Ibn al Haytham

Ibn al-Haytham was a Muslim polymath who made significant contributions to the principles of optics and the use of scientific experiments. He was born in Basra, Iraq, in 965 and studied mathematics, philosophy, and theology in Baghdad. He traveled to Cairo, Egypt, to work on a project to regulate the Nile, but he failed to complete it and pretended to be insane to avoid the wrath of the caliph. He spent most of his life under house arrest, where he devoted himself to scientific research and writing. He wrote more than 100 works on various subjects, such as astronomy, physics, medicine, psychology, and philosophy. His most influential work is Kitab al-Manazir (Book of Optics), which was translated into Latin and influenced many European scholars, such as Roger Bacon, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton. He corrected the ancient Greek theory of vision, which claimed that the eyes emit rays of light, and proposed that vision occurs when light rays are reflected from an object and enter the eye. He also studied the properties of light, such as reflection, refraction, dispersion, and color. He experimented with lenses, mirrors, and pinhole cameras, and described the structure and function of the eye. He also formulated the law of inertia, which states that an object in motion will continue in motion unless acted upon by an external force. He was the first to use the scientific method, which involves making hypotheses, testing them with experiments, and drawing conclusions. He is regarded as one of the greatest scientists and mathematicians of the Islamic Golden Age and the father of modern optics.