THE NEW ASTRONOMY OF IBN AL-HAYTHAM

Abstract

In order to get rid of the contradictions he had identified in Ptolemy’s Astronomy, Ibn al-Haytham abandons cosmology and develops a purely kinematic description of the movement of the wandering stars. This description culminates with the proof that such a star, during its daily movement, reaches exactly one time a maximum height above the horizon and that any inferior height is reached exactly twice. The proofs of these facts necessitates new mathematical tools and Ibn al-Haytham is led to establish very sophisticated statements concerning the variation of certain ratios of arcs of circles on the sphere. He also introduces the fruitful idea of assimilating a very small spherical triangle to a plane triangle.