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Physics is the natural science of matter, involving the study of matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines. A scientist who specializes in the field of physics is called a physicist.
Physics is one of the oldest academic disciplines and, through its inclusion of astronomy, perhaps the oldest. Over much of the past two millennia, physics, chemistry, biology, and certain branches of mathematics were a part of natural philosophy, but during the Scientific Revolution in the 17th century these natural sciences emerged as unique research endeavors in their own right. Physics intersects with many interdisciplinary areas of research, such as biophysics and quantum chemistry, and the boundaries of physics are not rigidly defined. New ideas in physics often explain the fundamental mechanisms studied by other sciences and suggest new avenues of research in these and other academic disciplines such as mathematics and philosophy.
Advances in physics often enable new technologies. For example, advances in the understanding of electromagnetism, solid-state physics, and nuclear physics led directly to the development of new products that have dramatically transformed modern-day society, such as television, computers, domestic appliances, and nuclear weapons; advances in thermodynamics led to the development of industrialization; and advances in mechanics inspired the development of calculus. (Full article...)
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Josiah Willard Gibbs (/ɡɪbz/; February 11, 1839 – April 28, 1903) was an American scientist who made significant theoretical contributions to physics, chemistry, and mathematics. His work on the applications of thermodynamics was instrumental in transforming physical chemistry into a rigorous deductive science. Together with James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann, he created statistical mechanics (a term that he coined), explaining the laws of thermodynamics as consequences of the statistical properties of ensembles of the possible states of a physical system composed of many particles. Gibbs also worked on the application of Maxwell's equations to problems in physical optics. As a mathematician, he created modern vector calculus (independently of the British scientist Oliver Heaviside, who carried out similar work during the same period) and described the Gibbs phenomenon in the theory of Fourier analysis.
In 1863, Yale University awarded Gibbs the first American doctorate in engineering. After a three-year sojourn in Europe, Gibbs spent the rest of his career at Yale, where he was a professor of mathematical physics from 1871 until his death in 1903. Working in relative isolation, he became the earliest theoretical scientist in the United States to earn an international reputation and was praised by Albert Einstein as "the greatest mind in American history." In 1901, Gibbs received what was then considered the highest honor awarded by the international scientific community, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London, "for his contributions to mathematical physics." (Full article...)Did you know -
![A section of the Large Hadron Collider](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/Views_of_the_LHC_tunnel_sector_3-4%2C_tirage_2.jpg/145px-Views_of_the_LHC_tunnel_sector_3-4%2C_tirage_2.jpg)
- ...that on November 2009, CERN's Large Hadron Collider became the world's highest energy particle accelerator?
- ...that 2005 was endorsed by the United Nations as the World Year of Physics?
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July anniversaries
- July 1654 – Blaise Pascal's letters to Pierre de Fermat on the "Problem of Points"
- July 1820 – Hans Christian Ørsted published pamphlet about the relation between electricity and magnetism
- July 1849 – Fizeau publishes results of speed of light experiment.
- July 1914 – AT&T tested the first working transcontinental telephone line when the president of the company spoke from one coast to the other. Months later Alexander Graham Bell repeated his famous statement over the phone in New York City which was heard by Dr. Watson in San Francisco.
- July 1957 – John Bardeen, Leon Cooper and Robert Schrieffer submit detailed research report, "Theory of Superconductivity" to the Physical Review (it was published in December).
- July 1994 – Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 collides with Jupiter.
- 16 July 1945 – Trinity test, named by J. Robert Oppenheimer.
- 16 July 1969 – Apollo 11 launched.
- 20 July 1969 – Apollo 11 landed on the Moon.
- 23 July 1995 – Comet Hale-Bopp discovered.
- 2 July 1876 - Harriet Brooks was born; noted for research in nuclear transmutations and for discovering the Atomic recoil.
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Fundamentals: Concepts in physics | Constants | Physical quantities | Units of measure | Mass | Length | Time | Space | Energy | Matter | Force | Gravity | Electricity | Magnetism | Waves
Basic physics: Mechanics | Electromagnetism | Statistical mechanics | Thermodynamics | Quantum mechanics | Theory of relativity | Optics | Acoustics
Specific fields: Acoustics | Astrophysics | Atomic physics | Molecular physics | Optical physics | Computational physics | Condensed matter physics | Nuclear physics | Particle physics | Plasma physics
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Background: Physicists | History of physics | Philosophy of physics | Physics education | Physics journals | Physics organizations
Other: Physics in fiction | Physics lists | Physics software | Physics stubs
Physics topics
Classical physics traditionally includes the fields of mechanics, optics, electricity, magnetism, acoustics and thermodynamics. The term Modern physics is normally used for fields which rely heavily on quantum theory, including quantum mechanics, atomic physics, nuclear physics, particle physics and condensed matter physics. General and special relativity are usually considered to be part of modern physics as well.
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