History of physics
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Physics is a branch of science whose primary objects of study are matter and energy. Discoveries of physics find applications throughout the natural sciences and in technology. Historically, physics emerged from the scientific revolution of the 17th century, grew rapidly in the 19th century, then was transformed by a series of discoveries in the 20th century. Physics today may be divided loosely into classical physics and modern physics.
Many detailed articles on specific topics are available through the
Ancient history
Elements of what became physics were drawn primarily from the fields of
Greek concept
The move towards a rational understanding of nature began at least since the
During the
Early in Classical Greece, knowledge that the Earth is spherical ("round") was common. Around 240 BCE, as the result of a seminal experiment, Eratosthenes (276–194 BCE) accurately estimated its circumference. In contrast to Aristotle's geocentric views, Aristarchus of Samos (Greek: Ἀρίσταρχος; c. 310 – c. 230 BCE) presented an explicit argument for a heliocentric model of the Solar System, i.e. for placing the Sun, not the Earth, at its centre. Seleucus of Seleucia, a follower of Aristarchus' heliocentric theory, stated that the Earth rotated around its own axis, which, in turn, revolved around the Sun. Though the arguments he used were lost, Plutarch stated that Seleucus was the first to prove the heliocentric system through reasoning.
In the 3rd century BCE, the
Hipparchus (190–120 BCE), focusing on astronomy and mathematics, used sophisticated geometrical techniques to map the motion of the stars and planets, even predicting the times that Solar eclipses would happen. He added calculations of the distance of the Sun and Moon from the Earth, based upon his improvements to the observational instruments used at that time. Another of the most famous of the early physicists was Ptolemy (90–168 CE), one of the leading minds during the time of the Roman Empire. Ptolemy was the author of several scientific treatises, at least three of which were of continuing importance to later Islamic and European science. The first is the astronomical treatise now known as the Almagest (in Greek, Ἡ Μεγάλη Σύνταξις, "The Great Treatise", originally Μαθηματικὴ Σύνταξις, "Mathematical Treatise"). The second is the Geography, which is a thorough discussion of the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Roman world.
Much of the accumulated knowledge of the ancient world was lost. Even of the works of the better known thinkers, few fragments survived. Although he wrote at least fourteen books, almost nothing of Hipparchus' direct work survived. Of the 150 reputed Aristotelian works, only 30 exist, and some of those are "little more than lecture notes".[according to whom?]
India and China
Important physical and mathematical traditions also existed in
In
The study of magnetism in Ancient China dates back to the 4th century BCE. (in the Book of the Devil Valley Master),[7] A main contributor to this field was Shen Kuo (1031–1095), a polymath and statesman who was the first to describe the magnetic-needle compass used for navigation, as well as establishing the concept of true north. In optics, Shen Kuo independently developed a camera obscura.[8]
Islamic world
In the 7th to 15th centuries, scientific progress occurred in the Muslim world. Many classic works in
Ibn al-Haytham used controlled experiments in his work on optics, although to what extent it differed from Ptolemy is up to debate .[11][12] Arabic mechanics like Bīrūnī and Al-Khazini developed sophisticated "science of weight", carrying out measurements of specific weights and volumes[13]
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201–1274), a Persian astronomer and mathematician who died in Baghdad introduced the Tusi couple. Copernicus later drew heavily on the work of al-Din al-Tusi and his students, but without acknowledgment.[22]
Medieval Europe
Awareness of ancient works re-entered the West through
Based on Aristotelian physics, Scholastic physics described things as moving according to their essential nature. Celestial objects were described as moving in circles, because perfect circular motion was considered an innate property of objects that existed in the uncorrupted realm of the celestial spheres. The theory of impetus, the ancestor to the concepts of inertia and momentum, was developed along similar lines by medieval philosophers such as John Philoponus and Jean Buridan. Motions below the lunar sphere were seen as imperfect, and thus could not be expected to exhibit consistent motion. More idealized motion in the "sublunary" realm could only be achieved through artifice, and prior to the 17th century, many did not view artificial experiments as a valid means of learning about the natural world. Physical explanations in the sublunary realm revolved around tendencies. Stones contained the element earth, and earthly objects tended to move in a straight line toward the centre of the earth (and the universe in the Aristotelian geocentric view) unless otherwise prevented from doing so.[24]
Scientific Revolution
