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Physics
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Physics is the natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion and behavior through space and time, along with related concepts such as energy and force. One of the most fundamental disciplines, the main goal of physics is to understand how the universe behaves. Physics is one of the oldest academic disciplines, perhaps the oldest through its inclusion of astronomy, Physics intersects with many interdisciplinary areas of research, such as biophysics and quantum chemistry, and the boundaries of physics are not rigidly defined. New ideas in physics often explain the mechanisms of other sciences while opening new avenues of research in areas such as mathematics. Physics also makes significant contributions through advances in new technologies that arise from theoretical breakthroughs, the United Nations named 2005 the World Year of Physics. Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, the stars and planets were often a target of worship, believed to represent their gods. While the explanations for these phenomena were often unscientific and lacking in evidence, according to Asger Aaboe, the origins of Western astronomy can be found in Mesopotamia, and all Western efforts in the exact sciences are descended from late Babylonian astronomy. The most notable innovations were in the field of optics and vision, which came from the works of many scientists like Ibn Sahl, Al-Kindi, Ibn al-Haytham, Al-Farisi and Avicenna. The most notable work was The Book of Optics, written by Ibn Al-Haitham, in which he was not only the first to disprove the ancient Greek idea about vision, but also came up with a new theory. In the book, he was also the first to study the phenomenon of the pinhole camera, many later European scholars and fellow polymaths, from Robert Grosseteste and Leonardo da Vinci to René Descartes, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton, were in his debt. Indeed, the influence of Ibn al-Haythams Optics ranks alongside that of Newtons work of the same title, the translation of The Book of Optics had a huge impact on Europe. From it, later European scholars were able to build the devices as what Ibn al-Haytham did. From this, such important things as eyeglasses, magnifying glasses, telescopes, Physics became a separate science when early modern Europeans used experimental and quantitative methods to discover what are now considered to be the laws of physics. Newton also developed calculus, the study of change, which provided new mathematical methods for solving physical problems. The discovery of new laws in thermodynamics, chemistry, and electromagnetics resulted from greater research efforts during the Industrial Revolution as energy needs increased, however, inaccuracies in classical mechanics for very small objects and very high velocities led to the development of modern physics in the 20th century. Modern physics began in the early 20th century with the work of Max Planck in quantum theory, both of these theories came about due to inaccuracies in classical mechanics in certain situations. Quantum mechanics would come to be pioneered by Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, from this early work, and work in related fields, the Standard Model of particle physics was derived. Areas of mathematics in general are important to this field, such as the study of probabilities, in many ways, physics stems from ancient Greek philosophy
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Paradigm shift
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A paradigm shift, a concept identified by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn, is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. Kuhn contrasted these shifts, which characterize a scientific revolution, to the activity of normal science, in this context, the word paradigm is used in its original meaning, as example. The nature of scientific revolutions has been studied by modern philosophy since Immanuel Kant used the phrase in the preface to his Critique of Pure Reason and he referred to Greek mathematics and Newtonian physics. In the 20th century, new crises in the concepts of mathematics, physics. It was against this background that Kuhn published his work. Kuhn presented his notion of a shift in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. As one commentator summarizes, Kuhn acknowledges having used the term paradigm in two different meanings, in the second sense, the paradigm is a single element of a whole, say for instance Newton’s Principia, which, acting as a common model or an example. Stands for the rules and thus defines a coherent tradition of investigation. Thus the question is for Kuhn to investigate by means of the paradigm what makes possible the constitution of what he calls normal science and that is to say, the science which can decide if a certain problem will be considered scientific or not. This is precisely the meaning of the term paradigm, which Kuhn considered the most new and profound. An epistemological paradigm shift was called a revolution by epistemologist. The paradigm, in Kuhns view, is not simply the current theory, but the entire worldview in which it exists and this is based on features of landscape of knowledge that scientists can identify around them. There are anomalies for all paradigms, Kuhn maintained, that are brushed away as acceptable levels of error, or simply ignored, rather, according to Kuhn, anomalies have various levels of significance to the practitioners of science at the time. When enough significant anomalies have accrued against a current paradigm, the discipline is thrown into a state of crisis. During this crisis, new ideas, perhaps ones previously discarded, are tried, eventually a new paradigm is formed, which gains its own new followers, and an intellectual battle takes place between the followers of the new paradigm and the hold-outs of the old paradigm. Some found Arthur Eddingtons photographs of light bending around the sun to be compelling, while some questioned their accuracy, after a given discipline has changed from one paradigm to another, this is called, in Kuhns terminology, a scientific revolution or a paradigm shift. If this is correct, Kuhns claims must be taken in a weaker sense than they often are, at that time, physics seemed to be a discipline filling in the last few details of a largely worked-out system. In 1900, Lord Kelvin famously told an assemblage of physicists at the British Association for the Advancement of Science, all that remains is more and more precise measurement
