte eventually moved to Europe and acted in a number of films. Later in life, Conte acted one of his most memorable performances in The Godfather (1972) as Don Barzini (he was at one time also considered for the title role, a role that Marlon Brando eventually filled.)

He continued to work in European films until his death. His most notable of over sixty films include The Godfather (1972), Oceans 11 (1960), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), and Call Northside 777 (1948).

Family[link]

Conte was married to the actress Ruth Storey, with whom he fathered a son, film editor Mark Conte. He married his second wife, Shirlee Garner, in 1973; they remained married until Conte's death. His grandson is Chicago Bears safety Chris Conte. Chris is the son of Mark Conte.

Death[link]

He died of a heart attack on April 15, 1975, aged 65. He is buried in the Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California.

Awards[link]

Selected filmography[link]

• Little Red Monkey (1955)

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Richard Conte at the Internet Movie Database
• Richard Conte at the Internet Broadway Database
• Richard Conte at Find a Grave

Naked Prey was a rock band from Tucson, Arizona formed in 1982 by former Green on Red drummer Van Christian^[1] and David Seeger, who had been in the original lineup of the Giant Sandworms (who later became Giant Sand) as well as The Pedestrians, a band credited with having performed the first punk rock show in Tucson.^[2] Other artists who recorded or performed with the band included members of Green on Red^[3] and the Sand Rubies, John Convertino and Joey Burns, later of Calexico, Chuck Prophet, Rainer Ptacek^[4] and long time drummer Tommy Larkins, who currently plays with Jonathan Richman, famously appearing with him as half of the two-man Greek chorus in There's Something About Mary. Christian himself also performed with The Band of Blacky Ranchette (an occasional project of Giant Sand's Howe Gelb)^[5] and was in the original lineup of The Friends of Dean Martinez.

Naked Prey's aggressive, distorted sound was characterized as "rough-edged country rock" and "folk-distorto-rock"^[6] and the band was credited with helping to pioneer the guitar-heavy "Desert Rock" sound associated with Tucson in the 1980s and 1990s.^[7] The band was also associated with the vaguely psychedelic Paisley Underground scene out of Los Angeles.

In 1984 Naked Prey recorded their first record, produced by Dan Stuart of Green on Red for the Down There label of Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate). Two subsequent releases were on Los Angeles-based independent label Frontier Records. Though they never achieved commercial success, they, like many Tucson bands, acquired a substantial following in Europe.^[8] The band broke up in the late 1990s,^[9] but Christian re-unites Naked Prey from time to time for occasional performances.^[10]

Members[link]

• Van Christian - Vocals, guitar
• David Seger - Guitar, vocals
• Richard Baden - Bass, vocals
• Tommy Larkins - Drums

Discography[link]

• Naked Prey (1984)
• Under the Blue Marlin (1986)
• 40 Miles from Nowhere (1987)
• Kill the Messenger (1989)
• Live in Tucson (1990)
• Jumbo's Shinebox (1992)
• And then I Shot Everyone (1995)

References[link]