The earliest written records of identifiable predecessors to modern science come from Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia from around 3000 to 1200 BCE. Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped the Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. 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, but was preserved in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age and later by the efforts of Byzantine Greek scholars who brought Greek manuscripts from the dying Byzantine Empire to Western Europe in the Renaissance.
The recovery and assimilation of Greek works and Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th century revived "natural philosophy", which was later transformed by the Scientific Revolution that began in the 16th century new ideas and discoveries departed from previous Greek conceptions and traditions. 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,along with the changing of "natural philosophy" to "natural science".
Modern science is typically divided into three major branches: 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;[15][16] and the formal sciences (e.g., logic, mathematics, and theoretical computer science), which study formal systems, governed by axioms and rules. There is disagreement whether the formal sciences are science disciplines,because they do not rely on empirical evidence. Applied sciences are disciplines that use scientific knowledge for practical purposes, such as in engineering and medicine.
New knowledge in science is advanced by research from scientists who are motivated by curiosity about the world and a desire to solve problems.Contemporary scientific research is highly collaborative and is usually done by teams in academic and research institutions,government agencies, and companies. 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.Science has no single origin. Rather, systematic methods emerged gradually over the course of tens of thousands of years, no taking different forms around the world, and few details are known about the very earliest developments. Women likely played a central role in prehistoric science,as did religious rituals. Some scholars use the term "protoscience" to label activities in the past that resemble modern science in some but not all features; however, this label has also been criticized as denigrating or too suggestive of presentism, thinking about those activities only in relation to modern categories.
Direct evidence for scientific processes becomes clearer with the advent of writing systems in early civilizations like Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, creating the earliest written records in the history of science in around 3000 to 1200 BCE.Although the words and concepts of "science" and "nature" were not part of the conceptual landscape at the time, the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians made contributions that would later find a place in Greek and medieval science: mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. From the 3rd millennium BCE, the ancient Egyptians developed a decimal numbering system,solved practical problems using geometry, and developed a calendar.Their healing therapies involved drug treatments and the supernatural, such as prayers, incantations, and rituals.
The ancient Mesopotamians used knowledge about the properties of various natural chemicals for manufacturing pottery, faience, glass, soap, metals, lime plaster, and waterproofing.They studied animal physiology, anatomy, behavior, and astrology for divinatory purposes. The Mesopotamians had an intense interest in medicine and the earliest medical prescriptions appeared in Sumerian during the Third Dynasty of Ur.They seem to study scientific subjects which have practical or religious applications and have little interest of satisfying curiosity.
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