Physics

Physics (from the Greek, φύσις (phúsis), "nature" and φυσική (phusiké), "knowledge of
nature") is the science concerned with the discovery and understanding of the
fundamental laws which govern matter, energy, space and time. That is, physics deals
with the elementary constituents of the Universe and their interactions, as well as the
analysis of systems which are best understood in terms of these fundamental principles.
Physics is a study of the inorganic, physical world, as opposed to the organic world of
biology, physiology, etc. [1] Chemistry concerning the electro-chemical interactions of
substances overlaps with physics.

Contents
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• 1 Introduction
• 2 Connected Studies
• 3 Branches of physics
o 3.1 Central theories
o 3.2 Major fields of physics
• 4 Classical, quantum and modern physics
• 5 Theoretical and experimental physics
o 5.1 Discredited theories
o 5.2 Phenomenology
• 6 Applied physics
• 7 History
• 8 Future directions
• 9 See also
• 10 Notes
• 11 Further reading
o 11.1 Popular reading
o 11.2 University-level textbooks
 11.2.1 Survey texts
 11.2.2 Undergraduate texts on specific topics
 11.2.3 Graduate texts
 11.2.4 Historical
• 12 External links
o 12.1 General

Introduction
Physics attempts to describe the natural world by the application of the scientific method,
including modelling by theoreticians. Formerly, physics included the study of natural
philosophy, its counterpart which had been called "physics" (earlier physike) from
classical times up to the separation of physics from philosophy as a positive science in
the 19th century, as the study of the changing world by philosophy. Mixed questions, of
which solutions can be attempted through the applications of both disciplines (e.g. the
divisibility of the atom) can involve natural philosophy in physics (the science) and vice
versa .

Connected Studies
Many other sciences and fields of thought are related to physics.

Discoveries in physics find connections throughout the other natural sciences as they
regard the basic constituents of the Universe. Some of the phenomena studied in physics,
such as the phenomenon of conservation of energy, are common to all material systems.
These are often referred to as laws of physics. Other phenomena, such as
superconductivity, stem from these laws, but are not laws themselves because they only
appear in some systems. Physics is often said to be the "fundamental science", because
each of the other sciences (biology, chemistry, geology, physiology, archaeology,
anthropology, etc.) deals with particular types of material systems that obey the laws of
physics. For example, chemistry is the science of matter (such as atoms and molecules)
and the chemical substances that they form in the bulk. The structure, reactivity, and
properties of a chemical compound are determined by the properties of the underlying
molecules, which can be described by areas of physics such as quantum mechanics
(called in this case quantum chemistry), thermodynamics, and electromagnetism. (Refer to
Branches of physics)

Physics relies on mathematics, which provides the logical framework in which physical
laws can be precisely formulated and their predictions quantified. Physical definitions,
models and theories are invariably expressed using mathematical relations. There is a
large area of research intermediate between physics and mathematics, known as
mathematical physics.

Physics is also closely related to engineering and technology. For instance, electrical
engineering is the study of the practical application of electromagnetism. Statics, a
subfield of mechanics, is responsible for the building of bridges. Further, physicists, or
practitioners of physics, invent and design processes and devices, such as the transistor,
whether in basic or applied research. Experimental physicists design and perform
experiments with particle accelerators, nuclear reactors, telescopes, barometers,
synchrotrons, cyclotrons, spectrometers, lasers, and other equipment.

Beyond the known Universe, the field of theoretical physics also deals with hypothetical
issues, such as parallel universes, a multiverse, or whether the universe could have
expanded as predominantly antimatter rather than matter.

Branches of physics
Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena, from quarks to black holes, from
individual atoms to the many-body systems of superconductors.

Central theories

While physics deals with a wide variety of systems, there are certain theories that are
used by all physicists. Each of these theories were experimentally tested numerous times
and found correct as an approximation of nature (within a certain domain of validity). For
instance, the theory of classical mechanics accurately describes the motion of objects,
provided they are much larger than atoms and moving at much less than the speed of
light. These theories continue to be areas of active research; for instance, a remarkable
aspect of classical mechanics known as chaos was discovered in the 20th century, three
centuries after the original formulation of classical mechanics by Isaac Newton (1642–
1727). These "central theories" are important tools for research into more specialized
topics, and any physicist, regardless of his or her specialization, is expected to be literate
in them.

• Classical mechanics is a model of the physics of forces acting upon bodies. It is

often referred to as "Newtonian mechanics" after Newton and his laws of motion.
Classical mechanics is subdivided into statics (which models objects at rest),
kinematics (which models objects in motion), and dynamics (which models
objects subjected to forces). See also mechanics.

