the optics of ibn al haytham (23 Ergebnisse)

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Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Celebrated in a film featuring Omar Sharif in his final role, meet the scientist known as the 'Father of Optics,' Ibn al-Haytham!During the golden age of science, knowledge, and invention in Muslim civilization -- also known as the 'Dark Ages' in Western Europe -- this incredible scholar discovered how we see and set the stage for the methods we now know as the scientific process. Packed with beautiful and engaging photos, kids will learn all about this fascinating scientist. The level 3 text provides accessible, yet wide-ranging, information for independent readers. This book is a companion to the international educational campaign, '1001 Inventions and the World of Ibn al-Haytham,' that includes interactive exhibits, workshops, live shows, and a 12-minute film starring Omar Sharif in his final film role before his death.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - The Book of Optics, written by the Arab scholar Ibn al Haytham in 1021 AD, formed the conceptual framework of the Public Art Program of EXPO 2020 Dubai. Eleven renowned artists were invited to create newly commissioned, permanent artworks in public space to explore this central work of medieval science. The publication presents the works together with numerous text contributions. They explore the philosophical definitions of vision, cognition, and the importance of imagination in constructing a coherent picture of reality. With over 190 countries participating, EXPO 2020 Dubai brought together numerous cultural and artistic initiatives to build bridges between people, communities, and nations. Works by: Hamra Abbas, Asma Belhamar, Afra al Dhaheri, Olafur Eliasson, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Shaikha al Mazrou, Monira al Qadiri, Khalil Rabah, Abdullah al Saadi, Yinka Shonibare, and Haegue Yang.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - The Book of Optics, written by the Arab scholar Ibn al Haytham in 1021 AD, formed the conceptual framework of the Public Art Program of EXPO 2020 in Dubai. Eleven renowned artists were invited to create newly commissioned, permanent artworks in public space to explore this central work of medieval science. The publication presents the works together with numerous text contributions. They explore the philosophical definitions of vision, cognition, and the importance of imagination in constructing a coherent picture of reality. With over 190 countries participating, EXPO 2020 in Dubai brought together numerous cultural and artistic initiatives to build bridges between people, communities and nations. Works by: Hamra Abbas, Afra Al Dhaheri, Shaikha Al Mazrou, Monira al Qadiri, Abdullah al Saadi, Asma Belhamar, Olafur Eliasson, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Khalil Rabah, Haegue Yang, and Yinka Shonibare.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Druck auf Anfrage Neuware - Printed after ordering - This book provides science and technology ethos to a literate person. It starts with a rather detailed treatment of basic concepts in human values, educational status and domains of education, development of science and technology and their contributions to the welfare of society. It describes ways and means of scientific progresses and technological advancements with their historical perspectives including scientific viewpoints of contributing scientists and technologists. The technical, social, and cultural dimensions are surveyed in relation to acquisition and application of science, and advantages and hindrances of technological developments. Science and Technology is currently taught as a college course in many universities with the intention to introduce topics from a global historical perspective so that the reader shall stretch his/her vision by mapping the past to the future. The book can also serve as a primary reference for such courses.

