What is Physics?

• The Greek term “Fusis”, which means nature, is where the word ‘physics comes from.
• Bhautiki, its Sanskrit equivalent, is a term for the study of the physical universe.
• Aristotle coined the term ‘Physics’ in the year 350 BC.
• Physics deals with the study of nature and natural phenomena. We expect that all these different events in nature take place according to some basic laws, and revealing these laws of nature from the observed events is physics.
• Physics is concerned with the fundamental rules that regulate all dimensions of life. As a result, physics is regarded as the most fundamental of all sciences.

1) Unification:

• Unification is the process of attempting to describe various physical phenomena using just a few ideas and laws.
• Only one law explains so many phenomena. It becomes convenient for us to study only one law and understand too many phenomena.
• For example, Newton’s universal law of gravitation explains the motion of freely falling bodies toward the Earth, the motion of planets around the Sun, and the motion of the Moon around the Earth, thus unifying the fundamental forces of nature.

2) Reductionism:

• Reductionism is an effort to describe a macroscopic entity in terms of its microscopic components.
• In this, we derive properties of a bigger, more complex system from the properties and interaction of its constituent simpler parts
• For instance, thermodynamics was created to describe the macroscopic characteristics of bulk systems, such as temperature, entropy, etc. Kinetic theory and statistical mechanics have interpreted the previously stated characteristics in terms of the molecular components (microscopic) of the bulk system.