Ibn al-Haytham photo

Ibn al-Haytham

perhaps 965 - perhaps 1040

Book of best known Arab mathematician and astronomer ibn al-Haytham, fully named Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham and also known as Alhazen, presented experimental studies of reflection and refraction and an influential theory of vision that revised that of the Greeks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-...


“The seeker after truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them," the first scientist wrote, "but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration and not the sayings of human beings whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of of its content, attack it from every side. he should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.”
Ibn al-Haytham
Read more