Scope and Excitement of Physics

In this lesson lets try to learn more on what is all about Physics and its scope and excitement of Physics.

What is Physics?
The word Physics comes from a Greek word meaning nature. Its Sanskrit equivalent is Bhautiki that is used to refer to the study of the physical world. A precise definition of this discipline is neither possible nor necessary. We can broadly describe physics as a study of the basic laws of nature and their manifestation in different natural phenomena.

The scope of physics is described briefly in the next section. Here we remark on two principal thrusts in physics : unification and reduction.

Scope and Excitement of Physics.
We can get some idea of the scope of physics by looking at its various sub-disciplines. Basically,
there are two domains of interest : macroscopic and microscopic. The macroscopic domain
includes phenomena at the laboratory, terrestrial and astronomical scales. The microscopic domain includes atomic, molecular and nuclear phenomena*.
Physics is exciting in many ways. To some people the excitement comes from the elegance and
universality of its basic theories, from the fact that a few basic concepts and laws can explain
phenomena covering a large range of magnitude of physical quantities.

In the following lessons lets try to learn Physics in relation to Science, Society and technology.