Bøker av Bradley Steffens

Award-winning author Bradley Steffens introduces Ibn al-Haytham in this first full biography ever written about him. Though not a household name as far as the history of science goes, with his major contributions going largely unnoticed and uncredited, Ibn al-Haytham, who lived a thousand years ago, is finally being recognized as the world's first true scientist.Centuries before better-known researchers such as Roger Bacon, Leonardo da Vinci, and Galileo Galilei were born, Ibn al-Haytham investigated eyesight and the propagation of light in a profound manner, the likes of which had never before been fully utilized, and documented his findings in his magnum opus Book of Optics. By systematically using experiments to test his hypotheses, Ibn al-Haytham changed the course of human history, giving humankind a new and effective way of establishing facts about the natural world¿an approach known today as the scientific method.

Despite being one of the most brilliant mathematicians in the Abbasid caliphate, Alhasan Ibn al-Haytham makes a quiet living in Basra as a scholar and copyist. He's preparing to write a new treatise on vision and light when a strange man wearing unusual clothes kidnaps him and takes him to Cairo, for a meeting with the caliph, Al-Hakim. The "e;mad king"e; of the Fatimid caliphate wants Alhasan to utilize his brilliance to dam the mighty Nile River. What follows is the kind of adventure that the quiet, reserved Alhasan could never have imagined. Alhasan's incredible journey will lead him to the brink of ruin - and perhaps to his most monumental discovery. A novel about one of history's most overlooked scholars, The Prisoner of Al-Hakim is filled with vivid characters, thrilling scenes, and rich philosophical debates. It's a story about how love, faith, and knowledge are ultimately intertwined, and tells us as much about our contemporary times as about bygone eras.