The International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies

Abstract

Numerous conferences have been held on themes related to the Islamic goldenage of science during the mid-eighth to thirteenth centuries. But the event reportedhere is the “event of events,” so to say. The United Nations declared2015 the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies (IYL-2015)to stimulate global interest in light-related sciences and technologies. TheIYL-2015 partnership, formed in 2010, is a cross-disciplinary educational andoutreach project with over 100 partners from more than 90 countries, accompaniedby UNESCO’s International Basic Sciences Program. UNESCO’s executiveboard adopted this resolution during its October 2012 session; the UNdeclared IYL-2015 in December 2013.The year 2015 marks numerous anniversaries in the field of optics. Theoldest among these is the 1000th anniversary of the appearance of Ibn al-Haytham’s (965-1040) encyclopedic Book of Optics (Kitāb al-Manāẓir) bythe Arab scientist. Ibn al-Haytham became a central figure in the documentssubmitted to UNESCO’a board and eventually the UN. The International ...