Ibn al-Haytham

American  

[i-buhn ahl-hahy-thuhm] / ˈɪ bən ˌɑlˈhaɪ θəm /

noun

1. 965–1040, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher born in what is now Iraq.

---

Ibn al-Haytham Scientific  

/ ĭb′ənĕl-hī′thəm /

1. Arab mathematician who wrote almost 100 works on mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, and medicine, but who is best known for his book on optics, which became very influential in Europe after it was translated in the 13th century. It contained a detailed description of the eye and disproved the older Greek idea that vision is the result of the eye sending out rays to the object being looked at.

---

Example Sentences

Here, Brunelleschi was unquestionably influenced by a medieval Arab thinker, Ibn al-Haytham, whose Book of Optics laid out theories of light and sight perception that described linear perspective.

From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2020

The optics of Ibn al-Haytham: Books I-III: On direct vision.

From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2017

Galen, Ibn al-Haytham and Theodoric of Freiberg performed experiments.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

Ibn al-Haytham was much more widely discussed in the Latin West than the Muslim East, but even in the West he was treated as a text, not as a handbook of experimental practice.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

Like Ibn al-Haytham, like Theodoric, Pierre de Maricourt had no immediate successors.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton