Talk:Book of Optics

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Latin version

Alhacen (2001). Alhacen's theory of visual perception a critical edition, with English translation and commentary, of the first three books of Alhacen's De aspectibus, the medieval Latin version of Ibn al-Haytham's Kitāb al-Manāzịr. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, v. 91, pts. 4 & 5. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society,. ISBN 0871699141. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)states that latin name of the work is De aspectibus, not Perspectiva. → Aethralis 19:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

Insofar as Alhazen used the Aristotelician intromission realist theory of sight, I wonder how one could claim that his optics "correctly explained the process of sight for the first time." Maybe another formulation would be better (except if you believe that the image projected by an object is than transmitted to the eye and then to the brain without any translation or coding... Spirals31 (talk) 23:12, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Many problems

There is much in this article that seems overly favourable to Ibn al-Haytham.

For example, Ibn al-Haytham was the first to discover that the celestial spheres do not consist of solid matter is nonsense. The celestial spheres don't exist; they are part of a long-discarded theory. ...and he also discovered that the heavens are less dense than the air. Well no, he didn't. He asserted it. And since the heavens are essentially a vacuum, he was wrong about that too. Notice how the astronomy section contradicts the scientific-method section.

he developed a method for determining the general formula for the sum of any integral powers, which was fundamental to the development of infinitesimal and integral calculus does not sound at all believable.

He speculated on electromagnetic aspects of light Are we really supposed to believe that?

This is Nikola Tesla all over again...

The article is also repetitive and seems to have suffered from cut-n-paste: His book Kitab al-Manazir (Book of Optics) was translated... - oh dear, someone has forgotten we are in the BoO article!

William M. Connolley (talk) 22:34, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't he also be called Persian rather than Iraqi, or at least something like "Persian (present-day Iraq)" ?