Science
In fiction: mad scientists in fiction - science fiction
Major fields: academia - anthropology - biology - communication - economics - folklore - linguistics - medicine - memetics - natural history - philosophy - political science - psychology - sociobiology - social sciences - sociology - theory
History of science: cabinet of curiosities - Richard von Krafft-Ebing - Cesare Lombroso
Related: science fiction - technique - technology -
"Musei Wormiani Historia", the frontispiece from the Museum Wormianum (1655) depicting Ole Worm's cabinet of curiosities.
Definition
Science is both a process of gaining knowledge, and the organized body of knowledge gained by this process. The scientific process is the systematic acquisition of new knowledge about a system. This systematic acquisition is generally the scientific method, and the system is generally nature. Science is also the scientific knowledge that has been systematically acquired by this scientific process.
Some of the findings of science can be very counter-intuitive. Atomic theory, for example, implies that a granite boulder which appears as heavy, hard, solid, grey, etc. is actually a combination of subatomic particles with none of these properties, moving very rapidly in an area consisting mostly of empty space. Many of humanity's preconceived notions about the workings of the universe have been challenged by new scientific discoveries. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science [Jan 2005]
your Amazon recommendations