who discovered that light travels in straight lines
Ibn al-Haytham Alhazen showed through experiment that light travels in straight lines, and carried out various experiments with lenses, mirrors, refraction, and reflection.[49] His analyses of reflection and refraction considered the vertical and horizontal components of light rays separately.[50]
Glasses Robert Grosseteste's treatise De iride ("On the Rainbow"), written between 1220 and 1235, mentions using optics to "read the smallest letters at incredible distances". A few years later in 1262, Roger Bacon is also known to have written on the magnifying properties of lenses.[13] The development of the first eyeglasses took place in Northern Italy in the second half of the 13th century.[14]