Leading Lights
The second Ptolemy
Alhazen
Alhazen was a Muslim scientist and polymath, born in 965 in Basra (today known as Iraq). He played significant roles on the principles of optics, as well as to physics, astronomy, mathematics, ophthalmology, philosophy, visual perception, and also to the scientific method. He also wrote insightful commentaries on works by Aristotle, Ptolemy, and the Greek mathematician Euclid. He was also nicknamed Ptolemaeus Secundus ("Ptolemy the Second") or "The Physicist" in medieval Europe. He lived in Cairo, Egypt. During his time in Cairo, he became associated with Al-Azhar University, as well the city's "House of Wisdom," known as Dar al-Ilm (House of Knowledge), which was a library to Baghdad's House of Wisdom. He carried on operation to regulate the floods of the Nile, and perceived the impossibility of what he was attempting to do. He devoted himself to his scientific work until his death. He lived in Cairo, Egypt; and died there at the age 74, in 1040.
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