Field of physic

The table below lists many of the fields and subfields of physics along with the theories and concepts they
employ.

Field Subfields Major theories Concepts

Cosmology, Gravitation Black hole, Cosmic background

physics, High-energy radiation, Cosmic string, Cosmos,
Big Bang, Lambda-CDM model, Cosmic
astrophysics, Planetary Dark energy, Dark matter, Galaxy,
Astrophysics inflation, General relativity, Newton's
astrophysics, Plasma Gravity, Gravitational radiation,
law of universal gravitation
physics, Space physics, Gravitational singularity, Planet, Solar
Stellar astrophysics system, Star, Supernova, Universe

Atomic physics, Molecular

Atomic, Photon, Atom, Molecule, Diffraction,
physics, Atomic and
molecular, Quantum optics, Quantum chemistry, Electromagnetic radiation, Laser,
Molecular astrophysics,
and optical Quantum information science Polarization, Spectral line, Casimir
Chemical physics, Optics,
physics effect
Photonics

Standard Model, Quantum field theory, Fundamental force (gravitational,

Quantum electrodynamics, Quantum electromagnetic, weak, strong),
Nuclear physics, Nuclear chromodynamics, Electroweak theory, Elementary particle, Spin, Antimatter,
Particle astrophysics, Particle Effective field theory, Lattice field Spontaneous symmetry breaking,
physics astrophysics, Particle physics theory, Lattice gauge theory, Gauge Neutrino oscillation, Seesaw
phenomenology theory, Supersymmetry, Grand mechanism, Brane, String, Quantum
unification theory, Superstring theory, gravity, Theory of everything,
M-theory Vacuum energy

Solid state physics, High

Phases (gas, liquid, solid, Bose-
pressure physics, Low-
Einstein condensate, superconductor,
Condensed temperature physics, Surface BCS theory, Bloch wave, Fermi gas,
superfluid), Electrical conduction,
matter physics Physics,Nanoscale and Fermi liquid, Many-body theory
Magnetism, Self-organization, Spin,
Mesoscopic physics, Polymer
Spontaneous symmetry breaking
physics

Accelerator physics, Acoustics, Agrophysics, Biophysics, Chemical Physics, Communication Physics,

Econophysics, Engineering physics, Fluid dynamics, Geophysics, Materials physics, Medical physics,
Applied
Nanotechnology, Optics, Optoelectronics, Photovoltaics, Physical chemistry, Physics of computation, Plasma
Physics
physics, Solid-state devices, Quantum chemistry, Quantum electronics, Quantum information science, Vehicle
dynamics
Famous physicists

Aristotle
Since antiquity, people have tried to understand the workings of Nature and the behavior
of matter: why unsupported objects drop to the ground, why different materials have
different properties, and so forth. The character of the universe was also a mystery, for
instance the earth and the behavior of celestial objects such as the sun and the moon.
Several theories were proposed, most of which were incorrect, such as the earth orbiting
the moon. These first theories were largely couched in philosophical terms, and never
verified by systematic experimental testing, as is popular today. The works of Ptolemy and
Aristotle were not always found to match everyday observations. There were exceptions and
there are anachronisms - for example, Indian philosophers and astronomers gave many correct descriptions in
atomism and astronomy, and the Greek mathematician Archimedes derived many correct quantitative descriptions
of mechanics and hydrostatics.

Ibn al-Haitham (Alhazen)

The willingness to question previously held truths and search for new answers eventually
resulted in a period of major scientific advancements, now known as the Scientific Revolution
of the late seventeenth century. The precursors to the scientific revolution may be traced back
to the important developments made in India and Persia, including the elliptical model of the
planets based on the heliocentric solar system of gravitation developed by Indian
mathematician-astronomer Aryabhata; the basic ideas of atomic theory developed by Hindu
and Jaina philosophers; the theory of light being equivalent to energy particles developed by the Indian Buddhist scholars
Dignāga and Dharmakirti; the optical theory of light developed by Muslim scientist Ibn al-Haitham (Alhazen); the
Astrolabe invented by the Persian astronomer Muhammad al-Fazari; and the significant flaws in the Ptolemaic system
pointed out by Persian scientist Nasir al-Din Tusi.