During the 16th and 17th centuries, a large advancement of scientific progress known as the
Nicolaus Copernicus
A breakthrough in
Galileo Galilei
The Italian mathematician, astronomer, and physicist Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was famous for his support for Copernicanism, his astronomical discoveries, empirical experiments and his improvement of the telescope. As a mathematician, Galileo's role in the
Galileo's early studies at the
Galileo has been called the "father of modern
The contributions that Galileo made to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the
René Descartes
The French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) was well-connected to, and influential within, the experimental philosophy networks of the day. Descartes had a more ambitious agenda, however, which was geared toward replacing the Scholastic philosophical tradition altogether. Questioning the reality interpreted through the senses, Descartes sought to re-establish philosophical explanatory schemes by reducing all perceived phenomena to being attributable to the motion of an invisible sea of "corpuscles". (Notably, he reserved human thought and God from his scheme, holding these to be separate from the physical universe). In proposing this philosophical framework, Descartes supposed that different kinds of motion, such as that of planets versus that of terrestrial objects, were not fundamentally different, but were merely different manifestations of an endless chain of corpuscular motions obeying universal principles. Particularly influential were his explanations for circular astronomical motions in terms of the vortex motion of corpuscles in space (Descartes argued, in accord with the beliefs, if not the methods, of the Scholastics, that a vacuum could not exist), and his explanation of gravity in terms of corpuscles pushing objects downward.[31][32][33]
Descartes, like Galileo, was convinced of the importance of mathematical explanation, and he and his followers were key figures in the development of mathematics and geometry in the 17th century. Cartesian mathematical descriptions of motion held that all mathematical formulations had to be justifiable in terms of direct physical action, a position held by
Christiaan Huygens
The Dutch physicist, mathematician, astronomer and inventor Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) was the leading scientist in Europe between Galileo and Newton. Huygens came from a family of nobility that had an important position in the Dutch society of the 17th century; a time in which the Dutch Republic flourished economically and culturally. This period — roughly between 1588 and 1702 — of the history of the Netherlands is also referred to as the Dutch Golden Age, an era during the Scientific Revolution when Dutch science was among the most acclaimed in Europe. At this time, intellectuals and scientists like René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Pierre Bayle, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, John Locke and Hugo Grotius resided in the Netherlands. It was in this intellectual environment where Christiaan Huygens grew up. Christiaan's father, Constantijn Huygens, was, apart from an important poet, the secretary and diplomat for the Princes of Orange. He knew many scientists of his time because of his contacts and intellectual interests, including René Descartes and Marin Mersenne, and it was because of these contacts that Christiaan Huygens became aware of their work. Especially Descartes, whose mechanistic philosophy was going to have a huge influence on Huygens' own work. Descartes was later impressed by the skills Christiaan Huygens showed in geometry, as was Mersenne, who christened him "the new Archimedes" (which led Constantijn to refer to his son as "my little Archimedes").
A child prodigy, Huygens began his correspondence with Marin Mersenne when he was 17 years old. Huygens became interested in
Five years after the publication of his Horologium Oscillatorium, Huygens described his
Apart from the many important discoveries Huygens made in physics and astronomy, and his inventions of ingenious devices, he was also the first who brought mathematical rigor to the description of physical phenomena. Because of this, and the fact that he developed institutional frameworks for scientific research on the continent, he has been referred to as "the leading actor in 'the making of science in Europe'"[40]
Isaac Newton
The late 17th and early 18th centuries saw the achievements of
Newton was able to refute the Cartesian mechanical tradition that all motions should be explained with respect to the immediate force exerted by corpuscles. Using his three laws of motion and law of universal gravitation, Newton removed the idea that objects followed paths determined by natural shapes and instead demonstrated that not only regularly observed paths, but all the future motions of any body could be deduced mathematically based on knowledge of their existing motion, their mass, and the forces acting upon them. However, observed celestial motions did not precisely conform to a Newtonian treatment, and Newton, who was also deeply interested in theology, imagined that God intervened to ensure the continued stability of the solar system.
