History Of Physics | The Evolution of Physics

History Of Physics

History of Physics is the story of the way in which humanity has come to understand the fundamental principles governing the natural world. This covers thousands of years, from ancient civilizations to modern science.

The following are such explanations:

The Scientific Revolution (16th–17th Century):

Galileo Galilei:

He revolutionized the study of motion and mechanics through experiments including falling objects and inclined planes. He also improved the telescope as well as supported the Copernican System.

 

Johannes Kepler:

Published the Laws of Planetary Motion, suggesting that it is by an elliptical orbit that the planets move..

Isacc Newton:

Combined the efforts of predecessors in formulating the laws of motion and universal gravitation. His book, the Principia Mathematica (1687), laid foundations for classical mechanics.

The Classical Era of Physics (18th–19th Century):

This period made the proper formulation of many concepts and the emergence of new disciplines in physics.

Electricity and Magnetism:

Benjamin Franklin, Michael Faraday, and James Clerk Maxwell had developed many fundamental research on these forces. Maxwell's equations have unified electricity, magnetism, and light into an area called electromagnetism.

Thermodynamics:

The science of heat and energy. Sadi Carnot, James Prescott Joule, and Rudolf Clausius, among others, formulated the laws of thermodynamics that describe how energy transfers and transforms.

Wave Theory Of Light:

Thomas Young and Augustin-Jean Fresnel demonstrated that light consists of a wave, overthrowing the older ideas which supposed it to behave as a particle.

Demerit Of the Classical Physics:

Classical Physics, despite its revolutionary contributions, presents several demerits, which surfaced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These drawbacks attracted attention to an essential point that it could not explain some phenomena and how precisely modern physics quantum mechanics and relativity came into existence.

Problems at Atomic level: Unable to explain atomic structure and behavior.

Wave-particle duality: Unable to reconcile particles to act as waves and vice versa.

Photoelectric effect: Could not account for the fact that the energy of light depended on the frequency.

Constancy of speed of light: Inconsistent with observations of the behavior of light.

Relativity: Newtonian mechanics broke down at very high velocities and in very strong gravitational fields.

Quantum Uncertainties: Could not explain the fundamental uncertainties at the smallest scales.    

 The Age of New Physics (Late 19th–20th Century):

During this time, there was a discovery of several phenomena that classical physics failed to explain. This resulted in the evolution of quantum mechanics and relativity.

Max Planck:

He produced the concept of quantized energy levels, birth of quantum theory, in 1900.

 

Albert Einstein:

Revolution in Physics with the theory of special relativity in 1905 and the general theory of relativity in 1915. Also, elucidated the photoelectric effect, proving that light has quantum nature. 

 

Niels Bohr:

Proposed the Bohr model of an atom based on quantum mechanics to represent atomic structure. 

Quantum Mechanics:

Quantum Theory was initiated in the 1920s by scientists including Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, and Paul Dirac, discussing the way particles at atomic and subatomic levels behave.