Playing a vital role in our everyday lives, technologies based on light are in use all around us. From art and science to modern technology, the study of light - and how behaves and interacts with matter has intrigued scientists for over a century.
This year, 2015, marks the 1,000th anniversary of the Kitab al-Manazir (The Book of Optics), a seven-volume treatise written by the Iraqi scientist Ibn al-Haytham - a pioneering thinker who's views have been crucial to our understanding of how the universe came into existence.
Shaping our understanding of vision, optics and light, Ibn al-Haytham interrogated theories of light put forward by the Greeks - men like Plato and Euclid who argued that the way we see objects is by shining light out of our eyes onto them.
Ibn al-Haytham argued instead, and correctly, that the way we see is by light entering our eyes from outside either reflecting off objects or directly from luminous bodies like candles or the sun.
His methodology of investigation, in which he combined theory and experiments, were also remarkable for their emphasis on proof and evidence.
In the first episode of Science in the Golden Age, theoretical physicist, Jim al-Khalili, looks at state-of-the-art applications of optics and traces the science of light back to the medieval Islamic world.
Al-Khalili recreates Ibn al-Haytham's famous 'camera obscura' experiment with stunning results and also uncovers the work of Ibn Sahl, a mathematician and physicist associated with the Abbasid court of Baghdad.
According to a recently discovered manuscript, he correctly described "Snell's law of refraction" centuries before Dutch astronomer Willebrord Snellius was even born.
We also look at the work of Ibn Mu'adh, who brought together knowledge of optics and geometry in order to estimate the height of the atmosphere.
From the Iraqi Banu Musa brothers of the 9th century, to the Andalusian engineer Abbas Ibn Firnas, to Al-Jazari who lived and worked in the 12th century – Jim Al-Khalili guides us through the work of the engineers and innovators of the Golden Age of science (9th - 14th centuries).
He looks at state-of-the-art robotic engineering and studies the history of early automatic machines. He unpicks the engineering principles behind the incredible trick devices of the Banu Musa brothers in the 9th century, and is shown a modern reconstruction of their ingenious ‘flute that plays itself’.
In Istanbul, Jim is shown the intricate clocks and sophisticated water pumps designed by 12th century engineer Al-Jazari. And he analyses the claims made of Abbas Ibn Firnas – who supposedly managed to get airborne all the way back in the 9th century.
From fast cars and aeroplanes to computer encryption – mathematics underpins so much of modern life. In this episode, Jim Al-Khalili uncovers how, between the 9th and 14th centuries, mathematicians from the Islamic world helped mathematicise science and lay the foundations of algebra.
He looks at the modern mathematics behind flight, and behind the record-breaking fastest car in the world, tracing the route back from these achievements to the legacy of the Persian mathematician Al Khwarizmi.
We also discover the role that the Islamic world played in giving us the modern numeral system that we take for granted in everyday life.
And, in the Sulemaniye Library in Istanbul, Jim uncovers a rare text by Al Kindi – perhaps the world’s earliest mathematical code breaker.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav addressed a joint press conference in Lucknow, capital of Uttar pradesh, India on Sunday ahead of the Assembly elections.
This is the first time that the two politicians have come together for an event after the announcement of the alliance for the seven phased polls.
A joint poster with the slogan ‘UP ko yeh saath pasand hai’ having the pictures of both Rahul and Akhilesh and their respective party symbols was also released on the occasion. The parties also released the theme song of the alliance during the press conference.
Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi spoke on the alliance and said, “Uttar is the first word in Uttar Pradesh. The alliance of Congress and Samajwadi Party is an answer. Uttar Pradesh has always given answers.”
Gandhi also termed the coming together of the two parties as coming together of Ganga and Yamuna. “It is the onset of development in the state,” he said.
While agreeing to what Rahul Gandhi said, Akhilesh Yadav said that the partnership of Congress and Samajwadi Party will take Uttar Pradesh to greater heights. He also guaranteed the people that the two parties together will win 305 seats in the state.
Clarifying on Priyanka Gandhi’s role in the alliance, Rahul Gandhi says, “Priyanka has been of tremendous help to me and I have been so to her, if she campaigns or not is her choice; she is an asset to Congress.”
Rahul Gandhi dismisses accusations of the alliance being a marriage of opportunities. “This alliance isn’t opportunistic, it is an alliance of hearts. Will explain to Modi Ji,BJP & RSS that UP and its people are one and we will not let them create divide,” he said.
Brushing aside questions of uncertainty in seats from Amethi and Rae Bareilly, Rahul says that the strategy will be revealed as when the time comes.
Rahul Gandhi calls Akhilesh Yadav a good boy. “I had said earlier that Akhilesh Yadav is a good boy, but he’s not being allowed to work,” Gandhi said on if he still believes in Congress’s earlier slogan “27saal UP behal”
Ram Temple issue is sub-judice. It is BJP’s nature to pick up the issue everytime before the polls: Rahul Gandhi said while slamming the BJP over its manifesto.
