Outline of science The following outline is provided as a topical overview of • Empirical method – science: • Experimental method – The steps involved in order Science – systematic effort of acquiring knowledge— to produce a reliable and logical conclusion include: through observation and experimentation coupled with logic and reasoning to find out what can be proved or 1. Asking a question about a natural phenomenon not proved—and the knowledge thus acquired. The word 2. Making observations of the phenomenon “science” comes from the Latin word “scientia” mean- 3. Forming a hypothesis – proposed explanation ing knowledge. A practitioner of science is called a for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a "scientist". Modern science respects objective logical rea- scientific hypothesis, the scientific method re- soning, and follows a set of core procedures or rules in or- quires that one can test it. Scientists generally der to determine the nature and underlying natural laws of base scientific hypotheses on previous obser- the universe and everything in it. Some scientists do not vations that cannot satisfactorily be explained know of the rules themselves, but follow them through with the available scientific theories. research policies. These procedures are known as the 4. Predicting a logical consequence of the hy- scientific method. pothesis 5. Testing the hypothesis through an experiment – methodical procedure carried out with the 1 Essence of science goal of verifying, falsifying, or establishing the validity of a hypothesis. The 3 types of scien- • Research – systematic investigation into existing or tific experiments are: new knowledge. • Controlled experiment – experiment that compares the results obtained from an ex- • Scientific discovery – observation of new phenom- perimental sample against a control sam- ena, new actions, or new events and providing ple, which is practically identical to the new reasoning to explain the knowledge gathered experimental sample except for the one through such observations with previously acquired aspect the effect of which is being tested knowledge from abstract thought and everyday ex- (the independent variable). periences. • Natural experiment – empirical study in • Laboratory – facility that provides controlled condi- which the experimental conditions (i.e., tions in which scientific research, experiments, and which units receive which treatment) are measurement may be performed. determined by nature or by other factors out of the control of the experimenters • Objectivity – the idea that scientists, in attempting and yet the treatment assignment process to uncover truths about the natural world, must as- is arguably exogenous. Thus, natural ex- pire to eliminate personal or cognitive biases, a pri- periments are observational studies and ori commitments, emotional involvement, etc. are not controlled in the traditional sense of a randomized experiment. • Inquiry – any process that has the aim of augmenting • Observational study – draws infer- knowledge, resolving doubt, or solving a problem. ences about the possible effect of a treatment on subjects, where the as- signment of subjects into a treated 2 Scientific method group versus a control group is out- side the control of the investigator. Scientific method – body of techniques for investigat- • Field experiment – applies the scientific ing phenomena and acquiring new knowledge, as well method to experimentally examine an in- as for correcting and integrating previous knowledge. It tervention in the real world (or as many is based on observable, empirical, measurable evidence, experimentalists like to say, naturally oc- and subject to laws of reasoning, both deductive and in- curring environments) rather than in the ductive. laboratory. See also field research. 1 2 3 BRANCHES OF SCIENCE 6. Gather and analyze data from experiments findings, are amongst the criteria and methods used for or observations, including indicators of this purpose. Natural science can be broken into 2 main uncertainty. branches: biology, and physical science. Each of these 7. Draw conclusions by comparing data with pre- branches, and all of their sub-branches, are referred to as dictions. Possible outcomes: natural sciences. • Conclusive: • Branches of natural science (also known as the nat- • The hypothesis is falsified by the ural sciences) data. • Data are consistent with the hypoth- esis. 3.2 Formal science • Data are consistent with alternative hypotheses. Formal science – branches of knowledge that are con- • Inconclusive: cerned with formal systems, such as those under the • Data are not relevant to the hy- branches of: logic, mathematics, computer science, pothesis, or data and predictions are statistics, and some aspects of linguistics. Unlike other incommensurate. sciences, the formal sciences are not concerned with the • There is too much uncertainty in the validity of theories based on observations in the real data to draw any conclusion. world, but instead with the properties of formal systems based on definitions and rules. • Deductive-nomological model • Scientific modelling – • Computer science – study of the theoretical founda- tions of information and computation and their im- • Models of scientific method plementation and application in computer systems. (See also Branches of Computer Science and ACM • Hypothetico-deductive model – proposed de- Computing Classification System) scription of scientific method. According to it, scientific inquiry proceeds by formulating • Theory of computation – branch that deals a hypothesis in a form that could conceivably with whether and how efficiently problems can be falsified by a test on observable data. A test be solved on a model of computation, using an that could and does run contrary to predictions algorithm of the hypothesis is taken as a falsification of the hypothesis. A test that could but does not • Automata theory – study of mathemati- run contrary to the hypothesis corroborates the cal objects called abstract machines or au- theory. tomata and the computational problems that can be solved using them. • Formal languages – set of strings of 3 Branches of science symbols. • Computability theory – branch of mathe- See also: Index of branches of science matical logic and computer science that originated in the 1930s with the study of computable functions and Turing de- Branches of science – divisions within science with re- grees. spect to the entity or system concerned, which typically • Computational complexity theory – embodies its own terminology and nomenclature. branch of the theory of computation in theoretical computer science and 3.1 Natural science mathematics that focuses on classifying computational problems according to Main article: Outline of natural science their inherent difficulty, and relating See also: Outline of science § Social science those classes to each other • Concurrency theory – In computer sci- ence, concurrency is a property of sys- Natural science – major branch of science, that tries to tems in which several computations are explain and predict nature’s phenomena, based on em- executing simultaneously, and potentially pirical evidence. In natural science, hypotheses must interacting with each other be verified scientifically to be regarded as scientific the- ory. Validity, accuracy, and social mechanisms ensuring • Algorithms – step-by-step procedure for cal- quality control, such as peer review and repeatability of culations 3.2 Formal science 3 • Randomized algorithms – algorithm • reliability – system design approach and which employs a degree of randomness associated service implementation that as part of its logic. ensures a prearranged level of operational • Distributed algorithms – algorithm de- performance will be met during a con- signed to run on computer hardware con- tractual measurement period. structed from interconnected processors • Cryptography – practice and study of hid- • Parallel algorithms – algorithm which can ing information. be executed a piece at a time on many • Fault-tolerant computing – property that different processing devices, and then put enables a system (often computer-based) back together again at the end to get the to continue operating properly in the correct result. event of the failure of (or one or more faults within) some of its components • Data structures – particular way of storing and organizing data in a computer so that it can be • Distributed computing – field of computer sci- used efficiently. ence that studies distributed systems • Computer architecture – In computer science • Grid computing – federation of com- and engineering, computer architecture is the puter resources from multiple administra- practical art of selecting and interconnecting tive domains to reach a common goal hardware components to create computers that • Parallel computing – form of computation in meet functional, performance and cost goals which many calculations are carried out simul- and the formal modeling of those systems. taneously, operating on the principle that large • VLSI design – process of creating inte- problems can often be divided into smaller grated circuits by combining thousands of ones, which are then solved concurrently (“in transistors into a single chip parallel”). • • Operating systems – set of software that man- High-performance computing – com- ages computer hardware resources and pro- puter at the frontline of current process- vides common services for computer pro- ing capacity, particularly speed of calcu- grams lation • Quantum computing