The Scientific Revolution

As the influence of the Arab Empire expanded to Europe, the works of Aristotle, preserved by the Arabs, and the works of
the Indians and Persians, became known in medieval Europe by the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Nicolaus Copernicus 1473-1543

This eventually led to the scientific revolution, held by most historians (e.g., Howard Margolis) to
have begun in 1543, when the first printed copy of Nicolaus Copernicus's De Revolutionibus was
brought to the influential astronomer from Nuremberg (Nürnberg), where it had been printed by
Johannes Petreius. Most of its contents had been written years prior, but the publication had been
delayed. Copernicus died soon after receiving the copy.

Galileo

Further significant advances were made over the following century by Galileo Galilei, Christiaan
Huygens, Johannes Kepler, and Blaise Pascal. During the early seventeenth century, Galileo pioneered
the use of experimentation to validate physical theories, which is the key idea in modern scientific
method. Galileo formulated and successfully tested several results in dynamics, in particular the Law
of Inertia.
 Sir Isaac Newton

The scientific revolution is considered to have culminated with the publication of the
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687 by the mathematician, physicist,
alchemist and inventor Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727).In 1687, Newton published the
Principia, detailing two comprehensive and successful physical theories: Newton's laws of
motion, from which arise classical mechanics; and Newton's Law of Gravitation, which
describes the fundamental force of gravity. Both theories agreed well with experiment. The
Principia also included several theories in fluid dynamics.

From the late seventeenth century onward, thermodynamics was developed by physicist and
chemist Boyle, Young, and many others. In 1733, Bernoulli used statistical arguments with
classical mechanics to derive thermodynamic results, initiating the field of statistical
mechanics. In 1798, Thompson demonstrated the conversion of mechanical work into heat, and in 1847 Joule stated the
law of conservation of energy, in the form of heat as well as mechanical energy. Ludwig Boltzmann, in the nineteenth
century, is responsible for the modern form of statistical mechanics.

Classical mechanics was re-formulated and extended by Leonhard Euler, French mathematician Joseph-Louis Comte de
Lagrange, Irish mathematical physicist William Rowan Hamilton, and others, who produced new results in mathematical
physics. The law of universal gravitation initiated the field of astrophysics, which describes astronomical phenomena using
physical theories.

After Newton defined classical mechanics, the next great field of inquiry within physics was the nature of electricity.
Observations in the seventeenth and eighteenth century by scientists such as Robert Boyle, Stephen Gray, and Benjamin
Franklin created a foundation for later work. These observations also established our basic understanding of electrical
charge and current.

The existence of the atom was proposed in 1808 by John Dalton.

James Clerk Maxwell

In 1821, the English physicist and chemist Michael Faraday integrated the study of magnetism
with the study of electricity. This was done by demonstrating that a moving magnet induced an
electric current in a conductor. Faraday also formulated a physical conception of electromagnetic
fields. James Clerk Maxwell built upon this conception, in 1864, with an interlinked set of twenty
equations that explained the interactions between electric and magnetic fields. These twenty
equations were later reduced, using vector calculus, to a set of four equations by Oliver
Heaviside.

In addition to other electromagnetic phenomena, Maxwell's equations also can be used to describe light. Confirmation of
this observation was made with the 1888 discovery of radio by Heinrich Hertz and in 1895 when Wilhelm Roentgen
detected X-rays.
Modern physics

Albert Einstein

The ability to describe light in electromagnetic terms helped serve as a springboard for Albert
Einstein's publication of the theory of special relativity in 1905. This theory combined classical
mechanics with Maxwell's equations. The theory of special relativity unifies space and time into a
single entity, spacetime. Relativity prescribes a different transformation between reference frames
than classical mechanics; this necessitated the development of relativistic mechanics as a
replacement for classical mechanics. In the regime of low (relative) velocities, the two theories
agree. Einstein built further on the special theory by including gravity into his calculations, and
published his theory of general relativity in 1915.

One part of the theory of general relativity is Einstein's field equation. This describes how the stress-energy tensor
creates curvature of spacetime and forms the basis of general relativity. Further work on Einstein's field equation
produced results which predicted the Big Bang, black holes, and the expanding universe. Einstein believed in a static
universe. He tried, and failed, to fix his equation to allow for this. By 1929, however, Edwin Hubble's astronomical
observations suggested that the universe is expanding at a possibly exponential rate.