Newton's principles (but not his mathematical treatments) proved controversial with Continental philosophers, who found his lack of metaphysical explanation for movement and gravitation philosophically unacceptable. Beginning around 1700, a bitter rift opened between the Continental and British philosophical traditions, which were stoked by heated, ongoing, and viciously personal disputes between the followers of Newton and Leibniz concerning priority over the analytical techniques of calculus, which each had developed independently. Initially, the Cartesian and Leibnizian traditions prevailed on the Continent (leading to the dominance of the Leibnizian calculus notation everywhere except Britain). Newton himself remained privately disturbed at the lack of a philosophical understanding of gravitation while insisting in his writings that none was necessary to infer its reality. As the 18th century progressed, Continental natural philosophers increasingly accepted the Newtonians' willingness to forgo ontological metaphysical explanations for mathematically described motions.[41][42][43]
Newton built the first functioning
Other achievements
Other branches of physics also received attention during the period of the Scientific Revolution.
Early thermodynamics
A precursor of the engine was designed by the German scientist
Later designs implemented a steam release valve to keep the machine from exploding. By watching the valve rhythmically move up and down, Papin conceived of the idea of a piston and cylinder engine. He did not however follow through with his design. Nevertheless, in 1697, based on Papin's designs, engineer
18th-century developments
During the 18th century, the mechanics founded by Newton was developed by several scientists as more mathematicians learned calculus and elaborated upon its initial formulation. The application of mathematical analysis to problems of motion was known as rational mechanics, or mixed mathematics (and was later termed classical mechanics).
Mechanics
In 1714, Brook Taylor derived the fundamental frequency of a stretched vibrating string in terms of its tension and mass per unit length by solving a differential equation. The Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli (1700–1782) made important mathematical studies of the behavior of gases, anticipating the kinetic theory of gases developed more than a century later, and has been referred to as the first mathematical physicist.[47] In 1733, Daniel Bernoulli derived the fundamental frequency and harmonics of a hanging chain by solving a differential equation. In 1734, Bernoulli solved the differential equation for the vibrations of an elastic bar clamped at one end. Bernoulli's treatment of fluid dynamics and his examination of fluid flow was introduced in his 1738 work Hydrodynamica.
Rational mechanics dealt primarily with the development of elaborate mathematical treatments of observed motions, using Newtonian principles as a basis, and emphasized improving the tractability of complex calculations and developing of legitimate means of analytical approximation. A representative contemporary textbook was published by Johann Baptiste Horvath. By the end of the century analytical treatments were rigorous enough to verify the stability of the Solar System solely on the basis of Newton's laws without reference to divine intervention—even as deterministic treatments of systems as simple as the three body problem in gravitation remained intractable.[48] In 1705, Edmond Halley predicted the periodicity of Halley's Comet, William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781, and Henry Cavendish measured the gravitational constant and determined the mass of the Earth in 1798. In 1783, John Michell suggested that some objects might be so massive that not even light could escape from them.
In 1739, Leonhard Euler solved the ordinary differential equation for a forced harmonic oscillator and noticed the resonance phenomenon. In 1742, Colin Maclaurin discovered his uniformly rotating self-gravitating spheroids. In 1742, Benjamin Robins published his New Principles in Gunnery, establishing the science of aerodynamics. British work, carried on by mathematicians such as Taylor and Maclaurin, fell behind Continental developments as the century progressed. Meanwhile, work flourished at scientific academies on the Continent, led by such mathematicians as Bernoulli and Euler, as well as Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Pierre-Simon Laplace, and Adrien-Marie Legendre. In 1743, Jean le Rond d'Alembert published his Traité de dynamique, in which he introduced the concept of generalized forces for accelerating systems and systems with constraints, and applied the new idea of virtual work to solve dynamical problem, now known as D'Alembert's principle, as a rival to Newton's second law of motion. In 1747, Pierre Louis Maupertuis applied minimum principles to mechanics. In 1759, Euler solved the partial differential equation for the vibration of a rectangular drum. In 1764, Euler examined the partial differential equation for the vibration of a circular drum and found one of the Bessel function solutions. In 1776, John Smeaton published a paper on experiments relating power, work, momentum and kinetic energy, and supporting the conservation of energy. In 1788, Lagrange presented his equations of motion in Mécanique analytique, in which the whole of mechanics was organized around the principle of virtual work. In 1789, Antoine Lavoisier stated the law of conservation of mass. The rational mechanics developed in the 18th century received expositions in both Lagrange's Mécanique analytique and Laplace's Traité de mécanique céleste (1799–1825).
