Islamic Developments in Optics
The Complete History of Science
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Al-Hitham's Failure to Develop a Better Theory of Refraction
Al-Hitham did clearly have some familiarity with how light refracts. He was aware that as the angle of refraction increases, it does so at a diminishing rate. His failure to note the critical angle then may suggest he never actually performed the experiment. I would speculate his work on refraction is primarily taken from Ptolemy's flawed results.
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