Nature Shaki Waterfall , Armenia Bachalpsee in the Swiss Alps A winter landscape in Lapland , Finland Lightning strikes during the eruption of the Galunggung volcano , West Java , in 1982 Life in the abyssal oceans Nature , in the broadest sense, is the natural, physical, material world or universe . "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science . Although humans are part of nature, human activity is often understood as a separate category from other natural phenomena. The word nature is borrowed from the Old French nature and is derived from the Latin word natura , or "essential qualities, innate disposition", and in ancient times, literally meant "birth".In ancient philosophy, natura is mostly used as the Latin translation of the Greek...