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Physics is the natural science that studies 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, and its main goal is to understand how the universe behaves.
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 academic disciplines such as mathematics and philosophy.
Advances in physics often enable advances in 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...)
J. Robert Oppenheimer (/ˈɒpənˌhaɪmər/; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist who was professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is among those who are credited with being the "father of the atomic bomb" for their role in the Manhattan Project – the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons. Oppenheimer was among those who observed the Trinity test in New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated on July 16, 1945. He later remarked that the explosion brought to mind words from the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." In August 1945, the weapons were used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After the war ended, Oppenheimer became chairman of the influential General Advisory Committee of the newly created United States Atomic Energy Commission. He used that position to lobby for international control of nuclear power to avert nuclear proliferation and a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. He opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb during a 1949–1950 governmental debate on the question and subsequently took stances on defense-related issues that provoked the ire of some factions in the U.S. government and military. During the Second Red Scare, those stances, together with past associations Oppenheimer had with people and organizations affiliated with the Communist Party, led to him suffering the revocation of his security clearance in a much-written-about hearing in 1954. Effectively stripped of his direct political influence, he continued to lecture, write and work in physics. Nine years later, President John F. Kennedy awarded (and Lyndon B. Johnson presented) him with the Enrico Fermi Award as a gesture of political rehabilitation. (Full article...)Did you know -
- ... that Virendra Singh delivered the inaugural Homi Bhabha exchange lecture of the Institute of Physics and Indian Physics Association in 2000?
- ... that Leiden Law School is housed in the former laboratory of Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, a physicist and Nobel laureate?
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Plasma lamps are a type of electrodeless gas-discharge lamp energized by radio frequency (RF) power. They are distinct from the novelty plasma lamps that were popular in the 1980s.
The internal-electrodeless lamp was invented by Nikola Tesla after his experimentation with high-frequency currents in evacuated glass tubes for the purposes of lighting and the study of high voltage phenomena. The first practical plasma lamps were the sulfur lamps manufactured by Fusion Lighting. This lamp suffered a number of practical problems and did not prosper commercially. Plasma lamps with an internal phosphor coating are called external electrode fluorescent lamps (EEFL); these external electrodes or terminal conductors provide the radio frequency electric field. (Full article...)
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A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing — no particles or even electromagnetic radiation such as light — can escape from it. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can deform spacetime to form a black hole. The boundary of no escape is called the event horizon. Although it has an enormous effect on the fate and circumstances of an object crossing it, it has no locally detectable features according to general relativity. In many ways, a black hole acts like an ideal black body, as it reflects no light. Moreover, quantum field theory in curved spacetime predicts that event horizons emit Hawking radiation, with the same spectrum as a black body of a temperature inversely proportional to its mass. This temperature is of the order of billionths of a kelvin for stellar black holes, making it essentially impossible to observe directly.
Objects whose gravitational fields are too strong for light to escape were first considered in the 18th century by John Michell and Pierre-Simon Laplace. In 1916, Karl Schwarzschild found the first modern solution of general relativity that would characterize a black hole. David Finkelstein, in 1958, first published the interpretation of "black hole" as a region of space from which nothing can escape. Black holes were long considered a mathematical curiosity; it was not until the 1960s that theoretical work showed they were a generic prediction of general relativity. The discovery of neutron stars by Jocelyn Bell Burnell in 1967 sparked interest in gravitationally collapsed compact objects as a possible astrophysical reality. The first black hole known was Cygnus X-1, identified by several researchers independently in 1971. (Full article...)March anniversaries
