Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham (965 in Basra – c. 1040 in Cairo) was a Muslim[5] scientist, polymath, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, described in various sources as either an Arab or Persian.[1][6] He made significant contributions to the principles of optics, as well as to astronomy, mathematics, visual perception, and to the scientific method. He also wrote insightful commentaries on works by Aristotle, Ptolemy, and the Greek mathematician Euclid.[7]He is frequently referred to as Ibn al-Haytham, and sometimes as al-Basri (Arabic: البصري), after his birthplace in the city of Basra.[8] He was also nicknamed Ptolemaeus Secundus ("Ptolemy the Second")[9] or simply "The Physicist"[10] in medieval Europe.
Born circa 965, in Basra, present-day Iraq, he lived mainly in Cairo, Egypt, dying there at age 74.[9] According to one version of his biography, overconfident about practical application of his mathematical knowledge, he assumed that he could regulate the floods of the Nile.[11] After being ordered by Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, the sixth ruler of the Fatimid caliphate, to carry out this operation, he quickly perceived the impossibility of what he was attempting to do. Fearing for his life, he feigned madness[1][12] and was placed under house arrest, during which he undertook scientific work. After the death of Al-Hakim he was able to prove that he was not mad, and for the rest of his life he made money copying texts while writing mathematical works and teaching.[13] He is known as the "Father of Modern Optics, Experimental physics and Scientific methodology"[14][15][16][17] and could be regarded as the first theoretical physicist
Biography
Alhazen was born in Basra, in the Iraq province of the Buyid Empire.[1] He probably died in Cairo, Egypt. During the Islamic Golden Age, Basra was a "key beginning of learning",[18] and he was educated there and in Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, and the focus of the "high point of Islamic civilization".[18] During his time in Buyid Iran, he worked as what could be described as a civil servant and studied maths and science.[8][19]One account of his career has him called to Egypt by Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, ruler of the Fatimid Caliphate, to regulate the flooding of the Nile, a task requiring an early attempt at building a dam at the present site of the Aswan Dam.[20] After deciding the scheme was impractical and fearing the caliph's anger, he feigned madness.
He was kept under house arrest from 1011 until al-Hakim's death in 1021.[21] During this time, he wrote his influential Book of Optics. After his house arrest ended, he wrote scores of other treatises on physics, astronomy and mathematics. He later traveled to Islamic Spain. During this period, he had ample time for his scientific pursuits, which included optics, mathematics, physics, medicine, and practical experiments. Some biographers have claimed that Alhazen fled to Syria, ventured into Baghdad later in his life, or was in Basra when he pretended to be insane. In any case, he was in Egypt by 1038.[8] During his time in Cairo, he contributed to the work of Dar-el-Hikma, the city's "House of Wisdom".[22]Among his students were Sorkhab (Sohrab), a Persian student who was one of the greatest people of Iran's Semnan and was his student for over 3 years, and Abu al-Wafa Mubashir ibn Fatek, an Egyptian scientist who learned mathematics from Alhazan.[23]
Legacy
Alhazen made significant improvements in optics, physical science, and the scientific method. Alhazen's work on optics is credited with contributing a new emphasis on experiment. The Latin translation of his main work, Kitab al-Manazir (Book of Optics),[24] exerted a great influence on Western science: for example, on the work of Roger Bacon, who cites him by name.[25] His research in catoptrics (the study of optical systems using mirrors) centred on spherical and parabolic mirrors and spherical aberration. He made the observation that the ratio between the angle of incidence and refraction does not remain constant, and investigated the magnifying power of a lens. His work on catoptrics also contains the problem known as "Alhazen's problem".[26] Meanwhile in the Islamic world, Alhazen's work influenced Averroes' writings on optics,[27] and his legacy was further advanced through the 'reforming' of his Optics by Persian scientist Kamal al-Din al-Farisi (d. ca. 1320) in the latter's Kitab Tanqih al-Manazir (The Revision of [Ibn al-Haytham's] Optics).[28] He wrote as many as 200 books, although only 55 have survived, and many of those have not yet been translated from Arabic.[citation needed] Some of his treatises on optics survived only through Latin translation. During the Middle Ages his books on cosmology were translated into Latin, Hebrew and other languages.
The crater Alhazen on the Moon is named in his honour,[29] as was the asteroid 59239 Alhazen.[30] In honour of Alhazen, the Aga Khan University (Pakistan) named its Ophthalmology endowed chair as "The Ibn-e-Haitham Associate Professor and Chief of Ophthalmology".[31] Alhazen (by the name Ibn al-Haytham) is featured on the obverse of the Iraqi 10,000 dinars banknote issued in 2003,[32] and on 10 dinar notes from 1982. A research facility that UN weapons inspectors suspected of conducting chemical and biological weapons research in Saddam Hussein's Iraq was also named after him.[32][33]
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