Thermodynamics
During the 18th century, thermodynamics was developed through the theories of weightless
The accepted theory of heat in the 18th century viewed it as a kind of fluid, called caloric; although this theory was later shown to be erroneous, a number of scientists adhering to it nevertheless made important discoveries useful in developing the modern theory, including Joseph Black (1728–99) and Henry Cavendish (1731–1810). Opposed to this caloric theory, which had been developed mainly by the chemists, was the less accepted theory dating from Newton's time that heat is due to the motions of the particles of a substance. This mechanical theory gained support in 1798 from the cannon-boring experiments of Count Rumford (Benjamin Thompson), who found a direct relationship between heat and mechanical energy.
While it was recognized early in the 18th century that finding absolute theories of electrostatic and magnetic force akin to Newton's principles of motion would be an important achievement, none were forthcoming. This impossibility only slowly disappeared as experimental practice became more widespread and more refined in the early years of the 19th century in places such as the newly established Royal Institution in London. Meanwhile, the analytical methods of rational mechanics began to be applied to experimental phenomena, most influentially with the French mathematician Joseph Fourier's analytical treatment of the flow of heat, as published in 1822.[49][50][51] Joseph Priestley proposed an electrical inverse-square law in 1767, and Charles-Augustin de Coulomb introduced the inverse-square law of electrostatics in 1798.
At the end of the century, the members of the French Academy of Sciences had attained clear dominance in the field.[43][52][53][54] At the same time, the experimental tradition established by Galileo and his followers persisted. The Royal Society and the French Academy of Sciences were major centers for the performance and reporting of experimental work. Experiments in mechanics, optics, magnetism, static electricity, chemistry, and physiology were not clearly distinguished from each other during the 18th century, but significant differences in explanatory schemes and, thus, experiment design were emerging. Chemical experimenters, for instance, defied attempts to enforce a scheme of abstract Newtonian forces onto chemical affiliations, and instead focused on the isolation and classification of chemical substances and reactions.[55]
19th century
Mechanics
In 1821, William Hamilton began his analysis of Hamilton's characteristic function. In 1835, he stated Hamilton's canonical equations of motion.
In 1813, Peter Ewart supported the idea of the conservation of energy in his paper On the measure of moving force. In 1829,
Electromagnetism
In 1800, Alessandro Volta invented the electric battery (known as the voltaic pile) and thus improved the way electric currents could also be studied. A year later, Thomas Young demonstrated the wave nature of light—which received strong experimental support from the work of Augustin-Jean Fresnel—and the principle of interference. In 1820, Hans Christian Ørsted found that a current-carrying conductor gives rise to a magnetic force surrounding it, and within a week after Ørsted's discovery reached France, André-Marie Ampère discovered that two parallel electric currents will exert forces on each other. In 1821, Michael Faraday built an electricity-powered motor, while Georg Ohm stated his law of electrical resistance in 1826, expressing the relationship between voltage, current, and resistance in an electric circuit.
In 1831, Faraday (and independently Joseph Henry) discovered the reverse effect, the production of an electric potential or current through magnetism – known as electromagnetic induction; these two discoveries are the basis of the electric motor and the electric generator, respectively.
