Research topic: Ibn al-Haytham

Ibn al-Haytham or Alhazen , 965-c.1040, Arab mathematician. Ibn al-Haytham was born in Basra, Persia, but made his career in Cairo, where he supported himself copying scientific manuscripts. Among his original works, only those on optics, astronomy, and mathematics survive. His Optics, which relied on experiment rather than on past authority, introduced the idea that light rays emanate in straight lines in all directions from every point on a luminous surface. Latin editions of the Optics, available from the 13th cent. on, influenced Kepler and Descartes. As a cosmologist, al-Haytham... Read more