Middle Ages

Little advance was made in physics, or in any other science, during the Middle Ages, other than the preservation of the classical Greek treatises, for which the Arab scholars such as Averroës and Al-Quarashi, the latter also known as Ibn al-Nafis, deserve much credit. The founding of the great medieval universities by monastic orders in Europe, starting in the 13th century, generally failed to advance physics or any experimental investigations. The Italian Scholastic philosopher and theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas, for instance, attempted to demonstrate that the works of Plato and Aristotle were consistent with the Scriptures. The English Scholastic philosopher and scientist Roger Bacon was one of the few philosophers who advocated the experimental method as the true foundation of scientific knowledge and who also did some work in astronomy, chemistry, optics, and machine design.