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Modern physics
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Modern physics is the post-Newtonian conception of physics. In general, the term is used to refer to any branch of physics either developed in the early 20th century and onwards, small velocities and large distances is usually the realm of classical physics. In general, quantum and relativist effects exist across all scales, in a literal sense, the term modern physics, means up-to-date physics. In this sense, a significant portion of so-called classical physics is modern, however, since roughly 1890, new discoveries have caused significant paradigm shifts, the advent of quantum mechanics and of Einsteinian relativity. Physics that incorporates elements of either QM or ER is said to be modern physics and it is in this latter sense that the term is generally used. Modern physics is often encountered when dealing with extreme conditions, quantum mechanical effects tend to appear when dealing with lows, while relativistic effects tend to appear when dealing with highs, the middles being classical behaviour. For example, when analysing the behaviour of a gas at room temperature, however near absolute zero, the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution fails to account for the observed behaviour of the gas, and the Fermi–Dirac or Bose–Einstein distributions have to be used instead. Very often, it is possible to find – or retrieve – the classical behaviour from the description by analysing the modern description at low speeds. When doing so, the result is called the classical limit
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Classical mechanics
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In physics, classical mechanics is one of the two major sub-fields of mechanics, along with quantum mechanics. Classical mechanics is concerned with the set of physical laws describing the motion of bodies under the influence of a system of forces. The study of the motion of bodies is an ancient one, making classical mechanics one of the oldest and largest subjects in science, engineering and technology. Classical mechanics describes the motion of objects, from projectiles to parts of machinery, as well as astronomical objects, such as spacecraft, planets, stars. Within classical mechanics are fields of study that describe the behavior of solids, liquids and gases, Classical mechanics also provides extremely accurate results as long as the domain of study is restricted to large objects and the speeds involved do not approach the speed of light. When both quantum and classical mechanics cannot apply, such as at the level with high speeds. Since these aspects of physics were developed long before the emergence of quantum physics and relativity, however, a number of modern sources do include relativistic mechanics, which in their view represents classical mechanics in its most developed and accurate form. Later, more abstract and general methods were developed, leading to reformulations of classical mechanics known as Lagrangian mechanics and these advances were largely made in the 18th and 19th centuries, and they extend substantially beyond Newtons work, particularly through their use of analytical mechanics. The following introduces the concepts of classical mechanics. For simplicity, it often models real-world objects as point particles, the motion of a point particle is characterized by a small number of parameters, its position, mass, and the forces applied to it. Each of these parameters is discussed in turn, in reality, the kind of objects that classical mechanics can describe always have a non-zero size. Objects with non-zero size have more complicated behavior than hypothetical point particles, because of the degrees of freedom. However, the results for point particles can be used to such objects by treating them as composite objects. The center of mass of a composite object behaves like a point particle, Classical mechanics uses common-sense notions of how matter and forces exist and interact. It assumes that matter and energy have definite, knowable attributes such as where an object is in space, non-relativistic mechanics also assumes that forces act instantaneously. The position of a point particle is defined with respect to a fixed reference point in space called the origin O, in space. A simple coordinate system might describe the position of a point P by means of a designated as r. In general, the point particle need not be stationary relative to O, such that r is a function of t, the time
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Newton's laws of motion