Referring to the slogans of Congress and Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh Yadav said, “Imagine what would happen if ‘kaam bolta hai’ and ‘UP ko yeh saath pasand hai’ come together.” He also attacked the BJP government and said that its been over two years but, the ‘Acche Din’ still seem so far.
Akhilesh Yadav also claimed that he and Rahul Gandhi are the two tyres of a cycle. He further said that both the parties, together, will win 305 seats in the state with the love of the people.
Putting all speculations to rest, the Congress and the Samajwadi Party last week on January 22 forged an alliance for the high-voltage Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. The Congress, which wanted to contest as many as 121 seats, has reportedly now settled for 105 seats. The development came after Priyanka Gandhi’s intervention ending the prolonged deadlock over entering into an alliance to counter the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the politically crucial state.
The Congress is contesting 105 seats while the ruling Samajwadi Party is contesting 298 seats. Uttar Pradesh will be voting for a new state assembly in a seven-phase election. Voting in the state begins on February 11 and concludes on March 8. Counting of votes will be held on March 11.
Two federal courts ruled late Saturday against part of US President Donald Trump’s executive order barring citizens of seven Muslim nations from entering the United States.
A federal court in Brooklyn granted a nationwide stay preventing the government from deporting people who arrived with valid U.S. visas. “Our own government presumably approved their entry to the country,” said Judge Ann Donnelly of the Eastern District of New York.
A second judge in Virginia issued a temporary restraining order preventing the deportation of permanent U.S. residents who arrived at Dulles International Airport outside Washington. U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia also ruled that the detained passengers must be given access to an attorney.
Donnelly was appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama. Brinkema, who sentenced Zacarias Moussaoui, a 9/11 conspirator, to life in prison, was appointed by President Bill Clinton.
Donnelly granted the stay after an emergency hearing in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the rights watchdog better known as the ACLU, on behalf of two men who’d been detained at JFK airport in New York. The men were later released.
The ACLU, other civil rights groups and hundreds of protesters at U.S. airports cheered the decision, though they cautioned that the reprieve is temporary and affects only visa holders who’ve already arrived in the United States and are being held at airports. While it prevents them from being deported, the ruling stops short of ordering their release, raising concerns among attorneys about an extended detention as the arrivals wait in limbo for a permanent decision in the case.
“Our courts today worked as they should as bulwarks against government abuse or unconstitutional policies and orders. On week one, Donald Trump suffered his first loss in court,” ACLU executive director Anthony D. Romero said in a statement.
The ACLU estimates that between 100 and 200 people are being held in U.S. airports because of Trump’s executive order, which upended thousands of lives overnight, including permanent U.S. residents who were denied entry or stranded abroad over the weekend.
Outraged families and advocacy groups publicized cases of visa holders and permanent residents, including some who’ve held so-called green cards for decades, being detained at airports or barred from entering the United States, including at least 50 who were being held at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
Angry, confused and frustrated family members who’d been waiting for loved ones chanted “this is what democracy looks like” and held signs that read “Release our Family!” and “Deport Trump!!” in the international area of DFW’s Terminal D. Federal officials would not confirm the number of people being detained and DFW Airport officials declined to comment.
Large crowds of protesters also gathered outside John F. Kennedy airport in New York after word circulated that two Iraqis had been detained. Airports in San Francisco and a few other cities drew similar demonstrations.
Trump’s order halted refugee admissions and imposes a 90-day ban on entry for citizens of a select group of Middle East and North African nations.
Trump told reporters at the White House that the new order is “working out very nicely. You see it at the airports, you see it all over.”
Immigration specialists, however, said the wording of the order is so murky that its true scope – at least as it applies to permanent residents and dual citizens – will become clear only through test cases.
A first round of arrivals Saturday caused chaos, with outcomes ranging from immediate deportation to entry for green-card holders only after they’d been questioned for hours about their beliefs. There were also reports of airlines turning back passengers with reservations to travel to the United States because of the new order.
Google, the Silicon Valley search giant, announced that the order may affect as many as 200 of its staff who were traveling outside the country either for work or vacation. Google CEO Sundar Pichai blasted the order in a note to employees.
Employees of other technology companies were likely to find themselves in similar straits because of the order. Silicon Valley firms employ thousands of non-U.S. citizens.
Also affected were Iraqis who’d helped the United States during the war there but were denied entry, even though they’d been approved under a program that gives them priority for resettlement. U.S. military veterans angrily took to Twitter, denouncing Trump’s order as a betrayal of Iraqis who provided life-saving intelligence and translation services.
The order applies to citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya. Visa holders and refugees shouldn’t even try to enter, immigration attorneys said. Permanent residents and dual citizens might be able to persuade border security officials to allow them in, they said.
Green-card holders who’d been issued permission to live and work in the United States permanently but who were abroad when Trump’s order went into effect will have their cases reviewed individually and will require a waiver before they can enter the United States, said a senior administration official with knowledge of the situation but who’s not authorized to speak publicly.
Green-card holders in the United States will have to meet with a government official before leaving the country, the official added.
The White House pushed back on the portrayal of the order as a “Muslim ban,” listing several predominantly Muslim countries that are exempt.
