Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.14810

    Diagram relating to Alhazen's problem

    Date
    31 August 1672
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p339
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 313mm
    width (page): 197mm
    Description
    The debate between Huygens and Slusius about the solution to the problem of finding a point of reflection on the surface of a spherical mirror in relation to two points, the eye and the visible object, attributed to Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham (965-1045)) had been discussed at the meetings of the Royal Society on 3 July 1672 and 18 December 1672.

    This diagram is from Slusius's discussion of Alhazen's problem in a letter to Oldenburg, which was printed in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 8, no. 98 (November 1673), pp. 6145-46.

    The diagram in the letter is at EL/S1/72/003. There is another copy at LBC/5/371.
    Transcription
    Prid. Kal. Septemb.
    Transcribed by the Making Visible project
    Related fellows
    Renatus Franciscus Slusius (1622 - 1685, Belgian) , Mathematician
    Henry Oldenburg (1612 - 1677, German) , Scientific correspondent
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