Alhazen - Works

Works

Alhazen was a pioneer in many areas of science, making significant contributions in varying disciplines. His optical writings influenced many Western intellectuals such as Roger Bacon, John Pecham, Witelo, and Johannes Kepler. His pioneering work on number theory, analytic geometry, and the link between algebra and geometry, also had an influence on René Descartes's geometric analysis and Isaac Newton's calculus.

According to medieval biographers, Alhazen wrote more than 200 works on a wide range of subjects, of which at least 96 of his scientific works are known. Most of his works are now lost, but more than 50 of them have survived to some extent. Nearly half of his surviving works are on mathematics, 23 of them are on astronomy, and 14 of them are on optics, with a few on other subjects. Not all his surviving works have yet been studied, but some of the ones that have are given below.

  1. Book of Optics
  2. Analysis and Synthesis
  3. Balance of Wisdom
  4. Corrections to the Almagest
  5. Discourse on Place
  6. Exact Determination of the Pole
  7. Exact Determination of the Meridian
  8. Finding the Direction of Qibla by Calculation
  9. Horizontal Sundials
  10. Hour Lines
  11. Doubts Concerning Ptolemy
  12. Maqala fi'l-Qarastun
  13. On Completion of the Conics
  14. On Seeing the Stars
  15. On Squaring the Circle
  16. On the Burning Sphere
  17. On the Configuration of the World
  18. On the Form of Eclipse
  19. On the Light of Stars
  20. On the Light of the Moon
  21. On the Milky Way
  22. On the Nature of Shadows
  23. On the Rainbow and Halo
  24. Opuscula
  25. Resolution of Doubts Concerning the Almagest
  26. Resolution of Doubts Concerning the Winding Motion
  27. The Correction of the Operations in Astronomy
  28. The Different Heights of the Planets
  29. The Direction of Mecca
  30. The Model of the Motions of Each of the Seven Planets
  31. The Model of the Universe
  32. The Motion of the Moon
  33. The Ratios of Hourly Arcs to their Heights
  34. The Winding Motion
  35. Treatise on Light
  36. Treatise on Place
  37. Treatise on the Influence of Melodies on the Souls of Animals

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