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Book of Optics
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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.
Cover page for Ibn al-Haytham's Book of Optics in the print edition from 1572
Cover page for Ibn al-Haytham's Book of Optics in the print edition from 1572
Front page of the Latin Opticae Thesaurus, which included Alhazen's Book of Optics, showing rainbows, the use of parabolic mirrors to set ships on fir
Front page of the Latin Opticae Thesaurus, which included Alhazen's Book of Optics, showing rainbows, the use of parabolic mirrors to set ships on fire, distorted images caused by refraction in water, and other optical effects.
Gravure originale du compas parfait par Abū Sahl al Qūhī
Gravure originale du compas parfait par Abū Sahl al Qūhī
Alhazen's problem
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Alhazen's problem is a mathematical problem in optics concerning reflection in a spherical mirror. It asks for the point in the mirror where one given point reflects to another. The special case of a
Book of Optics
…light entering the eye. The book is also noted for its early use of the scientific method, its description of the camera obscura, and its formulation of Alhazen's problem. The book extensively affected the development of optics, physics and mathematics in Europe between the 13th and 17th centuries. Before the Book of…
Spherical mirror from the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition (1909)
Spherical mirror from the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition (1909)
The caustic generated by a point source of light (bright point, top) within a circular mirror (light red). This illustration extends each light ray pa
The caustic generated by a point source of light (bright point, top) within a circular mirror (light red). This illustration extends each light ray past the mirror to a complete line. For one given point at the light source, Alhazen's problem has two solutions for a second given point on the dark side of the caustic and four solutions on the light side of the caustic.