“We’re dealing with a relatively small universe of people,” the official said. “It’s important to keep in mind that no person living or residing overseas has a right to entry to the U.S.”
The official also implied that the administration was considering some sort of hardship exemption for refugees who’ve been approved to enter the United States but are currently in a third country. He said the administration is working to define what “in transit” means before announcing how such a procedure might work.
Civil rights groups called Trump’s measures discriminatory and ineffective. They fought back by filing the first legal challenge to the order, on behalf of two Iraqi men who’d been targeted in Iraq because of their work with the U.S. military. The men had been approved for resettlement but were denied entry and detained at JFK airport in New York, according to a statement by the National Immigration Law Center, an advocacy group. Their case was the basis of the emergency stay issued late Saturday night.
Attorney Tarek Z. Ismail said he’s been on the phone nonstop with anguished travelers and their families. One was from a university student, a permanent U.S. resident who’d spent most of her life here, who heard about the ban while on a research trip to her country of origin, which Ismail did not name out of privacy concerns. She boarded a flight to the United States 20 hours before Trump signed the order, but her plane was delayed and she landed half an hour after it took effect.
“This was a complete life shift that was going to happen in the blink of an eye,” said Ismail, the senior staff attorney at CUNY Law School’s CLEAR project, which addresses legal needs of Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities in the New York City area.
Ismail said he had little faith that the government would repeal the ban after a review in 90 days. The idea that it’s temporary, he said, “is folly.”
“This is Donald Trump we’re talking about,” Ismail said.
Allegra Klein spent Saturday frantically calling legal experts to advise her on how to get her Iraqi-born husband, a green card holder since 2015, back from Thailand.
Klein and her husband met on a plane five years ago when they both worked in Baghdad – “love at first sight,” she said – and endured years of turmoil in Iraq before moving to the States to build a more tranquil life. Her husband, a professional athlete who asked not to be named, was in Thailand officiating at an International Wheelchair Basketball Federation championship when Trump announced the order. He was scheduled to return in a few days.
Now Klein faces the prospect of an open-ended separation from her husband as well as thousands of dollars in expenses for immigration attorneys and housing abroad for her stranded spouse. He faces loss of wages if he can’t return to the United States, and Klein said the ordeal could force her to withdraw from classes at the University of Connecticut.
“I am frankly, terrified,” Klein said. “And it’s not some terrorist organization that’s done this to us – it’s our president.”
Osama Alolabi, 20, of Syria, a junior at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said he also feared for his parents, who’d come for a visit, but were denied entry.
Aloabi said his parents, who’d been staying in Saudi Arabia but have Syrian passports, were traveling on B1-B2 Visitor Visas, which are generally used for business, tourism or visiting.
“I’m really terrified about my family,” said Aloabi, who last saw his parents in August. “That’s all I can think about, is their safety.”
Out of power in Punjab for ten years, Congress today promised a host of freebies like farm loan waiver and free power, smart phones, textbooks and doles to unemployed youth in the election manifesto for the state released today.
Releasing the manifesto, former Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh charged the Akali-BJP government with "misusing" governance in the last ten years and said Capt Amarinder Singh's leadership is "badly needed" in the state to exploit the state's tremendous potential.
"The challenge before Punjab is to rise above all this din and recognise that the people of Punjab need a better tomorrow. This election manifesto is a forward looking visionary document, which promises the people that we will undo the damage done to the Punjab economy by the State government in the last ten years," he said.
Hailing Amarinder, Manmohan said he is a leader of great vision who has a wealth of experience and commitment to the cause of development in Punjab.
He said Punjab's fiscal situation has been bad under the Akalis as the state has inflicted great damage on the economy and polity of Punjab being a victim of terrorism.
"Amarinder's government will undo all this damage and set a new pathway for a better tomorrow which will see that people will have. A higher per-capita Income, better distribution of Income, better employment prospects and better infrastructure," Manmohan Singh said.
The manifesto promises loan waiver and free power to farmers, wiping out of drug trade within a month, stipend of Rs 2,500 per month to unemployed youth, free smart mobile phones to youth and free textbooks to all children.
Amarinder Singh announced that the state would generate as many as 25 lakh jobs within the next five years so as to provide employment to all youth in the state.
He also promised to crackdown on drugs and corruption, and bring a new industrial policy within 90 days, besides promising an end to VIP culture, bring sweeping economic reforms and total transparency in governance. He also promised free houses to homeless dalits/SCs/OBCs and one job in every family.
He lamented that the growth rate of Punjab was down at 5.6 per cent, against the national average of 7.3 per cent, and that the state has slided from number one position to number 19 under Akalis. "We are in a very bad shape," he said.
On the contentious SYL Canal issue, he insisted there was no additional water in Punjab and that when the Assembly will be convened a law will be passed for not sharing any of the state's waters.
"We are not for not giving. But, we don't have it (to share)," he said when asked about it.
Asked specifically if Amarinder was the chief ministerial candidate, AICC Secretary in-charge Asha Kumari said, "He is officially president, who is leading the party in the polls".
