The Book of Optics (Arabic: كتاب المناظر, romanized: Kitāb al-Manāẓir; Latin: De Aspectibus or Perspectiva; Italian: Deli Aspecti) is a seven-volume treatise on optics and other fields of study composed by the medieval Arab scholar Ibn al-Haytham, known in the West as Alhazen or Alhacen (965 – c. 1040 AD).
The Book of Optics presented experimentally founded arguments against the widely held extramission theory of vision (as held by Euclid in his Optica), and proposed the modern intromission theory, the now accepted model that vision takes place by light entering the eye. The book is also noted for its early use of the scientific method, its description of the camera obscura, and its formulation of Alhazen's problem. The book extensively affected the development of optics, physics and mathematics in Europe between the 13th and 17th centuries.
