Physical Sciences help us to discover how the world works by investigating the natural laws and processes of non-living matter. In contrast to Life Sciences, Physical Sciences encompasses topics, concepts, processes, and interrelationships of physical phenomena as studied in any combination of physical science disciplines.
Physical science is the study of the inorganic world. That is, it does not study living things. (Those are studied in biological, or life, science.) The four main branches of physical science are astronomy, physics, chemistry, and the Earth sciences, which include meteorology and geology. What are considered physical sciences? There are four main branches of physical science: astronomy, physics, chemistry, and the Earth sciences, which include meteorology and geology.
Examples of physical science courses
- Chemistry
- Materials science
- Physics
- Forensic and archaeological sciences
- Astronomy
- Geology and Physics
- Science of aquatic and terrestrial environments
- Physical geographical sciences
- Environmental Biology
- Environmental Science
- Physical Chemistry
- Physical Science Technologies/Technicians
- Biological and Physical Sciences
- Meteorology
- Nuclear Energy
- Food Science
- Metallurgical Engineering
- Acoustics
- Soil science
- Hydrology and Water Resources Science
Famous Physical Scientists
- Aristotle – the last of the three great influential ancient Greek philosophers, although not considered to be a scientist by today’s standards, nevertheless, he laid the foundations for today’s scientific method by espousing the view that knowledge should be based on empirical observations instead of intuition or faith.
- Archimedes – is considered to be the first mathematical physicist on record, and the best prior to Galileo and Newton. He established the laws of statics, buoyancy, and the center of gravity.
- Boyle, Robert – an Irish natural philosopher, is regarded as the “father of modern chemistry” due to his distinction between chemistry and alchemy. His namesake is Boyle’s Law of an ideal gas, which he discovered, but his contributions to physical science include the definition of a chemical element, and the propagation of sound, among others.
- Copernicus, Nicolaus – a Polish mathematician and economist, is considered by many to be the “father of modern astronomy” due to his detailed explanation of the heliocentric (Sun-centered]] solar system.
Curie, Marie (maiden name: Sklodowska) – a Polish-born French chemist, was the first female Nobel laureate, the first two-time Nobel laureate, and one of only two individuals to receive the Nobel prize in two different fields. She and her husband, Pierre Curie discovered the two elements Polonium and Radium. - Einstein, Albert – a theoretical physicist, is widely regarded as the greatest scientist of the 20th century. He proposed the theory of relativity and was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics, among other accomplishments.
- Euler, Leonhard – Swiss mathematician, and physicist, considered to be one of the greatest mathematicians of all times. His contributions to science include the Euler-Bournoulli beam equation and Euler equations.
- Galilei, Galileo – an astronomer and physicist, is considered the “father of modern physics,” due, in large part, to his conflict with the Roman Catholic Church over the authority of science. However, he has equally impressive scientific contributions to the fields of mechanics, astronomy, and mathematical physics.
- Bacon, Francis – an Elizabethan philosopher, is credited with the philosophical advocation for the Baconian method, the early forerunner of the scientific method.
- Hutton, James – a Scottish geologist, is considered to be the “father of modern geology,” for his formulation of uniformitarianism, that the same geological processes operating today operated in the distant past. Based upon that assumption, he maintained that the age of the earth must be much older than a few thousand years.
- Newton, Sir Isaac – a scientist and mathematician, is most renowned for his description of the laws of motion and law of universal gravitation.
- Linus Pauling – an American quantum chemist and biochemist, widely regarded as the premier chemist of the twentieth century. A pioneer in the application of quantum mechanics to chemistry, and one of the founders of molecular biology.
- Thales of Miletus – a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, is considered to be the father of science because he first encouraged naturalistic explanations of the world, without the supernatural.