WHAT IS PHYSICS?
Physics is the study of the fundamentals of everything in the universe. If you look around you and start asking questions like why does that happen or how does that work, and if you probe into the question to get at the root causes, you will be in physics.
You will learn of laws and theories and it is tempting to say that a law is
something that has proved to be true and a theory is speculative. This makes a
lot of sense, but in physics-speak, the way the terms are actually used by physicists,
a law is an old theory, and when it is known to be only an approximation, it is
still called a law (i.e., gas laws,
But the truth is, we are absolutely certain of nothing in the real world. When I look around me, I am sure that the things I see really exist, and my probability of being right may be 99.99999…%, but not exactly 100%. There is talk of a "final" theory, a theory of everything. (Right now, we have sort of a patchwork. Quantum mechanics and gravitation are disconnected, for example.) It may happen that we achieve a single theory for all of physics, but we can never be 100% certain that it is exactly correct. It could happen that a final theory will be developed, but we won't know for certain that it is final. And please understand that when people talk about a final theory, they are not saying that we will know everything. It would in fact be a new beginning in the search for knowledge.
When you start learning physics, you probably will begin with motion. Velocity, acceleration, force, mass, energy, momentum- these are some of the concepts that are typically found in a beginning physics course. The principles developed apply to the motion of anything- planets, electrons, athletes, owls, glaciers....
Physics is really the study of everything in the universe. If someone found valid evidence to support one of those loony ideas like clairvoyance, mental telepathy, pyramid power, crystal power, astrology, auras, ghosts, etc. etc. etc., it would be studied by the physics community. When I say valid evidence, I mean it has to be convincing to the skeptic.
There is no one single scientific method that fits all, in spite of what you might read in science books. A scientific method is any method of collecting evidence that is convincing to the skeptic. Normally this means it must be repeatable. (There might be a few one-time-only events to study, like the comet hitting Jupiter not long ago, but if they can be repeated, we repeat them-- sometimes a flaw in the experiment is discovered this way). A valid experiment should be free of possible fraud. If a mind seems to bend spoons, for example, it is fair to ask whether it is possible that the viewers are being duped.
Magicians are full of tricks to make the impossible seem to happen, and there is tacit understanding that the magic act is just that-- an act. But when an astrologer or a psychic does his or her thing, loads of people believe it is the real thing. I guess they are not aware of the fact that these things do not hold up under thorough scrutiny.
Wait a minute, everything? How about poetry? Well, if we ever really understand the brain, we will find that there is a lot of physics involved in reading or creating a poem. Poets, ball players, musicians, garbage collectors... are all applying principles of physics, usually inadvertently.
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mechanics
fluids, heat, electricity and magnetism
vibrations and waves
quantum
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