Anyone who has ever used vision glasses or contact lenses, taken a picture with a camera or watched television has a reason to be thankful to the Father of Optics, Alhazen.Latinized as Alhazen, in full, Abū Alī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham, born c. 965, Basra, Iraq, died c. 1040, Cairo, Egypt, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, “mathematician and astronomer who made significant contributions to the principles of optics and the use of scientific experiments.”
David L. Shenkenberg writes in an article titled, ‘Before Newton, there was Alhazen,’ for Photonix.com:
“A millennium ago, an Arab scientist authored more than 100 works on optics, astronomy, mathematics and religious philosophy. Although he was arguably one of the greatest scientists of all time, his name is little known to people living in Western countries today. “
If we read all the works of Alhazen, Roger Bacon from 14th century and Sir Isaac Newton side by side, we may realize that a lot of work attributed to Sir Isaac Newton truly belongs to Alhazen. The paradigm of two civilizations, arising from the politics of crusades, deprived Alhazen of these honors. The time is now ripe to begin the study of the works of these three gifted giants, who were standing on the shoulders of prior giants, side by side, to have a better understanding of the history of science.
Alhazen also described the refraction and the dispersion of light into its component colors, ideas credited to Isaac Newton. “Certainly in the field of optics, Newton himself stood on the shoulders of a giant who lived 700 years earlier,” said Jim Al-Khalili, a physics professor at the University of Surrey in the UK. Khalili recently narrated “The Empire of Reason,” about history of science that is part of a three-part series on medieval Islamic scientists.
Nobel Laureate in physics, Dr. Abdus Salam wrote:
“Ibn-al-Haitham (Alhazen, 965–1039 CE) was one of the greatest physicists of all time. He made experimental contributions of the highest order in optics. He enunciated that a ray of light, in passing through a medium, takes the path which is the easier and ‘quicker’. In this he was anticipating Fermat’s Principle of Least Time by many centuries. He enunciated the law of inertia, later to become Newton’s first law of motion. Part V of Roger Bacon’s ‘Opus Majus’ is practically an annotation to Ibn al Haitham’s Optics.”
The punch line here is, “Part V of Roger Bacon’s ‘Opus Majus’ is practically an annotation to Ibn al Haitham’s Optics.” This is the theme of this knol to demonstrate a smooth transition of science from the Muslim era to European renaissance.
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It is appropriate to start with a quotation that has been mentioned in the summary of the summary of the article above also. It is worth repeating what Dr. Abdus Salam, Nobel Laureate in physics, wrote about Alhazen:
“Ibn-al-Haitham (Alhazen, 965–1039 CE) was one of the greatest physicists of all time. He made experimental contributions of the highest order in optics. He enunciated that a ray of light, in passing through a medium, takes the path which is the easier and ‘quicker’. In this he was anticipating Fermat’s Principle of Least Time by many centuries. He enunciated the law of inertia, later to become Newton’s first law of motion. Part V of Roger Bacon’s “Opus Majus” is practically an annotation to Ibn al Haitham’s Optics.”[1]
“According to the majority of the historians al-Haytham was the pioneer of the modern scientific method. With his book he changed the meaning of the term optics and established experiments as the norm of proof in the field. His investigations are based not on abstract theories, but on experimental evidences and his experiments were systematic and repeatable.”[2][3]
According to Encyclopedia Britannica:
“With the decline of the Greco-Roman realm, scientific progress shifted to the Islamic world. In particular, al-Maʾmūn, the seventh ʿAbbāsid caliph of Baghdad, founded the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma) in ad 830 to translate, study, and improve upon Hellenistic works of science and philosophy. Among the initial scholars were al-Khwārizmī and al-Kindī. Known as the “philosopher of the Arabs,” al-Kindī extended the concept of rectilinearly propagating light rays and discussed the mechanism of vision. By 1000, the Pythagorean model of light had been abandoned, and a ray model, containing the basic conceptual elements of what is now known as geometrical optics, had emerged. In particular, Ibn al-Haytham (Latinized as Alhazen), in Kitab al-manazir (c. 1038; “Optics”), correctly attributed vision to the passive reception of light rays reflected from objects rather than an active emanation of light rays from the eyes. He also studied the mathematical properties of the reflection of light from spherical and parabolic mirrors and drew detailed pictures of the optical components of the human eye. Ibn al-Haytham’s work was translated into Latin in the 13th century and was a motivating influence on the Franciscan friar and natural philosopher Roger Bacon. Bacon studied the propagation of light through simple lenses and is credited as one of the first to have described the use of lenses to correct vision.”[4]
It is reasonable to infer from the above quote that Roger Bacon introduced optics of Alhazen to Europe and Sir Isaac Newton’s candle in the field of optics was lit by the candle of Bacon. Alhazen’smost famous work,Book of Optics, was translated into Latin and disseminated throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. This work influenced many great thinkers, including Roger Bacon, who wrote a summary of it. In this book, Alhazen correctly identified that eyesight is caused by light entering the eye, contradicting an earlier belief espoused by Euclid and Ptolemy that light is emitted from the eye. In what is known as Alhazen’s problem, he also used conic sections to determine the point of reflection from a surface given the center of the eye and the observed point. He described a pinhole camera and the camera obscura. Alhazen also described the refraction and the dispersion of light into its component colors, ideas credited to Isaac Newton. “Certainly in the field of optics, Newton himself stood on the shoulders of a giant who lived 700 years earlier,” said Jim Al-Khalili, a physics professor at the University of Surrey in the UK. Khalili recently narrated “The Empire of Reason,” a BBC program on Alhazen that is part of a three-part series on medieval Islamic scientists. Alhazen also described the motion of the planets, which inspired Johannes Kepler. Alhazen was perhaps the first person to use the scientific method. Author Bradley Steffens calls him “the first scientist.”[5]The backcover of Alhazen’sbiography by Bradley Steffens states:
