"One cannot, except in immature pulp charlatan-fiction, present an account of impossible, improbable, or inconceivable phenomena as a commonplace narrative of objective acts and conventional emotions. Inconceivable events and conditions have a special handicap to overcome, and this can be accomplished only through the maintenance of a careful realism in every phase of the story except that touching on the one given marvel."
- H.P. Lovecraft[1]
Basic Information
Science is the effort to discover, understand, or to understand better, how the physical world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding. This page lists various various fields of scientific knowledge.
For "scientific" fields and theories that aren't part of mainstream science, see Alternative Science. The opposite of science is Hollywood Science (or possibly magic). For technology that exceeds anything we can do any time soon, but doesn't necessarily break known laws of science, see super-science.
The application of science to the solution of problems is known as engineering - although there is significant overlap between practical science and engineering research.
Scientific Fields of Knowledge
- Anthropology
- Archaeology
- Astronautics
- Astronomy
- Astrophysics
- Biology
- Cartography
- Chemistry
- Dream
- Economics
- Meteorology
- Natural History
- Phobia
- Physics
- Psychology
Scientific Projects
Scientific Scales and Yardsticks
See Also:
Sources
Game and Story Use
- As Lovecraft explains in the quote above, when you break realism in one major way - whether in hard SF or horror stories - it is useful to be as realistic as possible in other aspects of your setting or story. Having a good knowledge of the sciences helps you with this.