There is also credit given to amateur forensic detectives keeping criminal cases from going into the "Cold Case" files.

This is a great group for hobbyists because they can actually make a serious contribution to society. But this hobby can be expensive. Some of the tools such as a microscope, telescope, centrifuge, spectrophotometer etc... can cost hundreds of dollars. Luckily you only have to buy them once. In this section we will only refer to the Natural Sciences. Social Science will be discussed in the Learning section of Social Hobbies.

In dealing with the Natural Sciences as a hobby, we generally are seeking to discover or recreate. In discovery mode it is the point of experimentation to take phenomenon, gather evidence, hypothesize, theorize and reach certainty. In recreation mode it is the point of experimentation to test theory and certainty. So in the obverse, a beginning hobbyist will test certainty by dipping litmus paper into liquids to test the certainty and understand the differences of acidity and alkaline. The intermediate may choose to experiment with the flow of electrical current in order to prove that it passes from positve to negative and reinstate Benjamin Franklins original theory. Lastly, the expert hobbyist may spend days calculating the movement of stars to prove the breathing motion the galaxy uses in order to explain a stagnant size to the universe.

Here is a general list of the Natural Sciences:

• Astronomy, studies everything past the Earth's atmosphere.
• Life Sciences, which includes Biology, Botany, Animal Science and Medicinal Science.
• Chemistry, basically Organic and Inorganic study of things to their molecular and atomic level.
• Earth Science, anything to do with the planet from the atmosphere to the ground and below.
• Physics which focuses on the interactions of forces in the universe.
• Other sciences may be a combination of two such as astrophysics or biochemistry.

Formal Science such as Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science and Logic are fundamental tools to the Natural Sciences as well as good fun. But remember, the addition of two and two does equal four, but four what? Quantifying and qualifying are aspects to experimentation and discovery, but serve very little purpose on their own. We will start out with a couple of easy experiments to get the ball rolling. Don't worry, we will get more challenging as time goes on.