In existographies, Alhazen (c.965-1040) (IQ:172|#270) [RGM:616|1,500+] (MAG:11) (GME:58) (CR:11), aka "Ibn Al Haytham" (Arabic), pronounced "Eb-In All High them" or "Eb-In Hay-them" (Ѻ), was an Arabic polymath who did work in astronomy and optics, who is noted for his semi “scientific method” like experimental work on light. [1]“How does light travel through transparent bodies? Light travels through transparent bodies in straight lines only.... We have explained this exhaustively in our Book of Optics. But let us now mention something to prove this convincingly: the fact that light travels in straight lines is clearly observed in the lights which enter into dark rooms through holes. The entering light will be clearly observable in the dust which fills the air.”— Alhazen (c.1020), “Treatise on Light”
“Ibn al-Haytham [Alhazen] was certainly the world’s greatest physicist in the almost two millennia gap between Archimedes and Galileo. There were others, like Biruni, Al-Kindi, Khwarizmi (it's a long list) but none of the others did physics (theory and experiment) in way we understand the subject today.”— Jim Al-Khalili (2019), Tweet (Ѻ), Jan 10
“The seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.”— Alhazen (c.1020) (Ѻ)
“Truth is sought for its own sake. And those who are engaged upon the quest for anything for its own sake are not interested in other things. Finding the truth is difficult, and the road to it is rough.”— Alhazen (c.1030), Critique of Ptolemy
“If learning the truth is the scientist’s goal, then he must make himself the enemy of all that he reads.”— Alhazen (c.1010) [3]