Laws of thermodynamics
In the 19th century, the connection between heat and mechanical energy was established quantitatively by
Kelvin and Clausius also stated the
Statistical mechanics (a fundamentally new approach to science)
In 1859, James Clerk Maxwell discovered the distribution law of molecular velocities. Maxwell showed that electric and magnetic fields are propagated outward from their source at a speed equal to that of light and that light is one of several kinds of electromagnetic radiation, differing only in frequency and wavelength from the others. In 1859, Maxwell worked out the mathematics of the distribution of velocities of the molecules of a gas. The wave theory of light was widely accepted by the time of Maxwell's work on the electromagnetic field, and afterward the study of light and that of electricity and magnetism were closely related. In 1864 James Maxwell published his papers on a dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field, and stated that light is an electromagnetic phenomenon in the 1873 publication of Maxwell's Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. This work drew upon theoretical work by German theoreticians such as Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Weber. The encapsulation of heat in particulate motion, and the addition of electromagnetic forces to Newtonian dynamics established an enormously robust theoretical underpinning to physical observations.
The prediction that light represented a transmission of energy in wave form through a "luminiferous ether", and the seeming confirmation of that prediction with Helmholtz student Heinrich Hertz's 1888 detection of electromagnetic radiation, was a major triumph for physical theory and raised the possibility that even more fundamental theories based on the field could soon be developed.[56][57][58][59] Experimental confirmation of Maxwell's theory was provided by Hertz, who generated and detected electric waves in 1886 and verified their properties, at the same time foreshadowing their application in radio, television, and other devices. In 1887, Heinrich Hertz discovered the photoelectric effect. Research on the electromagnetic waves began soon after, with many scientists and inventors conducting experiments on their properties. In the mid to late 1890s Guglielmo Marconi developed a radio wave based wireless telegraphy system [60] (see invention of radio).
The atomic theory of matter had been proposed again in the early 19th century by the chemist John Dalton and became one of the hypotheses of the kinetic-molecular theory of gases developed by Clausius and James Clerk Maxwell to explain the laws of thermodynamics.
The kinetic theory in turn led to a revolutionary approach to science, the statistical mechanics of Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906) and Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839–1903), which studies the statistics of microstates of a system and uses statistics to determine the state of a physical system. Interrelating the statistical likelihood of certain states of organization of these particles with the energy of those states, Clausius reinterpreted the dissipation of energy to be the statistical tendency of molecular configurations to pass toward increasingly likely, increasingly disorganized states (coining the term "entropy" to describe the disorganization of a state). The statistical versus absolute interpretations of the second law of thermodynamics set up a dispute that would last for several decades (producing arguments such as "Maxwell's demon"), and that would not be held to be definitively resolved until the behavior of atoms was firmly established in the early 20th century.[61][62] In 1902, James Jeans found the length scale required for gravitational perturbations to grow in a static nearly homogeneous medium.
Other developments
In 1822, botanist
In 1834,
In 1834, John Russell observed a nondecaying solitary water wave (soliton) in the Union Canal near Edinburgh and used a water tank to study the dependence of solitary water wave velocities on wave amplitude and water depth. In 1835,
In 1851, Léon Foucault showed the Earth's rotation with a huge pendulum (Foucault pendulum).
There were important advances in continuum mechanics in the first half of the century, namely formulation of laws of elasticity for solids and discovery of Navier–Stokes equations for fluids.
20th century: birth of modern physics
At the end of the 19th century, physics had evolved to the point at which classical mechanics could cope with highly complex problems involving macroscopic situations; thermodynamics and kinetic theory were well established; geometrical and physical optics could be understood in terms of electromagnetic waves; and the conservation laws for energy and momentum (and mass) were widely accepted. So profound were these and other developments that it was generally accepted that all the important laws of physics had been discovered and that, henceforth, research would be concerned with clearing up minor problems and particularly with improvements of method and measurement.
