Ibn al-Haytham
Arab physicist, mathematician and astronomer (c. 965 – c. 1040) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham (Latinized as Alhazen; /ælˈhæzən/; full name Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham أبو علي، الحسن بن الحسن بن الهيثم; c. 965 – c. 1040) was a medieval mathematician, astronomer, and physicist of the Islamic Golden Age from present-day Iraq.[6][7][8][9] Referred to as "the father of modern optics",[10][11][12] he made significant contributions to the principles of optics and visual perception in particular. His most influential work is titled Kitāb al-Manāẓir (Arabic: كتاب المناظر, "Book of Optics"), written during 1011–1021, which survived in a Latin edition.[13] The works of Alhazen were frequently cited during the scientific revolution by Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Christiaan Huygens, and Galileo Galilei.
Alhazen Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham | |
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ابن الهيثم | |
Born | c. 965 (0965) (c. 354 AH)[1] |
Died | c. 1040 (1041) (c. 430 AH)[1] (aged around 75) |
Known for | Book of Optics, Doubts Concerning Ptolemy, Alhazen's problem, analysis,[2] Catoptrics,[3] horopter, Spherical aberration, intromission theory of visual perception, moon illusion, experimental science, scientific methodology,[4] animal psychology[5] |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physics, mathematics, astronomy |
Ibn al-Haytham was the first to correctly explain the theory of vision,[14] and to argue that vision occurs in the brain, pointing to observations that it is subjective and affected by personal experience.[15] He also stated the principle of least time for refraction which would later become the Fermat's principle.[16] He made major contributions to catoptrics and dioptrics by studying reflection, refraction and nature of images formed by light rays.[17][18] Ibn al-Haytham was an early proponent of the concept that a hypothesis must be supported by experiments based on confirmable procedures or mathematical reasoning—an early pioneer in the scientific method five centuries before Renaissance scientists,[19][20][21][22] he is sometimes described as the world's "first true scientist".[12] He was also a polymath, writing on philosophy, theology and medicine.[23]
Born in Basra, he spent most of his productive period in the Fatimid capital of Cairo and earned his living authoring various treatises and tutoring members of the nobilities.[24] Ibn al-Haytham is sometimes given the byname al-Baṣrī after his birthplace,[25] or al-Miṣrī ("the Egyptian").[26][27] Al-Haytham was dubbed the "Second Ptolemy" by Abu'l-Hasan Bayhaqi[28] and "The Physicist" by John Peckham.[29] Ibn al-Haytham paved the way for the modern science of physical optics.[30]