Remarks on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the 2015 International Year of Light and Light-Based Technologies, H.E. Ambassador Mohamed Amr, Chairperson of the Executive Board
It is with modest pride, as an Egyptian, that I recall the memory of the Father of scientific method - Ibn al-Haytham – a ‘luminary’ during the Golden Age of Arabic Science and Muslim Civilization. Not only was he a critical thinker and a sceptic, Ibn al-Haytham invented optics, but also refraction, diffraction, and theoretical physics. He was driven by a personal mission and unending thirst for the rational truth of nature. He would never believe another, always needing to investigate the truth for himself.