A Critical Edition of Ibn al-Haytham’s On the Shape of the Eclipse

The First Experimental Study of the Camera Obscura

von Dominique Raynaud

305 Seiten, Hardcover

Kurzbeschreibung des Verlags

This book provides the first critical edition of Ibn al-Haytham’s On the Shape of the Eclipse with English translation and commentary, which records the first scientific analysis of the camera obscura. On the Shape of the Eclipse includes pioneering research on the conditions of formation of the image, in a time deemed to be committed to aniconism. It also provides an early attempt to merge the two branches of Ancient optics—the theory of light and theory of vision.

What perhaps most strongly characterizes this treatise is the close interaction of a geometric analysis of light and experimental reasoning. Ibn al-Haytham conducted his experiments in a systematic way by varying all that could be changed: the shape and size of the aperture, the focal length of the camera obscura, the distance and shape of the celestial bodies. This way, he achieved a thorough understanding. This work represents a decisive step in both the history of optics and the application of the experimental method that was just as efficient in medieval Islam as today.

• Reihe: Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences
• Themen: Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften Mathematik Geschichte der Mathematik
• ISBN: 9783319479903
• Sprache: Englisch
• Erscheinungsdatum: 25.11.2016
• Größe: 25.4 x 17.8 cm
• Verlag: Springer International Publishing