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A scientific technique is any systematic way of obtaining information about a scientific nature or to obtain a desired material or product.
Scientific techniques can be divided in many different groups, e.g.:
In some cases these methods have evolved into instrumental techniques that require expensive equipment. This is particularly true in sciences like physics, chemistry, and astronomy. It is customary to abbreviate the names of techniques into acronyms, although this does not hold for all of them. Particularly the advent of the computer has led to a true proliferation in the number of techniques to the point that few scientists still have a good overview over all that is available. See, for example, the list of materials analysis methods and Category:Scientific techniques.
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Analytical chemistry studies and uses instruments and methods to separate, identify, and quantify matter. In practice, separation, identification or quantification may constitute the entire analysis or be combined with another method. Separation isolates analytes. Qualitative analysis identifies analytes, while quantitative analysis determines the numerical amount or concentration.
A chemist is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the relevant field. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms. Chemists carefully measure substance proportions, chemical reaction rates, and other chemical properties. In Commonwealth English, pharmacists are often called chemists.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to chemistry:
Inorganic chemistry deals with synthesis and behavior of inorganic and organometallic compounds. This field covers chemical compounds that are not carbon-based, which are the subjects of organic chemistry. The distinction between the two disciplines is far from absolute, as there is much overlap in the subdiscipline of organometallic chemistry. It has applications in every aspect of the chemical industry, including catalysis, materials science, pigments, surfactants, coatings, medications, fuels, and agriculture.
Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms. Study of structure determines their structural formula. Study of properties includes physical and chemical properties, and evaluation of chemical reactivity to understand their behavior. The study of organic reactions includes the chemical synthesis of natural products, drugs, and polymers, and study of individual organic molecules in the laboratory and via theoretical study.
Physical science is a branch of natural science that studies non-living systems, in contrast to life science. It in turn has many branches, each referred to as a "physical science", together is called the "physical sciences".
Statistics is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, industrial, or social problem, it is conventional to begin with a statistical population or a statistical model to be studied. Populations can be diverse groups of people or objects such as "all people living in a country" or "every atom composing a crystal". Statistics deals with every aspect of data, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments.
An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a particular factor is manipulated. Experiments vary greatly in goal and scale but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results. There also exist natural experimental studies.
Solid-state chemistry, also sometimes referred as materials chemistry, is the study of the synthesis, structure, and properties of solid phase materials. It therefore has a strong overlap with solid-state physics, mineralogy, crystallography, ceramics, metallurgy, thermodynamics, materials science and electronics with a focus on the synthesis of novel materials and their characterization. A diverse range of synthetic techniques, such as the ceramic method and chemical vapour depostion, make solid-state materials. Solids can be classified as crystalline or amorphous on basis of the nature of order present in the arrangement of their constituent particles. Their elemental compositions, microstructures, and physical properties can be characterized through a variety of analytical methods.
Computational physics is the study and implementation of numerical analysis to solve problems in physics. Historically, computational physics was the first application of modern computers in science, and is now a subset of computational science. It is sometimes regarded as a subdiscipline of theoretical physics, but others consider it an intermediate branch between theoretical and experimental physics — an area of study which supplements both theory and experiment.
Chemometrics is the science of extracting information from chemical systems by data-driven means. Chemometrics is inherently interdisciplinary, using methods frequently employed in core data-analytic disciplines such as multivariate statistics, applied mathematics, and computer science, in order to address problems in chemistry, biochemistry, medicine, biology and chemical engineering. In this way, it mirrors other interdisciplinary fields, such as psychometrics and econometrics.
Archaeological science consists of the application of scientific techniques to the analysis of archaeological materials and sites. It is related to methodologies of archaeology. Martinón-Torres and Killick distinguish ‘scientific archaeology’ from ‘archaeological science’. Martinón-Torres and Killick claim that ‘archaeological science’ has promoted the development of high-level theory in archaeology. However, Smith rejects both concepts of archaeological science because neither emphasize falsification or a search for causality.
Powder diffraction is a scientific technique using X-ray, neutron, or electron diffraction on powder or microcrystalline samples for structural characterization of materials. An instrument dedicated to performing such powder measurements is called a powder diffractometer.
A core sample is a cylindrical section of (usually) a naturally-occurring substance. Most core samples are obtained by drilling with special drills into the substance, such as sediment or rock, with a hollow steel tube, called a core drill. The hole made for the core sample is called the "core hole". A variety of core samplers exist to sample different media under different conditions; there is continuing development in the technology. In the coring process, the sample is pushed more or less intact into the tube. Removed from the tube in the laboratory, it is inspected and analyzed by different techniques and equipment depending on the type of data desired.
Field desorption (FD) is a method of ion formation used in mass spectrometry (MS) in which a high-potential electric field is applied to an emitter with a sharp surface, such as a razor blade, or more commonly, a filament from which tiny "whiskers" have formed. This results in a high electric field which can result in ionization of gaseous molecules of the analyte. Mass spectra produced by FD have little or no fragmentation because FD is a soft ionization method. They are dominated by molecular radical cations M+. and less often, protonated molecules . The technique was first reported by Beckey in 1969. It is also the first ionization method to ionize nonvolatile and thermally labile compounds. One major difference of FD with other ionization methods is that it does not need a primary beam to bombard a sample.
Stereology is the three-dimensional interpretation of two-dimensional cross sections of materials or tissues. It provides practical techniques for extracting quantitative information about a three-dimensional material from measurements made on two-dimensional planar sections of the material. Stereology is a method that utilizes random, systematic sampling to provide unbiased and quantitative data. It is an important and efficient tool in many applications of microscopy. Stereology is a developing science with many important innovations being developed mainly in Europe. New innovations such as the proportionator continue to make important improvements in the efficiency of stereological procedures.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to natural science:
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to applied science:
A conservation scientist is a museum professional who works in the field of conservation science and whose focus is on the research of cultural heritage through scientific inquiry. Conservation scientists conduct applied scientific research and techniques to determine the material, chemical, and technical aspects of cultural heritage. The technical information conservation scientists gather is then used by conservator and curators to decide the most suitable conservation treatments for the examined object and/or adds to our knowledge about the object by providing answers about the material composition, fabrication, authenticity, and previous restoration treatments.
Structural chemistry is a part of chemistry and deals with spatial structures of molecules and solids. For structure elucidation a range of different methods is used. One has to distinguish between methods that elucidate solely the connectivity between atoms (constitution) and such that provide precise three dimensional information such as atom coordinates, bond lengths and angles and torsional angles.