However, around 1900 serious doubts arose about the completeness of the classical theories—the triumph of Maxwell's theories, for example, was undermined by inadequacies that had already begun to appear—and their inability to explain certain physical phenomena, such as the energy distribution in
Radiation experiments
In the 19th century, experimenters began to detect unexpected forms of radiation:
Albert Einstein's theory of relativity
In 1905, a 26-year-old German physicist named
Special relativity
Einstein argued that the speed of light was a constant in all
The special theory of relativity is a formulation of the relationship between physical observations and the concepts of space and time. The theory arose out of contradictions between electromagnetism and Newtonian mechanics and had great impact on both those areas. The original historical issue was whether it was meaningful to discuss the electromagnetic wave-carrying "ether" and motion relative to it and also whether one could detect such motion, as was unsuccessfully attempted in the Michelson–Morley experiment. Einstein demolished these questions and the ether concept in his special theory of relativity. However, his basic formulation does not involve detailed electromagnetic theory. It arises out of the question: "What is time?" Newton, in the Principia (1686), had given an unambiguous answer: "Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external, and by another name is called duration." This definition is basic to all classical physics.
Einstein had the genius to question it, and found that it was incomplete. Instead, each "observer" necessarily makes use of his or her own scale of time, and for two observers in relative motion, their time-scales will differ. This induces a related effect on position measurements. Space and time become intertwined concepts, fundamentally dependent on the observer. Each observer presides over his or her own space-time framework or coordinate system. There being no absolute frame of reference, all observers of given events make different but equally valid (and reconcilable) measurements. What remains absolute is stated in Einstein's relativity postulate: "The basic laws of physics are identical for two observers who have a constant relative velocity with respect to each other."
Special relativity had a profound effect on physics: started as a rethinking of the theory of electromagnetism, it found a new
Special relativity exerted another long-lasting effect on
General relativity
By 1916, Einstein was able to generalize this further, to deal with all states of motion including non-uniform acceleration, which became the general theory of relativity. In this theory Einstein also specified a new concept, the curvature of space-time, which described the gravitational effect at every point in space. In fact, the curvature of space-time completely replaced Newton's universal law of gravitation. According to Einstein, gravitational force in the normal sense is a kind of illusion caused by the geometry of space. The presence of a mass causes a curvature of space-time in the vicinity of the mass, and this curvature dictates the space-time path that all freely-moving objects must follow. It was also predicted from this theory that light should be subject to gravity - all of which was verified experimentally. This aspect of relativity explained the phenomena of light bending around the sun, predicted black holes as well as properties of the
The gradual acceptance of Einstein's theories of relativity and the quantized nature of light transmission, and of
Quantum mechanics
Although relativity resolved the electromagnetic phenomena conflict demonstrated by Michelson and Morley, a second theoretical problem was the explanation of the distribution of electromagnetic radiation emitted by a
In 1905, Einstein used the quantum theory to explain the photoelectric effect, and in 1913 the Danish physicist Niels Bohr used the same constant to explain the stability of Rutherford's atom as well as the frequencies of light emitted by hydrogen gas. The quantized theory of the atom gave way to a full-scale quantum mechanics in the 1920s. New principles of a "quantum" rather than a "classical" mechanics, formulated in matrix-form by Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, and Pascual Jordan in 1925, were based on the probabilistic relationship between discrete "states" and denied the possibility of causality. Quantum mechanics was extensively developed by Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, Paul Dirac, and Erwin Schrödinger, who established an equivalent theory based on waves in 1926; but Heisenberg's 1927 "uncertainty principle" (indicating the impossibility of precisely and simultaneously measuring position and momentum) and the "Copenhagen interpretation" of quantum mechanics (named after Bohr's home city) continued to deny the possibility of fundamental causality, though opponents such as Einstein would metaphorically assert that "God does not play dice with the universe".[64] The new quantum mechanics became an indispensable tool in the investigation and explanation of phenomena at the atomic level. Also in the 1920s, the Indian scientist Satyendra Nath Bose's work on photons and quantum mechanics provided the foundation for Bose–Einstein statistics, the theory of the Bose–Einstein condensate.
The spin–statistics theorem established that any particle in quantum mechanics may be either a boson (statistically Bose–Einstein) or a fermion (statistically Fermi–Dirac). It was later found that all fundamental bosons transmit forces, such as the photon that transmits electromagnetism.
