Book of Optics (Opticae Thesaurus) by Al-Hazen

Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham conducted research in optics, mathematics, physics, medicine and development of scientific methods. His mainwork, The Book of Optics, was writtenwhile under house arrest in Cairo during eleven years 1010-1021. Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham was regarded as the father of Modern Optics.

The Arab Muslim scholar Abu Ali al Hasan ibn al-Haytham , known in the west as Al-Hacen or Al-Hazen was born in 965 in the city of Basra in Southern Iraq, hence he is also known as Al-Basri. He was educated in Basra and Baghdad, and died in Cairo, Egypt in the year 1040.

He wrote more than 200 works on a wide range of subjects, of which at least 96 of his scientific works are known, and approximately 50 of them have survived to date.

Al-Hazen was an expert and a serious researcher in philosophy, physics and mathematics. He is considered the most important researcher in optics between antiquity and the seventh century. He made a significant contribution to understanding of the visual process and systemically investigated the optical properties of air.

In the book Al-Hazen correctly explained and proved modern intromission theory of vision. He recognized for his experimentation on optics, including experiment on lenses, mirror, refraction, reflection and the dispersion of light into its constituent colors. He studied binocular vision and the Moon illusion, described the finite speed of light, and argued that it is made of particles traveling in straight lines. Due to his formulation of a modern quantitative and empirical approach to physics and science, he is considered the pioneer of the modern scientific method and the originator of the experimental nature of physics and science.

Al-hazen described the eye and its functioning, and he made mathematical descriptions of the properties of light. He proposed that light moves with finite speed, and that it moves more slowly in dense media.

In his Kitab al-Manazir, Al-Hazen asserted that optics is a synthetic branch of inquiry that combines mathematical and physical consideration. This not only a new doctrine of vision, but also a new methodology. Al-Hazen was led to formulate problems which either would not have made sense from the stand point of the visual-ray theory or had been ignored by philosophers aiming primarily to give an account of what vision rather than an explanation of how to take place.

Al-Haytham was the pioneer of the modern scientific method. With his book, he changed the meaning of the term “optics”, and established experiments as the norm of proof in the field.

For reason that are not entirely clear, the Kitab al-Manazir seems to have been virtually unknown in the Islamic world until the end of the thirteenth century. Only then did the Arabic text receive the attention it deserved in the form of a critical commentary written in Arabic by the Persian Kamal al-Din al-Farisi. The Book of Optics was translated into Latin, and had much influence especially on and through Roger Bacon.

Some parts of the Book of Optics came to Europe about 1200, were translated into Latin, and had great impact on the development of European science in the following centuries. Alhazen's book was considered the most important book on optics until Johannes Kepler's "Astronomiae Pars Optica" from 1604.
Book of Optics (Opticae Thesaurus) by Al-Hazen

Kitāb al-Šifāʾ by Ibnu Sina

Abu ‘Ali al-Husayn ibn Sina (980 – 1037) known in Latin as Avicenna, was a physician, natural philosopher, mathematician poetic mystic and princely minister. Of Persian descent, he was born in the neighborhood of Bukhara, in what is now modern Uzbekistan. By age of 10, Avicenna had already memorized The Quran, the holy book of Islam. By age 21, Avicenna was recognized as a philosopher, physician and legal expert.

His philosophical chief work, Kitāb al-Šifāʾ (Book of Healing) which was known in Latin as Liber Sufficienta, together with its condensed revision Kitab al-Najat (Book of Deliverance), led by many to regard him as being the authoritative Neoplatonist integrator of the Aristotelian.

The Kitāb al-Šifāʾ is often confused with the Canon of Medicine, because of the medical connotation of its title, which is meant to suggest however, only that philosophy constitutes and antidote against illness of false opinions.

Kitāb al-Šifāʾ may have been composed in 1014 and competed in 1020. The Kitāb al-Šifāʾ divides into sections on logic, mathematics, physics and metaphysics and ends with an abridgement of itself, The Book of Salvation. The author openly declares his debt to al-Farabi for his understanding of metaphysics, but his exposition of it is a great deal more organized.

The Kitāb al-Šifāʾ also included detailed descriptions of natural phenomena such as rainbows and geological formations including description of igneous and sedimentary rocks and stalagmites, with references to Avicenna’s own childhood observations of Amu Darya River in Bukhara.

There is one special section on the “science of god’ in Kitāb al-Šifāʾ. This section was translated into Latin and circulated under the title The Metaphysic of Avicenna, thus guaranteeing it would be known to the masters of western scholasticism and exert an exceptional influence on them.

