Geophysics is the science that studies the movements of parts of the Earth and the forces involved — the solid ground, the oceans, and the weather when people treat them as physical systems of the planet. It asks how the Earth works as a body: quakes, gravity, magnets, heat inside the planet, ice, tides. It sits next to geology, but geology often tells the story of rocks and time, while geophysics leans on physics: forces, waves, measurements. It is a formal, academic word for a whole field, like physics or chemistry. Though actually the umbrella is wide, and neighbouring sciences (oceanography, meteorology, geology) keep borrowing the same questions. In textbooks, geophysics is the name of the subject; in talk, people often just say 'Earth science' and let the details wait.