- 1 March 1966 – first spacecraft crash-lands on Venus
- 14 March 1879 – Albert Einstein's birthday
- 14 March 2018 – Stephen Hawking died
- 20 March 1942 - Gabriele Veneziano's Birthday
- 24 March 1993 – Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 discovered
Categories
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
Tools: Detectors | Interferometry | Measurement | Radiometry | Spectroscopy | Transducers
Background: Physicists | History of physics | Philosophy of physics | Physics education | Physics journals | Physics organizations
Other: Physics in fiction | Pseudophysics | Physics lists | Physics software | Physics stubs
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Good articles
- 2019 redefinition of the SI base units
- Harold Agnew
- Samuel King Allison
- Luis Walter Alvarez
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- Elda Emma Anderson
- Antimetric electrical network
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- Astronomy
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- Atomic theory
- Avogadro constant
- Robert Bacher
- Kenneth Bainbridge
- Violin acoustics
- Hans Bethe
- Bicycle and motorcycle dynamics
- Francis Birch (geophysicist)
- Black hole
- Aage Bohr
- Max Born
- Bouncing ball
- Norris Bradbury
- Hugh Bradner
- Calutron Girls
- Celestial spheres
- Robert F. Christy
- Clapotis
- John Cockcroft
- Arthur Compton
- CT scan
- Condensed matter physics
- Edward Condon
- Corbett's electrostatic machine
- Edward Creutz
- Charles Critchfield
- Marie Curie
- Joan Curran
- Cyclone
- DU spectrophotometer
- Harry Daghlian
- Deep Impact (spacecraft)
- Beryl May Dent
- Diffusion damping
- Dirac delta function
- Discovery of the neutron
- Dynamics of the celestial spheres
- Earth's magnetic field
- Ecliptic
- Albert Einstein
- Einstein–Szilárd letter
- Elastance
- Electricity
- Experiments and Observations on Electricity
- Ronald Fedkiw
- Val Logsdon Fitch
- Fizeau–Foucault apparatus
- Fizeau experiment
- Flerovium
- Floating Clouds (artwork)
- Force
- Foster's reactance theorem
- James Franck
- Franklin's electrostatic machine
- Augustin-Jean Fresnel
- Frisch–Peierls memorandum
- Frog battery
- Klaus Fuchs
- Joseph Gelders
- Geostationary orbit
- Gleason's theorem
- Maria Goeppert Mayer
- Alvin C. Graves
- Gravity bong
- Otto Hahn
- John T. Hayward
- Hilbert space
- History of the metric system
- A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity
- Christiaan Huygens
- Mujaddid Ahmed Ijaz
- Insect flight
- Interferometry
- International System of Units
- Mary Jackson (engineer)
- Brian Josephson
- Donald William Kerst
- Kilogram
- Laser Inertial Fusion Energy
- Ernest Lawrence
- Hilde Levi
- Joel S. Levine
- Liquid crystal
- Magnetic resonance imaging
- Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 satellite communications
- John Marburger
- Leslie H. Martin
- Harrie Massey
- Maximum sustained wind
- James Clerk Maxwell
- Boyce McDaniel
- Lise Meitner
- Metric system
- Mobility analogy
- Molniya orbit
- Philip Morrison
- Nature
- Seth Neddermeyer
- Negative resistance
- John von Neumann
- Neutron magnetic moment
- Isaac Newton
- Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
- Nobel Prize in Physics
- Noctilucent cloud
- Nuclear power
- Adriana Ocampo
- Optical properties of carbon nanotubes
- PSR B1937+21
- Rudolf Peierls
- Bruno Pontecorvo
- Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
- Pythagoras
- Quantum mechanics
- Quantum Reality
- Quantum electrodynamics
- RaLa Experiment
- James Rainwater
- C. V. Raman
- Norman Foster Ramsey Jr.
- Frederick Reines
- Representation theory of the Lorentz group
- George T. Reynolds
- Bruno Rossi
- Joseph Rotblat
- S-1 Executive Committee
- Safety of high-energy particle collision experiments
- Saffir–Simpson scale
- Matthew Sands
- Schiehallion experiment
- Glenn T. Seaborg
- Emilio Segrè
- Henry DeWolf Smyth
- Steam devil
- Storm surge
- Carl Størmer
- Subtle is the Lord
- Leo Szilard
- Tamper (nuclear weapon)
- Nikola Tesla
- Thin Man (nuclear bomb)
- Charles Allen Thomas
- Ernest Titterton
- Tropical cyclone scales
- Type II supernova
- Type Ia supernova
- Type Ib and Ic supernovae
- Stanislaw Ulam
- Universe
- John Clive Ward
- Waterspout
- Katharine Way
- Weak interaction
- Alvin M. Weinberg
- Wetting
- John Archibald Wheeler
- Schuyler Wheeler
- E. T. Whittaker
- Eugene Wigner
- Robert R. Wilson
- Wind shear
- Leona Woods
- Wow! signal
- Wright brothers
- Chien-Shiung Wu
- Wu Zhonghua
- Wu experiment
- X-ray crystallography
- Walter Zinn
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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