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Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham (Latinized as Alhazen; ; 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. Referred to as "the father of modern optics", 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. The works of Alhazen were frequently cited during the scientific revolution by Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Christiaan Huygens, and Galileo Galilei. Ibn al-Haytham was the first to correctly explain the theory of vision, and to argue that vision occurs in the brain, pointing to observations that it is subjective and affected by personal experience. He also stated the principle of least time for refraction which would later become the Fermat's principle. He made major contributions to catoptrics and dioptrics by studying reflection, refraction and nature of images formed by light rays. 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, he is sometimes described as the world's "first true scientist". He was also a polymath, writing on philosophy, theology and medicine. 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. Ibn al-Haytham is sometimes given the byname al-Baṣrī after his birthplace, or al-Miṣrī ("the Egyptian"). Al-Haytham was dubbed the "Second Ptolemy" by Abu'l-Hasan Bayhaqi and "The Physicist" by John Peckham. Ibn al-Haytham paved the way for the modern science of physical optics. Biography Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) was born c. 965 to a family of Arab or Persian origin in Basra, Iraq, which was at the time part of the Buyid emirate. His initial influences were in the study of religion and service to the community. At the time, society had a number of conflicting views of religion that he ultimately sought to step aside from religion. This led to him delving into the study of mathematics and science. He held a position with the title of vizier in his native Basra, and became famous for his knowledge of applied mathematics. As he claimed to be able to regulate the flooding of the Nile, he was invited to meet the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim in order to realise a hydraulic project at Aswan. However, Ibn al-Haytham was forced to concede the impracticability of his project. Upon his return to Cairo, he was given an administrative post. After he proved unable to fulfill this task as well, he contracted the ire of the caliph al-Hakim, and is said to have been forced into hiding until the caliph's death in 1021, after which his confiscated possessions were returned to him. Legend has it that Alhazen feigned madness and was kept under house arrest during this period. During this time, he wrote his influential Book of Optics. Alhazen continued to live in Cairo, in the neighborhood of the famous University of al-Azhar, and lived from the proceeds of his literary production until his death in c. 1040. (A copy of Apollonius' Conics, written in Ibn al-Haytham's own handwriting exists in Aya Sofya: (MS Aya Sofya 2762, 307 fob., dated Safar 415 A.H. [1024]).): Note 2  Among his students were Sorkhab (Sohrab), a Persian from Semnan, and Abu al-Wafa Mubashir ibn Fatek, an Egyptian prince. Book of Optics Alhazen's most famous work is his seven-volume treatise on optics Kitab al-Manazir (Book of Optics), written from 1011 to 1021. In it, Ibn al-Haytham was the first to explain that vision occurs when light reflects from an object and then passes to one's eyes, and to argue that vision occurs in the brain, pointing to observations that it is subjective and affected by personal experience. Optics was translated into Latin by an unknown scholar at the end of the 12th century or the beginning of the 13th century. This work enjoyed a great reputation during the Middle Ages. The Latin version of De aspectibus was translated at the end of the 14th century into Italian vernacular, under the title De li aspecti. It was printed by Friedrich Risner in 1572, with the title Opticae thesaurus: Alhazeni Arabis libri septem, nuncprimum editi; Eiusdem liber De Crepusculis et nubium ascensionibus (English: Treasury of Optics: seven books by the Arab Alhazen, first edition; by the same, on twilight and the height of clouds). Risner is also the author of the name variant "Alhazen"; before Risner he was known in the west as Alhacen. Works by Alhazen on geometric subjects were discovered in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris in 1834 by E. A. Sedillot. In all, A. Mark Smith has accounted for 18 full or near-complete manuscripts, and five fragments, which are preserved in 14 locations, including one in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and one in the library of Bruges. Theory of optics Two major theories on vision prevailed in classical antiquity. The first theory, the emission theory, was supported by such thinkers as Euclid and Ptolemy, who believed that sight worked by the eye emitting rays of light. The second theory, the intromission theory supported by Aristotle and his followers, had physical forms entering the eye from an object. Previous Islamic writers (such as al-Kindi) had argued essentially on Euclidean, Galenist, or Aristotelian lines. The strongest influence on the Book of Optics was from Ptolemy's Optics, while the description of the anatomy and physiology of the eye was based on Galen's account. Alhazen's achievement was to come up with a theory that successfully combined parts of the mathematical ray arguments of Euclid, the medical tradition of Galen, and the intromission theories of Aristotle. Alhazen's intromission theory followed al-Kindi (and broke with Aristotle) in asserting that "from each point of every colored body, illuminated by any light, issue light and color along every straight line that can be drawn from that point". This left him with the problem of explaining how a coherent image was formed from many independent sources of radiation; in particular, every point of an object would send rays to every point on the eye. What Alhazen needed was for each point on an object to correspond to one point only on the eye. He attempted to resolve this by asserting that the eye would only perceive perpendicular rays from the object—for any one point on the eye, only the ray that reached it directly, without being refracted by any other part of the eye, would be perceived. He argued, using a physical analogy, that perpendicular rays were stronger than oblique rays: in the same way that a ball thrown dir.... Discover the Shanti Hershenson popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Shanti Hershenson books.