Marie Sklodowska-Curie

In 1895, Röntgen discovered X-rays, which turned out to be high-frequency electromagnetic

radiation.

Radioactivity was discovered in 1896 by Henri Becquerel, and further studied by Maria
Sklodowska-Curie, Pierre Curie, and others. This initiated the field of nuclear physics.

In 1897, Joseph J. Thomson discovered the electron, the elementary particle which carries
electrical current in circuits. In 1904, he proposed the first model of the atom, known as the
plum pudding model. Its existence had been proposed in 1808 by John Dalton.

These discoveries revealed that the assumption of many physicists, that atoms were the basic unit of matter, was flawed,
and prompted further study into the structure of atoms.

Ernest Rutherford

In 1911, Ernest Rutherford deduced from scattering experiments the existence of a compact atomic
nucleus, with positively charged constituents dubbed protons. Neutrons, the neutral nuclear
constituents, were discovered in 1932 by Chadwick. The equivalence of mass and energy (Einstein,
1905) was spectacularly demonstrated during World War II, as research was conducted by each
side into nuclear physics, for the purpose of creating a nuclear bomb. The German effort, led by
Heisenberg, did not succeed, but the Allied Manhattan Project reached its goal. In America, a team
led by Fermi achieved the first man-made nuclear chain reaction in 1942, and in 1945 the world's
first nuclear explosive was detonated at Trinity site, near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

In 1900, Max Planck published his explanation of blackbody radiation. This equation assumed that radiators are
quantized, which proved to be the opening argument in the edifice that would become quantum mechanics. By
introducing discrete energy levels, Planck, Einstein, Niels Bohr, and others developed quantum theories to explain various
anomalous experimental results.
 Erwin Schrödinger

Quantum mechanics was formulated in 1925 by Heisenberg and in 1926 by Schrödinger and Paul
Dirac, in two different ways, that both explained the preceding heuristic quantum theories. In
quantum mechanics, the outcomes of physical measurements are inherently probabilistic; the
theory describes the calculation of these probabilities. It successfully describes the behavior of
matter at small distance scales. During the 1920s Schrödinger, Heisenberg, and Max Born were
able to formulate a consistent picture of the chemical behavior of matter, a complete theory of
the electronic structure of the atom, as a byproduct of the quantum theory.

Quantum field theory was formulated in order to extend quantum mechanics to be consistent with special relativity. It
was devised in the late 1940s with work by Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, and Freeman Dyson.
They formulated the theory of quantum electrodynamics, which describes the electromagnetic interaction, and
successfully explained the Lamb shift. Quantum field theory provided the framework for modern particle physics, which
studies fundamental forces and elementary particles.

Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee, in the 1950s, discovered an unexpected asymmetry in the decay of a subatomic
particle. In 1954, Yang and Robert Mills then developed a class of gauge theories which provided the framework for
understanding the nuclear forces (Yang, Mills 1954). The theory for the strong nuclear force was first proposed by Murray
Gell-Mann. The electroweak force, the unification of the weak nuclear force with electromagnetism, was proposed by
Sheldon Lee Glashow, Abdus Salam, and Steven Weinberg and confirmed in 1964 by James Watson Cronin and Val Fitch.
This led to the so-called Standard Model of particle physics in the 1970s, which successfully describes all the elementary
particles observed to date.

Important in daily life to people

Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into more useful forms, usually electricity using wind turbines. At the end
of 2006, worldwide capacity of wind-powered generators was 74,223 megawatts; although it currently produces less than
1% of world-wide electricity use, it accounts for approximately 20% of electricity use in Denmark, 9% in Spain, and 7%
in Germany.[1] Globally, wind power generation more than quadrupled between 2000 and 2006.

Most modern wind power is generated in the form of electricity by converting the rotation of turbine blades into electrical
current by means of an electrical generator. In windmills (a much older technology) wind energy is used to turn
mechanical machinery to do physical work, like crushing grain or pumping water.

Wind power is used in large scale wind farms for national electrical grids as well as in small individual turbines for
providing electricity to rural residences or grid-isolated locations.

Wind energy is ample, renewable, widely distributed, clean, and reduces toxic atmospheric and greenhouse gas emissions
if used to replace fossil-fuel-derived electricity. The intermittency of wind seldom creates problems when using wind
power at low to moderate penetration levels.[2]