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Topic outline

 

  • Time: 12 hours
    Level: Intermediate

 
 

Introduction

  • Introduction Resource
  • This unit offers a fascinating overview of the ‘big ideas’ that have shaped physics from the time of Kepler to the present day. Using little mathematics, the unit surveys fundamental features of key physical...
 

1 Physics and the physical world

  • 1 Physics and the physical world Resource
  • Studying physics will change you as a person. At least it should. In studying physics you will encounter some of the deepest and most far-reaching concepts that have ever entered human consciousness. Knowledge...
 

2 World-views

  • 2.1 The lawful Universe Resource
  • ‘Our experience shows that only a small part of the physical Universe needs to be studied in order to elucidate its underlying themes and patterns of behaviour. At root this is what it means for there...
  • 2.2 The clockwork Universe Resource
  • It is probably fair to say that no single individual has had a greater influence on the scientific view of the world than Isaac Newton. The main reason for Newton's prominence was his own intrinsic genius,...
  • 2.3 The irreversible Universe Resource
  • ‘Science owes more to the steam engine than the steam engine owes to Science.’
  • 2.4 The intangible Universe Resource
  • When Newton wrote about ‘The System of the World’ in Part 3 of Principia, the only forces he could discuss in any detail were the contact forces that arose when one object touched another, and gravity,...
  • Faraday and Maxwell Resource
  • Michael Faraday was the son of a blacksmith. Apprenticed to a bookbinder at 14, he read about science, became enthralled with the subject, secured a job as a laboratory assistant at the Royal Institution...
  • 2.4.2 Relativity, space, time and gravity Resource
  • Throughout the development of mechanics and electromagnetism the role of space and time had been clear and simple. Space and time were simply the arena within which the drama of physics was played out....
  • Albert Einstein Resource
  • Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany on 14 March 1879. The following year he and his family moved to Munich where he had a successful, though not brilliant, school career. In 1896 Einstein renounced...
  • 2.5 The uncertain Universe Resource
  • Despite the impact of relativity, the greatest source of change in the scientific world-view in the twentieth century has undoubtedly been the development of quantum physics. This is the branch of physics...
  • 2.5.1 Quantum mechanics and chance Resource
  • The real quantum revolution dates from the formulation of quantum mechanics by Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) and others in 1925, and its physical interpretation by Max Born (1882–1970) in 1926. However,...
  • 2.5.2 Quantum fields and unification Resource
  • From its inception, quantum physics was concerned not just with particles such as electrons, but also with light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation. In 1900 Planck discovered the quantum in the...
  • Richard Feynman Resource
  • Richard Phillips Feynman was one of the most colourful and celebrated of US physicists. He was born in New York in 1918 and educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Princeton. From...
  • 2.5.3 The end of physics? Resource
  • Suppose for the moment that quantum field theory, or string theory or M-theory, or some other theory no one has yet heard of, does turn out to be the much sought-after superunified theory. Suppose it is...
  • 2.6 Closing items Resource
  • Laws summarise regularities observed in Nature. They can summarise large numbers of similar phenomena and make it possible to predict the course of particular phenomena.
 

3 Appendix: Some highlights of physics

 

4 Suggestions for further reading

  • John D. Barrow (1988), The World Within the World, Oxford.
 

References and Acknowledgements

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