|
What is physics? Why is it important to know physics?
On a practical note, nearly all human technology is derived from physics, including buildings, bridges, electricity, lasers, noise-canceling headsets, LCD TVs, electric cars, cellphones, batteries, microwave ovens, and many more things you use every day. Physics includes the collected human knowledge, gathered over many centuries, of how things work. The mass of the electron, the properties of semiconductors, and Newton’s laws of motion are examples of physics knowledge. Physics will teach you the underlying principles behind how things work.
Physics is also a way of learning. Science, of which physics is a part, is the most reliable way humans have ever devised for learning how our universe works. Newton’s laws were discovered through creative thinking and careful observation. Physics blends creative thinking, the accurate language of mathematics, and rigorous observation to solve the deepest mysteries of nature.
|
What is physics about?
|
|
The universe is defined to be everything that exists, including you. We believe “everything” is matter, energy, or information. Matter is “stuff” that takes up space and has mass. Energy is the quantity that causes matter to change and mediates how much change occurs. Energy is exchanged any time anything gets hotter, colder, faster, slower, or changes in any observable way. Information describes how matter and energy are arranged in time and space. For example, the words on your screen are pieces of information.
|
|
Broadly speaking, physics is concerned with the properties and interactions of matter and energy at the most fundamental level. Physics describes the basic forces, the nature of atoms and matter, and the processes by which matter and energy interact.
|
|
One level higher in complexity is chemistry. Chemistry concerns how the basic particles and forces combine to create the trillions of different molecules that make up the diversity of matter we live in. Highest on the complexity scale is biology. Living organisms include millions of different molecules interacting with each other in extremely complicated systems. Biology is the most complex of the three basic disciplines of science. It may seem strange, but physics is the simplest.
 |
While science has come a long way and we understand a lot, physics is far from complete. There are enormous unknowns and it is a true statement to say that we don't even know what we don't know. For example, suppose you want to create antigravity. Antigravity would make flying simple, save fuel, and reduce carbon emissions. We would love to invent antigravity, but no one knows how. We don't even fully understand what gravity is yet. A very important part of physics is scientific inquiry, a process for investigating the universe, proposing possible explanations, then determining which explanations could be correct and which could not. Someday, scientific inquiry will lead someone (maybe you!) to a theory that explains gravity well enough to tell whether or not antigravity is possible. Because our knowledge is incomplete, the process of how we learn physics is as important as the physics we already know. There is much still to discover! 
|
Physics is considered the most basic science, but it is not the most basic academic discipline. Which other subject is much of physics derived from? - history
- mathematics
- literature
- music
 |
The correct answer is b. Physics quantifies the fundamental rules for the interaction of matter and energy and uses mathematics to predict the behavior of objects under those rules. 
|
| |
|
