Abu Rehan Biruni, an Iranian scientist, was nicknamed “astronomer”, “mathematician”, “father of geodesy”, “calendarist” and “naturalist” due to his deep studies, especially in basic sciences, and finally he became “all-knowing scientist” and named The anniversary of his birth, called the National Day of Basic Sciences, provided an opportunity to draw the attention of people and statesmen to this issue and its effects on a better life and a brighter future for future generations.
According to RCO News Agency, It is said that one day Abu Rihan Biruni went out with one of his students to study the stars in the city where he lived, and he wandered in the desert next to a mill until it was dusk and a little after night when the miller came out and addressed Abu Rihan and his student and said that he wanted to close the door of the mill, if you want to come in, come in with me now, because I can’t hear and it’s going to rain tonight, you’ll get wet, and no matter how much you knock on the door in the middle of the night, I won’t hear.
Aburihan’s student interrupted the miller’s words and said: “What are you saying, man?” The fact that he is sitting here is the greatest scientist and mathematician as well as the world’s astronomer, and according to his estimation, it will not rain tonight! The miller said, I said to Har Roy.
Half of the night passed, it started raining heavily and no matter how much Aburihan and his apprentice knocked on the door of the mill, the miller did not wake up until it was morning and the miller came out and saw that both the apprentice and the master were shivering from the cold. Both of them said to the miller that how did you know that it will rain last night? The miller replied, I didn’t know, my dog knew! Every night when it is supposed to rain, the dog comes inside the mill to avoid getting wet.
Suddenly Abu Rihan sang and said: God, I know so much that I know as much as a dog, I still don’t know.
This is the narration of the prominent Iranian scientist in the second half of the fourth century and the beginning of the fifth century and a comprehensive writer and the author of numerous works in mathematics, astronomy, pharmacology, mineralogy, geography and Indology. Abu Rihan Boruni is one of the personalities whose scientific personality dimensions were revealed to the world with the advancement of science. Abu Rihan is a man who was surrounded by most of the natural sciences of his time, and he was one of the first people in Islamic civilization to find the specific weight of many objects. Recent centuries, considering all the new devices they have produced, are very insignificant.
He spent the first 25 years of his life in the city where he was born and was busy learning Arabic, Islamic jurisprudence and theology, Greek sciences, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, etc. During this period, he put some of his early works on paper and corresponded and exchanged opinions with Ibn Sina, another Iranian scientist, regarding Aristotle’s natural philosophy and Masha’s philosophy.
He was the first person who was able to obtain a simple formula for measuring the radius of the earth. Abu Rihan thought that the earth revolves around the sun and developed this idea so that he could prove it in his time. He has also successfully theorized about geology courses.
The scientific life of Abu Rihan
Aburihan Biruni showed great interest in acquiring knowledge in his childhood and started learning different sciences from that time. By getting to know “Amir Nasr Mansour bin Ali bin Iraq”, who was considered one of the great Iranian scholars at that time, he was able to enter the court of Khwarazm Shah and go to the Sultan School of Khwarazm. At the same time, when he was only 17 years old, he started measuring the height of the half-day, i.e., the meridian height of the sun, in his hometown, the city of Kath, using a graded ring called “Shahiyeh”.
He made many attempts to make more observations, but he only managed to observe the summer solstice in a village near Kath.
After the fall of the Al-Iraq regime in Khwarezm, Abu Rihan also hid for a while and moved to other places. After the beginning of the reign of the son of Mamun bin Muhammad Ali bin Mamun, he returned to the city of Kath. He managed to observe the solar eclipse on the 7th of June 387.
In those years, Abu Rihan Biruni had reached a position where the greatest scientists of the time were willing to cooperate with him. For example, in the same solar eclipse, Abulofai Bozjani simultaneously observed this phenomenon from the city of Baghdad, and Abu Rihan was able to obtain the geographical difference between the two cities based on the time difference he had observed in this way.
Abu Rihan Biruni listed his books until 427 AD. In other words, at the age of 65, he has counted 113 copies, which are mostly dedicated to mathematics, astronomy and related subjects. The majority of external writings were in Arabic, that is, the scientific language of the Islamic world and Iran. George Sarton, the founder of the history of science, defines al-Biruni as one of the greatest Iranian scientists after Islam and scientists of all time, and says that he is a global genius who lived in Central Asia a thousand years ago.
Biruni was also a geologist, mineralogist and a great researcher in physics and natural sciences, who is referred to as the “father of geodesy”; Because Biruni talked about evolution much earlier than Darwin, and before Mercator’s map, he talked about the leveling of the equator, before Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo about astronomy and the rotation of the earth.
By proposing that parts of the Earth’s crust are displaced and the geographic coordinates of cities change, Biruni was the first to propose a view of “plate tectonics” nearly a thousand years ago, while geologists only discovered it in the 1960s. In addition, with precise expressions of the changes in the weight of different sides of the earth, the increase of ridges, the deepening of valleys, the sudden occurrence of transformations, with deep insight, he has made correct references to the causes of orogeny and earthquakes.
Also, he was able to propose a simple formula for measuring the radius of the earth. Biruni determined the radius of the earth by mathematical and physical methods using an astrolabe and using the rules of trigonometry and conventional calculations in measuring the height of the mountain in the east of Iran as 6340 km, which is very close to its exact size today, 6371 km.
Biruni was an opinion leader in geology, especially sedimentology. He knew well the process of advance and retreat of the seas and the changes in the course of the rivers and had significant opinions in this field.
This Iranian scientist had a view of the world as a whole, similar to the theories of Einstein and other modern scientists. Like Einstein, he considered the earth to be limited to the outermost surface of a sphere and believed that the movement of a part of a stationary body from one place to another is in a straight line, but its movement around another body in a stationary state has a circular nature that It indicates that the movement is done around a fixed point like the center of the earth. Therefore, the external view is very much in agreement with Einstein’s theory.
As a great researcher, in addition to providing all the knowledge of the day in various subjects, Biruni contributed greatly to other works, including the establishment of laboratories in the current countries of Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.
Baruni is the common heritage of the people of Iran, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Central and South Asia, and when he passed away at the age of 77, he left more than 150 works, including 70 works on astronomy and astronomy, 20 writings on mathematics and 18 literary works. Remembered
This fact caused that in 1401, with the approval of the Public Culture Council, 13 Shahrivar was named as “Basic Science Day” in the country’s official calendar.
Choosing a day of the year as “Basic Science Day” is very important. Because culture precedes science; The result of such an approach will encourage young people and teenagers to continue their studies in various basic sciences, because basic sciences have the most lasting and greatest effect in acquiring technical knowledge and obtaining technology. At the same time, this purposeful action is to draw the attention of people and statesmen to the issue of basic science and promote it, in order to create a better life and a brighter future for future generations. In other words, basic science, with its strong role in future technologies, can connect society to smart governance and play an important role in the progress and development of society.
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