What are the Main Fields of Science?

The constant evolution of science has massively contributed to the advancement of human living on Earth. From being able to use vehicles through physics, to curing our illnesses hastily through medicine, science has truly helped us discover ways to make specific tasks and functions in our lives easier and more convenient.

Throughout science’s continually changing focuses, there have been many inventions and discoveries that differ from each other in terms of their use and their significance. These differing studies and theories led to the creation of various branches and fields of science.

Some science fields have been coined hundreds of years ago, while a few may have been only used during the past 30 to 40 years, which proves that science will continue to grow as long as humans strive to uncover the unknown in the universe.

To understand more about the variety of the subject’s branches, let us take a look at the three main categories that help distinguish the specialties of every branch in science.

Life Sciences

The life sciences are composed of branches that mainly deal with human life and all living things such as animals, plants, and microorganisms.

Sometimes called natural science, life science has different types of studies that specialize in analyzing in researching specific organisms. The most known branches in the life sciences are botany, the study of plants, and zoology, the study of animals.

Another life science is biology, a science that is composed of dozes on different branches focusing on life such as anatomy, the study of the intricacies and technicalities of every living being’s body, and also ecology, the study of interactions of living things in different environments.

Natural science is so complex that a single study may have multiple branching studies accompanying or borrowing from them. For example, anatomy has immunology, which focuses on the immune system, and it also has histology, the study of tissues in the body.

These branches in the life sciences have been known to contribute to improving the quality of life not only of humans but animals and plants as well. Because livestock such as cows, pigs, and chickens are also being studied, natural science has also helped in the enhancement of agriculture and veterinary medicine, which provides better products for human consumption.

Physical Sciences

As opposed to the life sciences, the physical sciences focus on studying and analyzing non-living things. Branches included in the physical sciences are physics, the study of motion, force, and energy in the universe, and astronomy, which is the study of heavenly bodies and other mysterious elements outside the Earth.

In the said branches, there are sub-branches in them that have been developed over the years due to the continuous growth of the studies. The sub-branches for physics consists of acoustics, the study of vibrations, sounds, and mechanical waves, and astrophysics, a study that intertwines with astronomy and mainly deals with the movement of celestial objects.

Because it mostly focuses on discovering the reason behind the activities of mysterious objects and pieces in the universe, physical science is arguably the most exciting field to know more about, especially for children who are always curious about how things far away from Earth move and exist.

Children are often fascinated by stars and other planets since they dream of reaching these heavenly bodies themselves someday, which is the reason why some of them want to be astronauts in the future. This fascination may carry over once they turn into adults, as most people tend to be still curious about the mysteries that lie beyond our planet.

The interest for physical sciences never wavered, which is why topics like the Big Bang and how the Earth or the solar system came to be are still controversial and are talked about by millions of people around the world.

Earth Sciences

From discussing the studies that deal with things outside the Earth, we now move to the sciences that focus on analyzing the phenomena and movements on the planet that we are living in.

The branches included in Earth sciences are geology, the study of the Earth’s crust and its development, and physical geography, the study of the planet’s geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere.

Similar to the branches in other categories, the main branches in the earth sciences also has sub-branches such as meteorology (the study of weather), hydrology (the study of the planet’s water cycle and resources), climatology (the study of the Earth’s climate), and soil science (a study focusing on the planet’s pedosphere or the outermost layer of the Earth’s crust).

Because of the improvements in the quality of life brought upon by Earth sciences, scientists are now able to predict whether a devastating storm is nearby or a powerful earthquake will occur in an area. These predictions will help ordinary people prepare adequately for these disasters, which will prevent or lessen casualties during these situations.

There are a lot of websites on the internet that will help you learn more about the studies in science being conducted, as researchers often published their discoveries and papers publicly. The accessibility of the subject in school, websites, books, and news articles is a testament that science can be digested and enjoyed by everybody, not just scientists.