Zustand: Gut. CLXXXI, 337-819 Seiten / p. Aus der Bibliothek von Prof. Wolfgang Haase, langjährigem Herausgeber der ANRW und des International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT) / From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - altersgemäß sehr guter Zustand / very good condition for age - PREFACE -- Sometime between 1028 and 1038, Ibn al-Haytham completed his monumental optical synthesis, Kitäb al-Manäzir ("Book of Optics"). By no later than 1200, and perhaps somewhat earlier, this treatise appeared in Latin under the title De aspectibus. In that form it was attributed to a certain "Alhacen." These differences in title and authorial designation are emblematic of the profound differences between the two versions of the treatise. In many ways, in fact, they can be regarded not simply as different versions of the same work, but as different works in their own right. The underlying point of this observation is so obvious that it can all-too-easily pass unremarked and thus unheeded: translation is not a straightforward conversion-process. To translate, as its Latin form interpretare suggests, is to interpret. Accordingly, the Arab author, Ibn al-Haytham, and his Latin incarnation, Alhacen, represent two distinct, sometimes even conflicting, interpretive voices. The same holds for their respective texts. -- To complicate matters, "Alhacen" does not even represent a single interpretive voice. As we shall see in due course, there were at least two translators at work on the Latin text, one of them (Gerard of Cremona?) hewing as faithfully as possible to the Arabic original, the other content with distilling, even paraphrasing, the Arabic original. Consequently, the Latin text presents not one, but at least two faces to the reader. The Latin text is also markedly different from its Arabic source in organization. To start with, in lacking the first three chapters of book 1 of the Kitäb al-Manäzir, the Latin text is missing almost half of that book in its original form. This turns out to be a significant omission in terms not only of amount, but also of content, for it is in those three chapters that Ibn al-Haytham sets forth key methodological principles for later discussion. Furthermore, the internal structure of the Latin textaccording to chapters, subsections, and even paragraphsis often at variance with that of the Arabic original. The analytic flow is therefore not precisely the same in the two texts, a fact that has a significant, albeit subtle, impact upon how the treatise is assimilated by the reader. -- The two texts also differ according to lectorial perspective. The conceptual prism through which a medieval Arab scholar would have read the Kitäb al-Manäzir is fundamentally different from that through which his scholastic Latin counterpart would have read the De aspectibus. ISBN 9780871699145 Sprache: Englisch Gewicht in Gramm: 900 17,8 x 2,7 x 25,4 cm, Broschiert / Paperback.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - This volume chronicles the development of philosophical conceptions of space from early antiquity through the medieval period to the early modern era, ending with Kant. The chapters describe the interactions at different moments in history between philosophy and various other disciplines, especially geometry, optics, and natural science more generally. Central figures from the history of mathematics, science and philosophy are discussed, including Euclid, Plato, Aristotle, Proclus, Ibn al-Haytham, Nicole Oresme, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Berkeley, and Kant. Reflections enrich the volume by characterizing perspectives on space found in various disciplines including ecology, mathematics, sculpture, neuroscience, cultural geography, art history, and the history of science.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Druck auf Anfrage Neuware - Printed after ordering - This book provides the first critical edition of Ibn al-Haytham'sOn the Shape of the Eclipse with English translation and commentary, which records the first scientificanalysis of the camera obscura. On the Shape of the Eclipse includes pioneering research on the conditions of formation of the image, in a time deemed to be committed to aniconism.It also provides an early attempt to merge thetwo branches of Ancient optics-the theory of light and theory of vision.What perhaps most strongly characterizes this treatise is the close interaction of a geometric analysis of light and experimental reasoning. Ibn al-Haytham conducted his experiments in a systematic way by varying all that could be changed: the shape and size of the aperture, the focal length of the camera obscura, the distance and shape of the celestial bodies. This way, he achieved a thorough understanding. This work represents a decisive step in both the history of optics and the application of the experimental method that was just as efficient in medieval Islam as today.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Druck auf Anfrage Neuware - Printed after ordering - This book provides the first critical edition of Ibn al-Haytham'sOn the Shape of the Eclipse with English translation and commentary, which records the first scientificanalysis of the camera obscura. On the Shape of the Eclipse includes pioneering research on the conditions of formation of the image, in a time deemed to be committed to aniconism.It also provides an early attempt to merge thetwo branches of Ancient optics-the theory of light and theory of vision.What perhaps most strongly characterizes this treatise is the close interaction of a geometric analysis of light and experimental reasoning. Ibn al-Haytham conducted his experiments in a systematic way by varying all that could be changed: the shape and size of the aperture, the focal length of the camera obscura, the distance and shape of the celestial bodies. This way, he achieved a thorough understanding. This work represents a decisive step in both the history of optics and the application of the experimental method that was just as efficient in medieval Islam as today.

Kartoniert / Broschiert. Zustand: New. KlappentextrnrnBetween 1028-1038, Ibn al-Haytham completed his monumental optical synthesis, Kitab al-Manazir. By no later than 1200, this treatise appeared in Latin attributed to Alhacen. These differences in title and authorial designation a.

