Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.[1][2]
The earliest roots in the history of science can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3000 to 1200 BCE.[3][4] Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes.[3][4] After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages,[5] but was preserved in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age.[6]
The recovery and assimilation of Greek works and Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th century revived "natural philosophy",[7][8] which was later transformed by the Scientific Revolution that began in the 16th century[9] as new ideas and discoveries departed from previous Greek conceptions and traditions.[10][11] The scientific method soon played a greater role in knowledge creation and it was not until the 19th century that many of the institutional and professional features of science began to take shape;[12][13] along with the changing of "natural philosophy" to "natural science".[14]
Modern science is typically divided into three major branches:[15] natural sciences (e.g., biology, chemistry, and physics), which study the physical world; the social sciences (e.g., economics, psychology, and sociology), which study individuals and societies;[16][17] and the formal sciences (e.g., logic, mathematics, and theoretical computer science), which study formal systems, governed by axioms and rules.[18][19] There is disagreement whether the formal sciences are science disciplines,[20][21][22] because they do not rely on empirical evidence.[23][21] Applied sciences are disciplines that use scientific knowledge for practical purposes, such as in engineering and medicine.[24][25][26]
New knowledge in science is advanced by research from scientists who are motivated by curiosity about the world and a desire to solve problems.[27][28] Contemporary scientific research is highly collaborative and is usually done by teams in academic and research institutions,[29] government agencies, and companies.[30][31] The practical impact of their work has led to the emergence of science policies that seek to influence the scientific enterprise by prioritizing the ethical and moral development of commercial products, armaments, health care, public infrastructure, and environmental protection.
The word science has been used in Middle English since the 14th century in the sense of "the state of knowing". The word was borrowed from the Anglo-Norman language as the suffix -cience, which was borrowed from the Latin word scientia, meaning "knowledge, awareness, understanding". It is a noun derivative of the Latin sciens meaning "knowing", and undisputedly derived from the Latin sciō, the present participle scīre, meaning "to know".[32]