Ibn al-Haitham

(The Father Of Modern Optics)

Ibn al-Haitham, who died in 1039 AD, was a renaissance man, a great scientist and engineer. On a trip to Egypt to study the Nile river, he recommended building a dam at Aswan to store the summer flood water upstream and use it throughout the year. This project was finally executed in the 20th century!

He studied the process of vision and formulated the laws of reflection and refraction which explained the rainbow phenomenon. He was the father of modern optics.

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Revised on 10/3/99