Fermions are particles "like electrons and nucleons" and are the usual constituents of matter. Fermi–Dirac statistics later found numerous other uses, from astrophysics (see Degenerate matter) to semiconductor design.
Contemporary physics
Quantum field theory
As the philosophically inclined continued to debate the fundamental nature of the universe, quantum theories continued to be produced, beginning with
Meanwhile, new theories of fundamental particles proliferated with the rise of the idea of the quantization of fields through "exchange forces" regulated by an exchange of short-lived "virtual" particles, which were allowed to exist according to the laws governing the uncertainties inherent in the quantum world. Notably, Hideki Yukawa proposed that the positive charges of the nucleus were kept together courtesy of a powerful but short-range force mediated by a particle with a mass between that of the electron and proton. This particle, the "pion", was identified in 1947 as part of what became a slew of particles discovered after World War II. Initially, such particles were found as ionizing radiation left by cosmic rays, but increasingly came to be produced in newer and more powerful particle accelerators.[66]
Outside particle physics, significant advances of the time were:
- the invention of the laser (1964 Nobel Prize in Physics);
- the theoretical and experimental research of superconductivity, especially the invention of a quantum theory of superconductivity by Vitaly Ginzburg and Lev Landau (1962 Nobel Prize in Physics) and, later, its explanation via Cooper pairs (1972 Nobel Prize in Physics). The Cooper pair was an early example of quasiparticles.
Unified field theories
Einstein deemed that all
Particle physics and the Standard Model
When
The Standard Model, based on the
Since the 1970s, fundamental particle physics has provided insights into early universe
While accelerators have confirmed most aspects of the Standard Model by detecting expected particle interactions at various collision energies, no theory reconciling general relativity with the Standard Model has yet been found, although supersymmetry and string theory were believed by many theorists to be a promising avenue forward. The Large Hadron Collider, however, which began operating in 2008, has failed to find any evidence that is supportive of supersymmetry and string theory.[75]
Cosmology
Cosmology may be said to have become a serious research question with the publication of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity in 1915 although it did not enter the scientific mainstream until the period known as the "
About a decade later, in the midst of what was dubbed the "
.Recently the problems of dark matter and dark energy have risen to the top of the cosmology agenda.
Higgs boson
On July 4, 2012, physicists working at CERN's
"This is a big moment for particle physics and a crossroads — will this be the high water mark or will it be the first of many discoveries that point us toward solving the really big questions that we have posed?"
—Michael Turner, University of Chicago[76]
Peter Higgs was one of six physicists, working in three independent groups, who, in 1964, invented the notion of the Higgs field ("cosmic molasses"). The others were Tom Kibble of Imperial College, London; Carl Hagen of the University of Rochester; Gerald Guralnik of Brown University; and François Englert and Robert Brout, both of Université libre de Bruxelles.[76]
Although they have never been seen, Higgslike fields play an important role in theories of the universe and in string theory. Under certain conditions, according to the strange accounting of Einsteinian physics, they can become suffused with energy that exerts an antigravitational force. Such fields have been proposed as the source of an enormous burst of expansion, known as inflation, early in the universe and, possibly, as the secret of the dark energy that now seems to be speeding up the expansion of the universe.[76]
Physical sciences
With increased accessibility to and elaboration upon advanced analytical techniques in the 19th century, physics was defined as much, if not more, by those techniques than by the search for universal principles of motion and energy, and the fundamental nature of matter. Fields such as acoustics, geophysics, astrophysics, aerodynamics, plasma physics, low-temperature physics, and solid-state physics joined optics, fluid dynamics, electromagnetism, and mechanics as areas of physical research. In the 20th century, physics also became closely allied with such fields as electrical, aerospace and materials engineering, and physicists began to work in government and industrial laboratories as much as in academic settings. Following World War II, the population of physicists increased dramatically, and came to be centered on the United States, while, in more recent decades, physics has become a more international pursuit than at any time in its previous history.
