Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15010

    Diagram relating to Alhazen's problem

    Date
    31 August 1672
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    LBC
    Manuscript page number
    vol5 p371
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 301mm
    width (page): 177mm
    Subject
    Physics
       > Optics
    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 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.

    This diagram is copied from the one at LBO/5/339. The diagram in the letter is at EL/S1/72/003.
    Object history
    R. F. Slusius and C. Huygens, 'Continuation of the optical problem of Alhazen,' Phil. Trans. vol. 8, no. 98 (November 1673), pp. 6145-46.
    Related fellows
    Renatus Franciscus Slusius (1622 - 1685, Belgian) , Mathematician
    Henry Oldenburg (1612 - 1677, German) , Scientific correspondent
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Belgium
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