Archbishop John of Toledo became aware of the importance of Kitāb al-Šifā: the work may have been introduced to him Avendauth. The religious and philosophical material in the Kitab became synthesized with work of St, Agustine to form one of the foundation stones of Scholasticism.

The Kitāb al-Šifāʾ, a vast eighteenth volume philosophical and scientific encyclopedia which has been described a “probably the largest work its kind ever written by one man”.
Kitāb al-Šifāʾ by Ibnu Sina

Kitab al-Tasrif by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (Albulcasis)

Kitab al-Tasrif is an encyclopedia on medicine and surgery. It was written and completed in year 1000 AD by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi.

Abu al-Qasim was known as a father of modern surgery. He was born at Medinat al-Zahra near Cordoba on 936 A.D and died in 1013 AD. He descended from Ansar tribe of Arabia who had settled earlier in Spain. He studied medicine there and became court physician to the Caliph of Cordoba, Hakam II (died 976)

Kitab Al-Tasrif was his outstanding contribution in medicine. The full title of the work reads Kitab al-Tasrif Lima ‘Ajiza ‘an al-Talif, a title that caused certain difficulties for historians and translators.

Kitab al-Tasrif known also known as ‘Concessio ei data qui componere haud valet’ in Europe and it’s in 30 volume work covering anatomy, diseases, nutrition, surgery, medicine, orthopedic, ophthalmology and pharmacology. Abu al-Qasim also wrote the importance of doctor-patient relationship.

Al-Tasrif is characterized by an encyclopedic nature and outlook. It embraces a wide range of topics touching the various branches of the health field known and developed at the time.

In his last and the largest volume of Al-Tasrif was nothing less than the greatest achievement of medieval surgery. It was the first independent surgical treatise ever written in detail. It included many pictures of surgical instruments, most invented by Abu Al-Qasim himself, and explanations of their use.

This work is divided in into three sections the first, and the longest, discusses the use of cautery, the second, surgical operation; and the third , the treatment of fractures and dislocations.

He was the first medical author to provide illustrations of instruments used in surgery. His treatise of surgery contains approximately 200 such drawings ranging from a tongue depressor and a tooth extractor to a catheter and elaborate obstetric device.

He is a great surgeon in medieval Islam and also a great educationist based on his substantial section in the Al-Tasrif to child education and behavior table etiquette school curriculum and academic specialization.

It was translated to Latin by Gerald of Cremona in 12th century. The twenty eight treatise was translated into Latin toward the end of the thirteenth century by Simon of Genoa and Abraham Judeus of Tortosa and it was printed in Venice in 1471.

The last edition was that of John Channing in Oxford (1778) this contains both the original Arabic text and its Latin translation on alternative pages.
Kitab al-Tasrif by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (Albulcasis) 

Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton, was the great mathematician and physicist, was born at Woolsthorpe in 1642 and died at Kensington in 1727.

Newton wrote the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, in which he described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics.

The Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Latin: "mathematical principles of natural philosophy", often Principia or Principia Mathematica for short) is a three-volume work by Isaac Newton published on July 5, 1687.

He released his works at age forty-five and years after vowing never to publish again.

It contains the statement of Newton's laws of motion forming the foundation of classical mechanics, as well as his law of universal gravitation and a derivation of Kepler's laws for the motion of the planets (which were first obtained empirically).

Newton demonstrated for the first time the laws of dynamics and gravitation, giving mathematical solutions to most of the problems concerning motion, puzzling scientists. It success established him as the leading scientist of his time throughout the Western world.

The Principia is widely regarded as one of the most important scientific works ever written. It has been claimed that the Principia is the greatest work in the history of the physical sciences.

In it Newton not only put forward a new theory of how bodies move ins space and time, but also developed the complicated mathematics needed to analyze these motions.

By demonstrating that the motion of all bodies was controlled by the same universal laws, Isaac Newton brought to the scientific community a vision of an orderly, harmonious universe which could be understood independent of any supreme being.

A revised edition was published in 1713. A third edition, which had fewer changes than the second edition, was published in 1726, a year before Newton’s death in 1727.

Divided into three books,
*Book I develops general dynamics from a mathematical standpoint for the entire work and begins with the motion of mass particles.
*Book II is a treatise on fluid mechanics.
*Book III is devoted to astronomical and physical problems. Newton addressed and resolved a number of issues including the motions of comets and the influence of gravitation.

Newton's scientific accomplishments were vast. He held a professor ship at Cambridge, represented the University in Parliaments master of the mint reformed the English coinage and for twenty five years was president of the Royal Society.

He was the co-discoverer with Leibniz of differential calculus and the founder of mathematical physics. He made important studies in optics and yet had time to devote to theology, alchemy and chemistry.

Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton