Physics 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. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

(Greek:

physis Fusis, Phusis or Physis (; grc, φύσις ) is a Greek philosophical, theological, and scientific term, usually translated into English—according to its Latin translation "natura"—as "nature". The term originated in ancient Greek philosophy ...

–φύσις meaning "nature") is the natural science which examines basic concepts such as

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

charge Charge or charged may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * '' Charge, Zero Emissions/Maximum Speed'', a 2011 documentary Music * ''Charge'' (David Ford album) * ''Charge'' (Machel Montano album) * ''Charge!!'', an album by The Aqu ...

matter In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. All everyday objects that can be touched are ultimately composed of atoms, which are made up of interacting subatomic part ...

R. P. Feynman, R. B. Leighton, M. Sands (1963), ''

The Feynman Lectures on Physics ''The Feynman Lectures on Physics'' is a physics textbook based on some lectures by Richard Feynman, a Nobel laureate who has sometimes been called "The Great Explainer". The lectures were presented before undergraduate students at the Californ ...

'', Hard-cover. p.1-1 Feynman begins with the atomic hypothesis, as his most compact statement of all scientific knowledge: "If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations ..., what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is ... that ''all things are made up of atoms–little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. ...''" vol. I p. I–2 and its

motion In physics, motion is the phenomenon in which an object changes its position with respect to time. Motion is mathematically described in terms of displacement, distance, velocity, acceleration, speed and frame of reference to an observer and m ...

and all that derives from these, such as

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of hea ...

, force and

spacetime In physics, spacetime is a mathematical model that combines the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional manifold. Spacetime diagrams can be used to visualize relativistic effects, such as why differ ...

. More broadly, it is the general analysis of

nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

, conducted in order to understand how the

world In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

and

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. ...

behave.H.D. Young & R.A. Freedman, ''University Physics with Modern Physics'': 11th Edition: International Edition (2004), Addison Wesley. Chapter 1, section 1.1, page 2 has this to say: "Physics is an ''experimental'' science. Physicists observe the phenomena of nature and try to find patterns and principles that relate these phenomena. These patterns are called physical theories or, when they are very well established and of broad use, physical laws or principles."
Steve Holzner, ''Physics for Dummies'' (2006), Wiley. Chapter 1, page 7 says: "Physics is the study of your world and the world and universe around you." Se
Amazon Online Reader: Physics For Dummies (For Dummies(Math & Science))
retrieved 24 Nov 2006 The index of physics articles is split into multiple pages due to its size. To navigate by individual letter use the table of contents below.

References

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See also

References