Articles on the history of physics
On branches of physics
- History of astronomy (timeline)
- History of condensed matter (timeline)
- History of computational physics (timeline)
- History of electromagnetic theory (timeline)
- History of electrical engineering
- History of the philosophy of field theory
- History of Maxwell's equations
- History of optics
- History of spectroscopy
- History of geophysics
- History of gravity, spacetime and cosmology
- History of classical mechanics (timeline)
- History of nuclear physics
- History of quantum mechanics (timeline)
- Atomic theory
- History of molecular theory
- History of quantum field theory
- History of quantum information (timeline)
- History of subatomic physics (timeline)
- History of thermodynamics (timeline)
On specific discoveries
- Discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation
- History of graphene
- First observation of gravitational waves
- Subatomic particles (timeline)
Historical periods
- Classical physics
- Copernican Revolution
- Golden age of physics
- Golden age of cosmology
- Modern physics
- Physics in the medieval Islamic world
- Noisy intermediate-scale quantum era
See also
Notes
- ^ Click the image to see further details.
References
- ^ "This shift from ecclesiastical reasoning to scientific reasoning marked the beginning of scientific methodology." Singer, C., A Short History of Science to the 19th Century, Streeter Press, 2008, p. 35.
- ^ Oliver Leaman, Key Concepts in Eastern Philosophy. Routledge, 1999, page 269.
- ^ Chattopadhyaya 1986, pp. 169–70
- ^ Choudhury 2006, p. 202
- ^ (Stcherbatsky 1962 (1930). Vol. 1. P. 19)
- ^ Li Shu-hua, "Origine de la Boussole 11. Aimant et Boussole", Isis, Vol. 45, No. 2. (Jul., 1954), p.175
- ^ Joseph Needham, Volume 4, Part 1, 98.
- ^ Robinson, Francis, ed. (1996). The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic World. Cambridge University Press. pp. 228–229.
- ^ Glick, Livesey & Wallis (2005, pp. 89–90)
- ^ Smith, Mark (2015). From Sight to Light: The Passage from Ancient to Modern Optics. The University of Chicago Press. p. 225.
The same holds for Alhacen's methodology. It may look modern because of its strong empirical bias and reliance on controlled experiments, but Ptolemy's approach was no less empirical, and it, too, was based on controlled experiments. In addition, Alhacen's two most modern-looking experiments are based on physically unobtainable precision in equipment design and observation, so we are left to doubt that he actually carried them out as described— except, of course, in his mind. And these experiments were not new in conception. They were clearly based on equivalent ones in Ptolemy's Optics, although Alhacen had to reformulate them in significant and creative ways to accommodate the testing of light rays rather than visual rays.
- ^ Darrigol, Olivier (2012). A History of Optics from Greek Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century. Oxford University Press. p. 20.
- ^ Lindberg, David; Shank, Michael (2013). The Cambridge History of Science,Volume 2, Medieval Science. pp. 984–1108.
- ^ S2CID 250809354.
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Further reading
- Buchwald, Jed Z. and Robert Fox, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Physics (2014) 976pp; excerpt
- Byers, Nina; Williams, Gary (2006). Out of the Shadows: Contributions of Twentieth-Century Women to Physics. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-82197-5.
- Cropper, William H. (2004). Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-517324-4.
- Dear, Peter (2001). Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and Its Ambitions, 1500–1700. Princeton: Princeton University Press. OCLC 46622656..
- ISBN 0-486-25767-3.
- Heilbron, John L. (2005). The Oxford Guide to the History of Physics and Astronomy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-517198-5.
- Nye, Mary Jo (1996). Before Big Science: The Pursuit of Modern Chemistry and Physics, 1800–1940. New York: Twayne. OCLC 185866968..
- Segrè, Emilio (1984). From Falling Bodies to Radio Waves: Classical Physicists and Their Discoveries. New York: W. H. Freeman. OCLC 9943504..
- Segrè, Emilio (1980). From X-Rays to Quarks: Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman. OCLC 237246197..
- Weaver, Jefferson H. (editor) (1987). The World of Physics. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-671-49931-9.and Dale McAdoo.
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has generic name (help) A selection of 56 articles, written by physicists. Commentaries and notes by Lloyd Motz - de Haas, Paul, "Historic Papers in Physics (20th Century)"