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Newtons laws of motion are three physical laws that, together, laid the foundation for classical mechanics. They describe the relationship between a body and the forces acting upon it, and its motion in response to those forces. More precisely, the first law defines the force qualitatively, the second law offers a measure of the force. These three laws have been expressed in different ways, over nearly three centuries, and can be summarised as follows. The three laws of motion were first compiled by Isaac Newton in his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Newton used them to explain and investigate the motion of many physical objects and systems. For example, in the volume of the text, Newton showed that these laws of motion, combined with his law of universal gravitation. Newtons laws are applied to objects which are idealised as single point masses, in the sense that the size and this can be done when the object is small compared to the distances involved in its analysis, or the deformation and rotation of the body are of no importance. In this way, even a planet can be idealised as a particle for analysis of its orbital motion around a star, in their original form, Newtons laws of motion are not adequate to characterise the motion of rigid bodies and deformable bodies. Leonhard Euler in 1750 introduced a generalisation of Newtons laws of motion for rigid bodies called Eulers laws of motion, if a body is represented as an assemblage of discrete particles, each governed by Newtons laws of motion, then Eulers laws can be derived from Newtons laws. Eulers laws can, however, be taken as axioms describing the laws of motion for extended bodies, Newtons laws hold only with respect to a certain set of frames of reference called Newtonian or inertial reference frames. Other authors do treat the first law as a corollary of the second, the explicit concept of an inertial frame of reference was not developed until long after Newtons death. In the given mass, acceleration, momentum, and force are assumed to be externally defined quantities. This is the most common, but not the interpretation of the way one can consider the laws to be a definition of these quantities. Newtonian mechanics has been superseded by special relativity, but it is useful as an approximation when the speeds involved are much slower than the speed of light. The first law states that if the net force is zero, the first law can be stated mathematically when the mass is a non-zero constant, as, ∑ F =0 ⇔ d v d t =0. Consequently, An object that is at rest will stay at rest unless a force acts upon it, an object that is in motion will not change its velocity unless a force acts upon it. This is known as uniform motion, an object continues to do whatever it happens to be doing unless a force is exerted upon it. If it is at rest, it continues in a state of rest, if an object is moving, it continues to move without turning or changing its speed
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Continuum mechanics
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Continuum mechanics is a branch of mechanics that deals with the analysis of the kinematics and the mechanical behavior of materials modeled as a continuous mass rather than as discrete particles. The French mathematician Augustin-Louis Cauchy was the first to formulate such models in the 19th century, research in the area continues till today. Modeling an object as a continuum assumes that the substance of the object completely fills the space it occupies, Continuum mechanics deals with physical properties of solids and fluids which are independent of any particular coordinate system in which they are observed. These physical properties are represented by tensors, which are mathematical objects that have the required property of being independent of coordinate system. These tensors can be expressed in coordinate systems for computational convenience, Materials, such as solids, liquids and gases, are composed of molecules separated by space. On a microscopic scale, materials have cracks and discontinuities, a continuum is a body that can be continually sub-divided into infinitesimal elements with properties being those of the bulk material. More specifically, the continuum hypothesis/assumption hinges on the concepts of an elementary volume. This condition provides a link between an experimentalists and a viewpoint on constitutive equations as well as a way of spatial and statistical averaging of the microstructure. The latter then provide a basis for stochastic finite elements. The levels of SVE and RVE link continuum mechanics to statistical mechanics, the RVE may be assessed only in a limited way via experimental testing, when the constitutive response becomes spatially homogeneous. Specifically for fluids, the Knudsen number is used to assess to what extent the approximation of continuity can be made, consider car traffic on a highway---with just one lane for simplicity. Somewhat surprisingly, and in a tribute to its effectiveness, continuum mechanics effectively models the movement of cars via a differential equation for the density of cars. The familiarity of this situation empowers us to understand a little of the continuum-discrete dichotomy underlying continuum modelling in general. To start modelling define that, x measure distance along the highway, t is time, ρ is the density of cars on the highway, cars do not appear and disappear. Consider any group of cars, from the car at the back of the group located at x = a to the particular car at the front located at x = b. The total number of cars in this group N = ∫ a b ρ d x, since cars are conserved d N / d t =0. The only way an integral can be zero for all intervals is if the integrand is zero for all x, consequently, conservation derives the first order nonlinear conservation PDE ∂ ρ ∂ t + ∂ ∂ x =0 for all positions on the highway. This conservation PDE applies not only to car traffic but also to fluids, solids, crowds, animals, plants, bushfires, financial traders and this PDE is one equation with two unknowns, so another equation is needed to form a well posed problem
