Ibn al-Haytham’s object in the Book of Optics is: to achieve a synthesis between the geometrical optics of Ptolemy and Euclid and the traditions of natural philosophy, including the Aristotelian tradition.
Book of Optics was a real science textbook, with detailed descriptions of experiment, including the apparatus and the way it was set up, the measurements taken and the results.
These were then used to justify his theories which he developed using mathematical models.
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| Kitāb al-Manāẓir |
Ibn a-Haytham says that ‘forms’ of light propagate from any point on the luminous object in all directions. Ibn al-Haytham proves that the incident and reflected ray are coplanar with the normal to the mirror through the point of refection and make equal angles with the normal.
In the Book of Optics he devotes the first three chapters to the foundations of this theory. In the three following chapters, he deals with catoptrics.
The Book of Optics was translated into Latin around 1200, and the first printed edition by F. Risner appeared in 1572.
The work was studied by many notable European scientists, such as Witelo, Roger Bacon, Leonardo da Vinci, Kepler and Descartes. Ibn al-Haytham was aware of the structure of the eye from the view point of a physician as well as a physicist.
Equally importantly, later Islamic scholars would make great used of his work and extend it further, such as the Persian al-Shirazi and al-Farisi in the thirteenth century ,the latter using it for the very first correct mathematical, explanation of the rainbow.
Many of anatomical names of the various parts of the eye that are used today are translations from the names given by Ibn la-Haytham in his Book of Optics.
Theory of optics by Ibn al-Haytham
