Island

An island /ˈaɪlənd/ or isle /ˈaɪl/ is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island in a river or a lake island may be called an eyot or ait, or a holm. A grouping of geographically or geologically related islands is called an archipelago, e.g. the Philippines.

An island may be described as such despite the presence of an artificial land bridge, for example Singapore and its causeway, or the various Dutch delta islands, such as IJsselmonde. Some places may even retain "island" in their names for historical reasons after being connected to a larger landmass by a wide land bridge, such as Coney Island or Coronado Island. Conversely, when a piece of land is separated from the mainland by a man-made canal, for example the Peloponnese by the Corinth Canal, it is generally not considered an island.

There are two main types of islands: continental islands and oceanic islands. There are also artificial islands.

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that creates, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.

Contemporary science is typically subdivided into the natural sciences which study the material world, the social sciences which study people and societies, and the formal sciences like mathematics. The formal sciences are often excluded as they do not depend on empirical observations. Disciplines which use science like engineering and medicine may also be considered to be applied sciences.

During the middle ages in the Middle East, foundations for the scientific method were laid by Alhazen. From classical antiquity through the 19th century, science as a type of knowledge was more closely linked to philosophy than it is now and, in fact, in the West the term "natural philosophy" encompassed fields of study that are today associated with science, such as physics, astronomy and medicine.

In the 17th and 18th centuries scientists increasingly sought to formulate knowledge in terms of laws of nature. Over the course of the 19th century, the word "science" became increasingly associated with the scientific method itself, as a disciplined way to study the natural world. It was in the 19th century that scientific disciplines such as physics, chemistry, and biology reached their modern shapes. The same time period also included the origin of the terms "scientist" and "scientific community," the founding of scientific institutions, and increasing significance of the interactions with society and other aspects of culture.

Justin Jackson

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