Two Omar Khayyams (?) but: a fine and brilliant movie

Amongst historians, mathematicians and experts in Persian literature there still is what seems to have become a never ending discussion about a man (or two men) named Omar Khayyam. The mathematicians cannot find any relation between the poetical works of a man named Omar Khayyam and an Omar Khayyam who was a mathematician and astronomer and some more things.

The knowledge of mathematics of literature-experts is normally not on the level of this type of name-discussions. Nowadays, 800 years later it is accepted that both talents are not mutually excluding. It's good to know about this discussion as a correct and scientifically reliable answer can take a lot of headaches away, including mine...

The thing that is not mentioned in this fine movie is the fact that one of the Khayyams supposed a fourth dimension in his mathematical work WITHOUT GIVING IT ANY NAME. I have not been able to finish a search I started as the author of the article with this fact in a quality-encyclopedia in Spanish had gone and could not be found.

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In Europe, the film is only available in Germany. Holland - my native country -has not seen it yet and Spain - where I live - also not. That is surprising as this film is the best fight against political prejudices in the country where it was made. I decided to buy the DVD from Amazon and received it correctly. The Region-code was different from the one used in Europe but thanks to the service of Amazon I could reprogramme my DVD-player and watch this very profesionally done work several times.

It brought me back to the three years I studied 'The Rubaiyat' in several languages and enjoyed it thoroughly. For the first time I got an idea of what Persia/Iran must have looked like in the days of Omar Kayyam (any of the eventual two!) although the film was not made there.

I congratulate Kahyvan Mashayekh and his team for bringing this sometimes incredible beauty about an important - be it small - part of the history of his native country so 'we' Western people learn to have respect and admiration for this part of the world we live in.

Jan Arends / SPAIN