Inventors
Ibn al-Haytham
c. 965–1040 · Experimenter of light
Basra and Cairo
The Book of Optics argued that vision is light entering the eye, tested with a dark chamber, and refused to take authority as proof. Cameras, lenses, and later scientific method owe a debt to that stubbornness. He turns the wheel by making seeing an experiment.
Why it mattered
- Replaced emission theories of sight with incoming light.
- Modeled a method: hypothesis, apparatus, repeat.