Folio (235 x 338 mm). 2 parts in 1 vol. (6) pp., 1 blank leaf, 288 pp. (8), 474, (2) pp. With 2 different woodcut printer's devices on title-page and colophon, half-page woodcut on reverse of title-page (repeated on half-title of pt. 2), and numerous diagrams in the text. Contemporary full limp vellum binding with later ink spine label (wants ties). First edition of "the most important work of its kind in Arabic literature" (cf. Poggendorf), this copy inscribed by the German humanist Wilhelm Xylander (1532-76), sometime rector of Heidelberg University. - Ibn al-Haytham (965-c. 1040), known as Alhazen in the Western tradition, has been hailed as "the greatest Muslim physicist and one of the greatest students of optics of all times [.] The Latin translation [.] exerted a great influence upon Western science. It showed a great progress in experimental method. [Alhazen's book contains] research in catoptrics, [a] study of atmospheric refraction, [a] better description of the eye, and better understanding of vision [as well as an] attempt to explain binocular vision [and the] earliest use of the camera obscura" (Sarton). "This combined edition served as the standard reference work on optics well into the 17th century, influencing scientists such as Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, and Descartes" (Norman). - "The Arab physicist Alhazen preserved for us all that was known by the ancients in the field of optics and added some contributions of his own. His book remained a standard authority thru the 1600s. He understood that light emanated spherically from a point and greatly improved on Ptolemy's uncertain rule for refraction which, he showed, held true only for small angles. He covered many cases of reflection and refraction and his explanation of the structure and function of the eye was followed for 600 years" (Dibner). - The 'Liber de crepusculis', the work on dawn and twilight included in Risner's 'Opticae thesaurus' and attributed to Alhazen, is actually the work of his contemporary Abu 'Abdallah Muhammad ibn Mu'adh al-Jayyani (cf. Norman; DSB, p. 208). The optical study by the Polish scholar Witelo, likewise here included, is "a massive work that relies extensively on Alhazen [and] offers an analysis of reflection that was not surpassed until the 17th century" (Norman). - Binding stained; edges worn. Interior browned with some waterstaining throughout the margins; occasional edge defects. Inscribed on the title-page by Wilhelm Xylander, professor of Greek and Logic at Heidelberg and editor of numerous translations from Greek (cf. ADB XLIV, 582-593): "Xylandri dono Antonius Roverius Nemausensis possidet" (followed by a Greek dedication and Xylander's signature). The recipient Antonius Roverius (Antoine Rouvier) from Nîmes had matriculated at Heidelberg on 1 July 1572. - Later in the library of the famed microscope builder and collector Alfred Nachet (1831-1908) and his son Albert. - An appealing copy of a principal work of Arabic science as received in the West with important provenance. - VD 16, H 693 (H 692, V 1761). Adams A 745. BM-STC 383. Dibner 138. Norman 1027. Honeyman I, 73. DSB VI, 205 & XIV, 461. GAL I, 470. Poggendorf I, 31. Duncan 113. Sarton I, 721. Carmody p. 140. Thorndike/Kibre 803, 1208. Vagnetti D62. BNHCat A 241. IA 103.705. Brunet I, 180. Arabick Roots Doha AR79. Collection Nachet (1929), 50 (this copy).

4to. (73), (1 blank) ff. With woodcut allegorical and architectural title-page with putti and mythological women holding drapes hanging from an arch and the Royal Portuguese coat of arms at the foot, 40 woodcut (geometrical and optical) figures in text, Rodericus's large full-page emblematic woodcut printer's device (a dragon with the motto "Salus vitae" on a banderole) and many woodcut initials. Bound in a period-style Italian calf binding, gold-tooled spine, blind-tooled frames on front and back boards and gold-tooled centerpieces on the front and back board with "Petri Nonii" on the front board and "MDXLII" on the back board. First edition of two of the most important and rarest scientific works on twilight and optics. The first is written by the greatest Portuguese mathematician Pedro Nunez (1492-1577), who served as cosmographer royal to the court of João III. His "De crepusculis" discusses new solutions for problems concerning twilight (such as the shortest twilight period) and the refraction of light, and announces his new instrument for measuring exceedingly small angles, now called a "nonius". - The second work, also entitled "De crepusculis", was written (according to the title-page) by the Islamic physicist Ibn al-Haytham (965-1039), living in the Arabian Peninsula, whose seminal work on optics broke with ancient Greek theories. In fact, the work is now attributed to the great Andalusian father of spherical trigonometry, the 11th-century mathematician and