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Later Socratic and Platonic thought focused on ethics, morals, and art and did not attempt an investigation of the physical world; Plato criticized pre-Socratic thinkers as materialists and anti-religionists. [17] Aristotle, however, a student of Plato who lived from 384 to 322 BC, paid closer attention to the natural world in his philosophy. [18]
In more modern times, these works include the Alexander von Humboldt (Kosmos) in the nineteenth century, in which geography is regarded as a physical and natural science through the work Summa de Geografía of Martín Fernández de Enciso from the early sixteenth century, which indicated for the first time the New World.
However, the term "physical" creates an unintended, somewhat arbitrary distinction, since many branches of physical science also study biological phenomena (organic chemistry, for example). The four main branches of physical science are astronomy, physics, chemistry, and the Earth sciences, which include meteorology and geology.
Physics, as with the rest of science, relies on the philosophy of science and its "scientific method" to advance knowledge of the physical world. [87] The scientific method employs a priori and a posteriori reasoning as well as the use of Bayesian inference to measure the validity of a given theory. [ 88 ]
Statistical mechanics – the branch of physics which studies any physical system that has a large number of degrees of freedom. Thermodynamics – the branch of physical science concerned with heat and its relation to other forms of energy and work. Nuclear physics – field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of ...
The physical universe is defined as all of space and time [a] (collectively referred to as spacetime) and their contents. [10] Such contents comprise all of energy in its various forms, including electromagnetic radiation and matter, and therefore planets, moons, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space.
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