A Critical Edition of Ibn Al-Haytham S on the Shape of the Eclipse: The First Experimental Study of the Camera Obscura by Dominique RaynaudMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
"The main content here is a translation and thorough reconstruction of Ibn al-Haytham’s On the Shape of the Eclipse, with Arabic text, from available manuscripts. More, in quantity of pages, and at least as important is the examination of this work as the first known scientific analysis of the camera obscura. That is, this a Tenth Century example of rigorous experiment with the camera obscura as the apparatus and a partial eclipse as the opportunity to assay fundamental optics. Reading of this circa 990 A.D. experiment stirred within me the same feelings of wonder at first-hand theoretical confirmation as reading of the 1919 solar eclipse; Sir Arthur Eddington’s opportunity for the first experimental test of relativity. Working a millennium before, al-Haytham did his own important work..."
[Look for my entire review at MAA Reviews]
(For viewing the 2017 solar eclipse from Michigan, I built a box pinhole projector six-feet long for a quarter-sized image on a white label sticker surface.)
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