astronomer Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Mu'adh, who was described by Averroës as "advanced and high-ranking" (Sabra, p. 85), but about whom very little is known. His work discusses the density of the atmosphere and establishes a relationship between atmospheric pressure and altitude. It also notes that twilight only ceases or begins when the sun reaches 19 degrees below the horizon. It was translated from Arabic into Latin by Gerard de Cremona (1114-87), who brought Arabic science to the West. This work is one of the artifacts through which Islamic civilisation made significant and crucial contributions to scientific knowledge in the pre-modern age during their golden age of Arabic science, although the Latin translations in this field only provide "a dim reflection of the true splendour of achievements" (Gerli, p. 804). - With an owner's inscription at the head of the title-page and a handwritten impressum on the title-page in the same hand, three faint library stamps (two of a library in Douai) and with marks of an erased bookplate on the front pastedown. Binding very slightly worn around the spine, some small stains on the endpapers, but otherwise a beautiful copy in very good condition. - Adams N 375. DSB X, 160f. Honeyman 2353. Houzeau/Lancaster 1188 & 2473. King Manuel 48. Palau 196.748. Poggendorff II, 305. Sabra, "The authorship of the Liber de crepusculis", in: Isis 58.1 (1967), pp. 77-85. Stilwell 781 & 863. Cf. Carmody, Arabic Astronomical and Astrological Sciences in Latin Translation; Gerli, Medieval Iberia (2003), p. 804. Not in Vagnetti.

First edition of a famous work on optics by the English natural philosopher and mathematician Roger Bacon (ca. 1220-ca. 1292). Bacon was well read in Arabic and ancient Greek sources on optics and perspective, a subject hardly studied in Europe during the earlier Middle Ages. The main sources for his theories were the writings of Euclid, Ptolemy and Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham), and he followed Robert Grosseteste concerning the importance of light and in his emphasis on the use of lenses, not only for burning, but also for magnification to aid natural vision. Bacon advised magnifying glasses for old people as well as for people with weak eyes. The Perspectiva belonged to Bacon's Opus maius, compiled in manuscript in 1266-1267. The present edition was based on a medieval manuscript and was edited by Johann Combach (1585-1651), professor of philosophy at Marburg in GermanyWith a stain on the title-page and two on the last blank, probably from removing old stamps, browned throughout with a few small spots, but overall in good condition. Binding with some water stains, but otherwise good.l DSB I, pp. 377-384; VD17 23:236968W; cf. Kemp, The science of art, pp. 26, 211, and 269; Vagnetti DB5. With 8 full-page woodcuts printed on both sides of four leaves inserted as plates, and numerous woodcut figures and illustrations in text, several full-page. Pages: [8], 189[=205], [1 blank] pp.

Rare work on optics and mathematics by Friedrich Risner (1533-1580), apprentice and colleague of Peter Ramus, the famous anti-Aristotelian humanist and educational reformer. The first edition appeared in 1606.Risner's mathematical abilities were highly praised by Ramus, who, in his will, even established a chair in mathematics at the Collège Royal de France with Risner as its first occupant. The first major result of the collaboration between Risner and Ramus was Risner's edition (1572) of two manuscripts discovered by Ramus: the first edition of Optics by Ibn al-Haytham (in Latin Alhazen), who worked at Cairo in the first half of the 11th century; and a greatly improved edition of Perspectiva by Witelo (in Latin Vitello), a Polish scientist of the second half of the 13th century. Alhazen's work preserved all that was known by the ancients in the field of optics, and Risner's edition and his own observations and corrections helped establish the science upon a new foundation. Risner's present Opticae, based partly on Witelo, appeared only posthumously, but was probably outlined by Ramus and further developed by Risner during the early years of their collaboration. It exerted a great influence on Snell and others.Badly browned, but otherwise in good condition, with an abrasion on the title-page and last text page (probably erasing a library stamp), not affecting the text. Re-backed and with some restorations to the boards.l VD17 12:159504X; cf. DSB 11, p. 468; Poggendorff II, col. 648; not in Honeyman; Houzeau-Lancaster. 18th-century tan calf, sewn on 5 cords, gold-tooled double fillets, re-backed in sheepskin, marbled paste-downs, red edges. With numerous optical, astronomical and mathematical woodcut diagrams in text, woodcut headpieces, tailpieces and initials, and headpieces built up from cast fleurons. Pages: [20], 259, [1 blank] pp.

Leather. Zustand: Fine. Original decorative full red leather bound. Gilt traditional style on boards. Large demy 8vo. (22 x 15 cm). Bilingual preface in German and Turkish. [12], [2], p., [49] p. facsimile in Arabic., ills. Das Achte Buch zu den Conica des Apollonios von Perge. Rekonstruiert von Ibn al-Haysam. Herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Nazim Terzioglu. Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) was born c. 965 to an Arab family in Basra, Iraq, which was at the time part of the Buyid emirate. He held a position with the title vizier in his native Basra, and made a name for himself for his knowledge of applied mathematics. As he claimed to be able to regulate the flooding of the Nile, he was invited to by Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim in order to realise a hydraulic project at Aswan. However, Ibn al-Haytham was forced to concede the impracticability of his project. Upon his return to Cairo, he was given an administrative post. After he proved unable to fulfill this task as well, he contracted the ire of the caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, and is said to have been forced into hiding until the caliph's death in 1021, after which his confiscated possessions were returned to him. Legend has it that Alhazen feigned madness and was kept under house arrest during this period. During this time, he wrote his influential Book of Optics. Alhazen continued to live in Cairo, in the neighborhood of the famous University of al-Azhar, and lived from the proceeds of his literary production until his death in c. 1040. Among his students were Sorkhab (Sohrab), a Persian from Semnan, and Abu al-Wafa Mubashir ibn Fatek, an Egyptian prince. Signed and inscribed by Nazim Terzioglu, (1912-1976), was one of the first mathematicians in Turkish academia. One of the contributions of Terzioglu as the director of the Mathematics Research Institute to Turkey's mathematical culture and the history of science was the systematic scan of the Islamic literature relevant to mathematics and the presentation of the information related to conic sections in ancient mathematics to the scientific community. As a result of these efforts, the facsimile of two ancient texts of mathematics originally written in Arabic were realized. The first one is the preface of Mecmuatu'r-risail, the Arabic translation by Beni Musa b. Sakir (died in 873) of Conica, which is the work of Apollonius of Perga (BC 262?190) on the conic sections. This preface, published with the title Das Vorwort des Astronomen Bani Musa b. Sakir, describes how the Apollonius' Conica was acquired by the Islamic world. After that, Terzioglu published the facsimile of the copy of the lost 8th book of Apollonius' Conica which was rewritten by Ibnu'l-Heysem (965?1039) with the help from other sources. In the introduction part of this book with the title Das Achte Buch zu den Conica des Apollonios von Perge, the following information is provided in summary: In ancient mathematics, the interest for conics starts with Menaechmus (BC IV. Century) and reaches the summit with Apollonius of Perga. Apollonius wrote his famous work Conica by processing previous information and adding up his own inventions. The first 7 volumes of this work consisting of 8 volumes in total are known whereas the 8th volume is missing. The Islamic and Western mathematicians working in this field took place in the reconstruction of the 8th volume. The most successful one of these works is that of Edmund Halley's (1656?1742) Apollonii Per-gaei conicorum (Oxoniae, 1710). The 8th book of Conica reconstructed by Ibn el-Heysem is the 4th manuscript with the name Makalatu'l-Hasan b.el-Hasan b.el Heysem fi el-kitabu'l-mahrutat in the Mecmu'atu'r-risail, which is recorded under no. 1796 in Manisa Library. The fact that Ibn el-Heysem completed this work nearly 700 years before Halley is interesting. Signed by translator.

First edition of two of the most important and rarest scientific works on twilight and optics. The first is a work from Portuguese soil, written by the greatest Portuguese mathematician Pedro Nunez (1492-1577), who served as royal cosmographer at the court of João III. His De crepusculis discusses new solutions for problems concerning twilight (for example the shortest twilight) and the refraction of light, and announces his new instrument for measuring exceedingly small angles, now called a "nonius".The title-page attributes the second work, De causis crepusculorum, to "Allaken", meaning the greatest Islamic physicist Ibn Al-Haytham (965-1039), living in the Arabian Peninsula, whose seminal work in optics broke with ancient Greek theories. In fact, it is now attributed to the great 11th-century Andalusian mathematician, father of spherical trigonometry and astronomer Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Mu'adh, described by Averroës as "advanced and high-ranking" (Sabra, p. 85), though we know very little about him. His work discusses the density of the atmosphere and establishes a relationship between atmospheric pressure and altitude. It also notes that twilight only ceases or begins when the sun reaches 19 degrees below the horizon. It was translated from Arabic into Latin by Gherardo da Cremona (1114-1187), who brought Arabic science to the West. As an artifact it shows the significant and crucial contributions Islamic civilisation made to the accumulation of scientific knowledge in the pre-modern age, the golden age of Arabic science, though the Latin translations in this field only provide "a dim reflection of the true splendour of achievements" (Gerli, p. 804).With an owner's inscription at the head of the title-page and a handwritten imprint on the title-page in the same hand, three faint library stamps (two from a library in Douai) and with traces of a bookplate removed from the front paste-down. Binding very slightly worn around the spine, some small stains on the endpapers, but otherwise a beautiful copy in very good condition.l Adams N375; DSB X, pp. 160-161; Honeyman 2353; Houzeau-Lancaster 1188 & 2473; King Manuel 48; Palau 196748; Poggendorff II, col. 305; Sabra, "The authorship of the Liber de crepusculis", in: Isis, 58 (1967), pp. 77-85; Stilwell 781 & 863; USTC 344785; cf. Carmody, Arabic astronomical and astrological sciences in Latin translation; Gerli, Medieval Iberia (2003), p. 804; not in Vagnetti. Bound in a period-style Italian calf binding, gold-tooled spine, each board with a blind-tooled frame and a gold-tooled centrepiece, with "Petri Nonii" on the front and "MDXLII" on the back. With woodcut architectural title-page with an arch containing putti and mythological figures (including 2 winged female fauns holding drapery, with the Royal Portuguese coat of arms at the foot and an armillary sphere at the head, 40 woodcut diagrams concerning astronomy, spherical geometry, optics and geodessy in the text, Rodericus's spectacular full-page emblematic woodcut device (a dragon with the motto "salus vitae" on a banderole), numerous woodcut initials (several series), and a vine-leaf ornament (a variant of Vervliet 94?). Set mostly in the first successful italic type to have sloped capitals, cut by Peter Schoeffer the younger, but with extensive passages in roman. Pages: [73], [1 blank] ll.

Small folio, 20 leaves. With the final errata leaf, large woodcut on title depicting a master and his students and with Sessa?s cat and mouse device beneath, some fine woodcut initials, and 77 woodcut diagrams in the margins. Small repair to upper outer corner of last leaf. Modern limp vellum with ties, in a black morocco solander box. A fine and large copy. Bookplate of David L. DiLaura. A handsome early edition of this classic work on optics, which was the most influential text on the subject for three hundred years. Pecham endeavoured to reconcile all the available authorities ? Aristotle, Euclid, Augustine, al-Kindi, Ibn Rushd, Grosseteste, Bacon, but most of all, Ibn al-Haytham or Alhazen. This is the first edition to be edited by Luca Gaurico (1476?1558), the expatriate Neapolitan scholar who also edited the works of Archimedes and Ptolemy. ?The work on which Pecham?s fame has chiefly rested is the Perspectiva Communis, probably written between 1277 and 1279 during Pecham?s professorship at the papal curia. In the first book Pecham discussed the propagation of light and color, the anatomy and physiology of the eye, the act of visual perception, physical requirements for vision, the psychology of vision, and the errors of direct vision. In Book II he discussed vision by reflected rays and presented a careful and sophisticated analysis of image formation by reflection. Book III was devoted to the phenomena of refraction, the rainbow, and the Milky Way? ?Pecham?s optical system included significantly more than a theory of direct vision. He briefly discussed the doctrine of species; treated at length the propagation of rays; and developed a theory to explain how solar radiation, when passing through noncircular apertures, gives rise to circular images. He expressed the full law of reflection and applied it to image formation by plane, spherical, cylindrical, and conical mirrors; in this analysis he revealed an implicit understanding of the nature of the focal point of a concave mirror? ?The Perspectiva Communis was the most widely used of all optical texts from the early fourteenth until the close of the sixteenth century, and it remains today the best index of what was known to the scientific community in general on the subject? (DSB). Probably the third or fourth edition (an inferior edition was published in Leipzig also in 1504); there were two incunable editions. DiLaura, Bibliotheca Opticoria, 8: ?This?edition is particularly interesting and important.? See Stillwell, The Awakening Interest in Science, II, 205.