“Ibn al-Haytham, who lived from approximately 950 to 1040, was a pioneer in several scientific and mathematical fields, including physics, optics, astronomy, and analytical geometry. His experiments on how light is refracted by the atmosphere were later developed by Isaac Newton, and he discovered the first law of motion centuries before Galileo. Most importantly, Ibn al-Haytham, a devout Muslim, was committed to a scientific method based on observation, hypothesis, and testing, and he helped keep alive the classical spirit of inquiry first developed in Ancient Greece. Ibn al-Haytham’s groundbreaking work reflects a life of travel and adventure, and this biography introduces this fascinating scientist to a new generation of readers.”[6]
Professor Jim Al-Khalili who teaches at the University of Surrey wrote in an article about Alhazen titled The ‘first true scientist’:
“Isaac Newton is, as most will agree, the greatest physicist of all time. At the very least, he is the undisputed father of modern optics, or so we are told at school where our textbooks abound with his famous experiments with lenses and prisms, his study of the nature of light and its reflection, and the refraction and decomposition of light into the colours of the rainbow. Yet, the truth is rather greyer; and I feel it important to point out that, certainly in the field of optics, Newton himself stood on the shoulders of a giant who lived 700 years earlier. For, without doubt, another great physicist, who is worthy of ranking up alongside Newton, is a scientist born in AD 965 in what is now Iraq who went by the name of al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham. Most people in the West will never have even heard of him. As a physicist myself, I am quite in awe of this man’s contribution to my field, but I was fortunate enough to have recently been given the opportunity to dig a little into his life and work through my recent filming of a three-part BBC Four series on medieval Islamic scientists.”[7]
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ziahshah
When Baghdad was center of the scientific world
By Prof. Jim Al-Khalili
By the eighth century, with western Europe languishing in its dark ages, the Islamic empire covered an area larger in expanse than either the Roman empire at its height or all the lands conquered and ruled by Alexander the Great. So powerful and influential was this empire that, for a period stretching over 700 years, the international language of science was Arabic.
The teenage prince Ma’mūn would have known Baghdad at the height of its glory: a vast, beautiful city characterised by the domes and archways of its famously intricate Abbasid architecture. It had grown to become the world’s largest city just 50 years after the first brick was laid, with some estimates putting its population at more than 1 million.
Ma’mūn was not the only caliph to support scholarship and science, but he was certainly the most cultured, passionate and enthusiastic. As a young man, he memorised the Qur’an, studied the history of early Islam, recited poetry and mastered the newly maturing discipline of Arabic grammar. He also studied arithmetic and its applications in the calculation of taxes. Most importantly, he was a brilliant student of philosophy and theology, or more specifically what is referred to in Arabic as kalam, which is a form of dialectic debate and argument. The early Muslim theologians found that the techniques of kalam enabled them to hold their own in theological discussions with the Christian and Jewish scholars who lived alongside them, and who had had a head start of several centuries to hone their debating skills by studying the writings of philosophers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle – historical figures from ancient Greece whose names would certainly have been known to the young Ma’mūn. It is even quite likely that by the early 9th century, some of their work had already been translated into Arabic.
Under Ma’mūn’s patronage, and the spirit of openness towards other religions and cultures that he fostered, many scholars from all over the empire gravitated towards Baghdad, drawn by a vibrant sense of optimism and freedom of expression. Every week, guests would be invited to the palace, wined and dined, and then begin to discuss with the caliph all manner of scholarly subjects, from theology to mathematics. He would send emissaries great distances to get hold of ancient scientific texts: one, Salman, visited Constantinople to obtain Greek texts from the Emperor Leo V (Leo the Armenian). Often, defeated foreign rulers would be required to settle the terms of surrender to him with books from their libraries rather than in gold.
Ma’mūn was almost fanatical in his desire to collect all the world’s books under one roof, translate them into Arabic and have his scholars study them. The institution he created to realise his dream epitomises more than anything else the blossoming of the scientific golden age. It became known throughout the world as the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma).
No physical trace remains of this academy today, so we cannot be sure exactly where it was located or what it looked like. Some historians even argue against exaggerated claims about its scope and purpose and the role of Ma’mūn in setting it up. But whatever its function – and many of Baghdad’s scholars may not have been based physically within it – there is no doubt that the House of Wisdom has acquired a mythical status symbolising this golden age, on a par with the Library of Alexandria, 1,000 years earlier.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/26/baghdad-centre-of-scientific-world