Ibn-al-Haytham (Alhazen)

Category
People (Sciences)
Begin
965
End
1040
Region
Islamic Empire
Reference
Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"The science of optics, which, in later times, came to have close association with astronomy, was also assiduously cultivated by the savants of the realm of Islam. The name that stands out most prominently in this connection is that of Ibn-al-Haythamn (Alhazen in the West). . . . Ibn-al-Haytham can be rightly acclaimed as the progenitor of the art of photography and ultimately the cinematograph, for it was he who first demonstrated the principle of the camera-obscura during an eclipse." [Balyuzi: Muhammad and the Course of Islam, p. 299-300]
"The Book of Optics (...) is a seven-volume treatise on optics and other fields of study composed by the medieval Arab scholar Ibn al-Haytham, known in the West as Alhazen or Alhacen (…).The Book of Optics presented experimentally founded arguments against the widely held extramission theory of vision (as held by Euclid in his Optica) and in favor of intromission theory, as supported by thinkers such as Aristotle, the now accepted model that vision takes place by light entering the eye. Alhazen's work extensively affected the development of optics in Europe between 1260 and 1650." [Wikipedia]