Template:Did you know nominations/Alhazen's problem

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... that according to Roberto Marcolongo, Leonardo da Vinci failed to solve Alhazen's problem on reflection in a spherical mirror mathematically, and instead invented a device for solving it?

Source: Marcolongo's reconstruction of da Vinci's mechanical solution is in Severi, Francesco (January 1953), "Leonardo and mathematics", East and West, 3 (4): 233–235, https://jstor.org/stable/29758044 (paywalled but probably available through The Wikipedia Library) and in Truesdell, C. (2012), Essays in the History of Mechanics, Springer, pp. 50–52, ISBN 9783642866470, https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=_crsCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA50 — Severi doesn't mention da Vinci's difficulties with the mathematical side of the problem but Truesdell does. These are all also in Marcolongo's original publications in Italian (footnoted in the article).

Improved to Good Article status by David Eppstein (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 188 past nominations.

—David Eppstein (talk) 02:41, 29 June 2025 (UTC).