Unit 1 Tutorial 1 What is Physics?

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Human beings have always felt the nature as a wonder and wanted to know the secret behind it. Gravitational pull, flow of fluids, storms, planets, stars, kinematics etcetera. This curiosity was not only for the wonder but also to interact with the nature for his comfort. This led to many inventions and thus the science was created which in turn created physics.

What is science?

The word science comes from the Latin word “Scientia” which means “to know” or “knowledge”. Science is a method or systematic approach to understand the principles or the wonder behind the nature in as much as detail or depth possible using observations and experiments.

There are many persons who contributed for the science and its growth. Some of them are Newton who suggested the gravity, Albert Einstein who found the famous Mass-Energy equation, Neil’s Bohr who suggested the quantum theory using hydrogen atom and many others whom we will see in the upcoming tutorials.

What is physics?

Physics is a derived from a Greek word which means the “knowledge of the nature”. Thus physics can be defined as the branch which deals which the study of matter and its motions in the space and time along with the related concepts like energy and force. In a simple way it can be said that physics is the branch of science which deals about the matter interacting with the nature.

In physics we try to explain nature with regard to some of the universal laws. For example gravitational theory can be used to explain the famous Newton’s falling of an apple and also the rotation of the moon around the earth. In the similar way we can explain all the concepts of nature with respect to the universal laws stated in the physics which we will see in the further tutorials.

Physics is subdivided further into two branches. They are MacroscopicPhysics and Microscopic Physics. Macroscopic physics deals with the nature and its particles which are visible directly to the human eye, while microscopic physics deals with the nature and its particles which are in microscopic size. It can be said that physics is further divided into many braches while we will cover them in the upcoming tutorials.

Finally to conclude physics is a vast subject and it has a large scope which does not have any end. There is not end for physics and every day there is an invention coming under physics out of many a few are making the human life easier.   

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