2 parts in 1 volume, folio, 4 leaves (the last blank), 288 pages; 4 leaves, 474 pages, 1 leaf (blank but for printer?s device on verso). Woodcut device on title, woodcut on verso (repeated on the separate title-page to second part by Witelo), 4 woodcuts in the text (including one of the eye and one repeated from the first part) and numerous diagrams. Paper lightly foxed and pale dampstains in outer corners of last 50 leaves, otherwise a fine and clean copy. 18th century calf-backed boards (rebacked with the original spine laid down, corners renewed). FIRST EDITION of ?the most influential optics book ever produced? (DiLaura). It ?synthesized, clarified and augmented all previous work on vision, perception, reflection, and refraction of light. It gave a new intromission theory of vision, elaborated a theory of visual perception, described apparatus and procedures for measuring geometric optical properties of reflection and refraction, and presented an elaborate analysis of plane and curved mirrors? (ibid). Written in 1028?1038 by the Egyptian Arabic scholar Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), the work was tranlated into Latin no later than 1200 as De Aspectibus. ?The influence of Alhacen?s De Aspectibus was profound. Between the time of its appearance and about 1400, virtually every optics text in the Latin West either cited it explicitly or bore its influence, and all were derivative, smaller in scope, and shorter in length. By 1325 it was in use at universities. Optics texts from the advent of printing until the end of the 17th century all show the influence of the De Aspectibus. The greatest opticians of the age read and learned from Risner?s Opticae Thesaurus; Thomas Hariot, Johannes Kepler, Willebrord Snell, and René Descartes all cited the work. 100 years after its publication, Isaac Barrow cited the work in his Lectiones Opticae et Geometricae of 1674. The Opticae Thesaurus swept the field of optics, being considered by contemporaries to treat all of the then-current optics and becoming the foremost advanced optics text of the Renaissance? (ibid). The second part is the ?Ten Books of Optics? by the 13th-century Polish scholar Witelo, the earliest treatise on optics written by a European, first published in 1535. It was a redaction and augmentation of Alhazen?s De Aspectibus, and the most-used advanced text on optics in the Middle Ages. DiLaura, Bibliotheca Opticoria, 30 and 31 for a full discussion of these works; also DSB. Dibner 138. Norman catalogue 1027.

First edition of Alhazen's fundamental work on optics and vision, which influenced Galileo and Kepler and paved the way for the modern science of physical optics. Folio, bound in full contemporary Basel vellum with central arabesques blind-stamped to the front and rear panels, titles stamped in black and five raised bands to the spine, woodcut printer's device to the title page, woodcut initials, diagrams and full page illustration to the verso of the title page. Translated from Arabic into Latin by Gerard of Cremona. In very good condition. From the library of American physician Chester Tilton Stone with his bookplate to the pastedown. A superior example of this significant work, rare and desirable in contemporary vellum. Building on Ptolemy and Euclid, Arab astronomer and physicist Hasan Ibn al-Haytham (Latinized Alhazen) made significant contributions to the principles of optics and visual perception, his most influential work being his KitÄb al-ManÄáº"ir (Book of Optics), written during 1011â"1021, which only survived in the present Latin edition. Ibn al-Haytham was the first to explain that vision occurs when light reflects from an object and then passes to one's eyes and the first to deduce that vision occurs in the brain, rather than in the eyes. Friedrich Risner, a protege of Pierre Ramus, prepared the first edition of Alhazen's work from two Latin manuscripts discovered by Ramus. Al-Jayyani's treatise on twilight is frequently found in manuscripts with Alhazen's Optics. Witelo's Perspectiva was previously published twice before its inclusion in this work (Nuremberg 1535, 1551). This combined edition was the standard reference work on optics through the 17th century, influencing scientists including Galileo, Brahe, and Kepler (Adams, A-754; Norman, 1027; Dibner, 138).