Very little happened in science between the time of the ancient Greeks and the 17th century, or (0) so we are told at school. However, (1) because Western Europe was languishing in the Dark Ages does not mean there was stagnation elsewhere. Indeed, in the Arabic peninsula, this was the Golden Age of science.

Probably the most influential scientist of this period was Ibn al-Haytham, who was born around 965 in (2) is now Iraq. Ibn al-Haytham is increasingly being recognised as the father of the scientific method, a title which has long been attributed to the 17th Century scientists Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes. The scientific method is the process of acquiring knowledge through observation and measurement, which continues to be used in the advancement of science to this (3) .

Ibn al-Haytham was the first scientist to correctly (4) for how we see objects; that is, that the ‘emission theory’ (5) forward by Plato, Euclid and Ptolemy, (6) light shines from our eyes onto the objects that we see, was false. He correctly identified that we see objects as a (7) of light entering our eyes.
Al-Haytham conducted a great many more experiments into light and planetary orbits, and these studies (8) the way for the later work of the great Renaissance physicists, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton.