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- For a topic outline on this subject, see List of basic topics in science
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Scientists maintain that scientific investigation must adhere to the scientific method, a process for properly developing and evaluating natural explanations for observable phenomena based on empirical study and independent verification. Science therefore, avoids supernatural explanations until all other natural possibilities have been considered, and rejects arguments from authority.
Fields of science are commonly classified along two major lines: Natural sciences, which study natural phenomena; and Social sciences, which study human behavior and societies. Whether mathematics is a science is a matter of perspective.
Fields of science can be further distinguished as pure science or applied science. Pure science is principally involved with the discovery of new truths with less (or no) regard to their applications. Applied science is principally involved with the application of existing knowledge in new ways.
The three major types of atomic line filters are absorption-re-emission ALFs, Faraday filters and Voigt filters. Absorption-re-emission filters were the first type developed, and so are commonly called simply "atomic line filters"; the other two types are usually referred to specifically as "Faraday filters" or "Voigt filters". Atomic line filters use different mechanisms and designs for different applications, but the same basic strategy is always employed: by taking advantage of the narrow lines of absorption or resonance in a metallic vapor, a specific frequency of light bypasses a series of filters that block all other light.
A plasma lamp is usually a clear glass orb, filled with a mixture of various inert gases at low pressure, and driven by high frequency alternating current at high voltage (approx. 35 kHz, 2–5 kV), generated by a high voltage transformer. A much smaller orb in its centre serves as an electrode. Beams or snakes of "light" (actually emergent patterns in ionized gas) extend from the inner electrode to the outer glass container, giving an appearance similar to multiple constant beams of coloured lightning. The beams first follow the electric field lines of the dipole, but move up due to convection.
Francis Crick, (1916 – 2004) was a British physicist, molecular biologist and neuroscientist, most noted for being one of the co-discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953. He, James D. Watson, and Maurice Wilkins were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material. His later work at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology until 1977 has not received as much formal recognition. His remaining career as the J.W. Kieckhefer Distinguished Research Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies was spent in La Jolla, California, until his death; "He was editing a manuscript on his death bed, a scientist until the bitter end" (a quote from his close associate Christof Koch).
- ...that silica aerogel (pictured) holds 15 entries in the Guinness Book of Records for material properties, including best insulator and lowest-density solid?
- ...that acoustic levitation is a method for suspending matter in a fluid by using acoustic radiation pressure from intense sound waves in the medium?
- ...that the genus Entomocorus includes a catfish species that lives only one year?
- ...that a successful experimental system must be stable and reproducible enough for scientists to make sense of the system's behavior, but unpredictable enough that it can produce useful results?
- ...that Abbott Lawrence Rotch established the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory in 1885, which maintains the longest-running meteorological record of any observation site in the United States?
