Changing the Eurocentric narrative about the history of science – why multiculturalism matters

In the 11th century in Cairo, the foundations for modern science were laid through the detention of an innocent man.

The mathematician Abu Ali al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham had been tasked with regulating the flow of the Nile, but when he saw the river that had shaped 4,000 years of human civilization, the hubris of the task became all too obvious.

To avoid the wrath of the Fatimid caliph in Egypt, Ibn al-Haytham supposedly feigned madness and was placed under house arrest, giving him time to focus on optics.

© La Conversation - mercredi 9 avril 2025