Among the mathematicians of classical Islam, few are as famous as al‐ḥasan ibn al‐ḥasan ibn al‐Haytham (Alhazen in the Latin West). A physicist and astronomer as well as mathematician, he quickly gained a wide reputation, first in Arabic, in the Islamic East as well as the Islamic West, and then from the translations of his works in optics and astronomy into Latin, Hebrew, and Italian.
But his renown, completely justified by the importance of his contributions and especially of the scientific reforms accomplished in them, contrasts singularly with the paucity of information we have on the man, his teachers, or his scientific milieu. Also, the significance of his works surrounded the man with the aura of a legend. Sources available to us consist of narratives recounted by ancient bibliographers where legend becomes mixed up with the rare historical evidence. These same narratives are precisely what modern bibliographers continue to reproduce partially or totally until today. After a...
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Rashed, R. (2008). Ibn Al‐Haytham (Alhazen). In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_8645
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