• Electromagnetism, or electromagnetic theory, is the physics of the

electromagnetic field: a field, encompassing all of space, which exerts a force on
those particles that possess the property of electric charge, and is in turn affected
by the presence and motion of such particles. Electromagnetism encompasses
various real-world electromagnetic phenomena.

• Thermodynamics is the branch of physics that deals with the action of heat and
the conversions from one to another of various forms of energy. Thermodynamics
is particularly concerned with how these affect temperature, pressure, volume,
mechanical action, and work. Historically, it grew out of efforts to construct more
efficient heat engines — devices for extracting useful work from expanding hot
gases.

• Statistical mechanics, a related theory, is the branch of physics that analyzes

macroscopic systems by applying statistical principles to their microscopic
constituents and, thus, can be used to calculate the thermodynamic properties of
bulk materials from the spectroscopic data of individual molecules.

• Quantum mechanics is the branch of mathematical physics treating atomic and

subatomic systems and their interaction with radiation in terms of observable
quantities. It is based on the observation that all forms of energy are released in
discrete units or bundles called quanta. Quantum theory typically permits only
 probable or statistical calculation of the observed features of subatomic particles,
understood in terms of wave functions.

• The theory of relativity, or relativity theory, is:

•
o A physical theory which is based on two postulates (1) that the speed of
light in a vacuum is constant and independent of the source or observer
and (2) that it is impossible to determine ones absolute velocity in any
inertial systems and which leads to the deduction of the equivalence of
mass and energy and of change in mass, dimension, and time with
increased velocity — called also special relativity, special theory of
relativity;
o An extension of the theory to include gravitation and related acceleration
phenomena — called also general relativity, general theory of relativity.

Theory Major subtopics Concepts

Newton's laws of motion,

Lagrangian mechanics,
Hamiltonian mechanics,
Classical Kinematics, Statics,
mechanics Dynamics, Chaos theory,
Acoustics, Fluid
dynamics, Continuum
mechanics
Density, Dimension, Gravity, Space, Time,
Motion, Length, Position, Velocity,
Acceleration, Mass, Momentum, Force,
Energy, Angular momentum, Torque,
Conservation law, Harmonic oscillator,
Wave, Work, Power

Capacitance, Electric charge, Current,

Electrical conductivity, Electric field,
Electrostatics, Electric permittivity, Electric potential,
Electrodynamics, Electrical resistance, Electromagnetic
Electromagnetism Electricity, Magnetism, field, Electromagnetic induction,
Maxwell's equations, Electromagnetic radiation, Gaussian
Optics surface, Magnetic field, Magnetic flux,
Magnetic monopole, Magnetic
permeability

Thermodynamics Heat engine, Kinetic Boltzmann's constant, Conjugate variables,

and Statistical theory Enthalpy, Entropy, Equation of state,
mechanics Equipartition theorem, Free energy, Heat,
Ideal gas law, Internal energy, Laws of
thermodynamics, Irreversible process,
 Ising model, Mechanical action, Partition
function, Pressure, Reversible process,
Spontaneous process, State function,
Statistical ensemble, Temperature,
Thermodynamic equilibrium,
Thermodynamic potential,
Thermodynamic processes,
Thermodynamic state, Thermodynamic
system, Viscosity, Volume, Work

Adiabatic approximation, Blackbody

radiation, Correspondence principle, Free
particle, Hamiltonian, Hilbert space,
Identical particles, Matrix Mechanics,
Path integral formulation,
Planck's constant, Observer effect,
Scattering theory,
Operators, Quanta, Quantization, Quantum
Quantum Schrödinger equation,
entanglement, Quantum harmonic
mechanics Quantum field theory,
oscillator, Quantum number, Quantum
Quantum statistical
tunneling, Schrödinger's cat, Dirac
mechanics
equation, Spin, Wavefunction, Wave
mechanics, Wave-particle duality, Zero-
point energy, Pauli Exclusion Principle,
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

Covariance, Einstein manifold,

Equivalence principle, Four-momentum,
Four-vector, General principle of
relativity, Geodesic motion, Gravity,
Gravitoelectromagnetism, Inertial frame of
reference, Invariance, Length contraction,
Lorentzian manifold, Lorentz
Special relativity, General
transformation, Mass-energy equivalence,
Theory of relativity relativity, Einstein field
Metric, Minkowski diagram, Minkowski
equations
space, Principle of Relativity, Proper
length, Proper time, Reference frame, Rest
energy, Rest mass, Relativity of
simultaneity, Spacetime, Special principle
of relativity, Speed of light, Stress-energy
tensor, Time dilation, Twin paradox, World
line

Major fields of physics

Contemporary research in physics is divided into several distinct fields that study
different aspects of the material world.

• Condensed matter physics, by most estimates the largest single field of physics, is
concerned with how the properties of bulk matter, such as the ordinary solids and
liquids we encounter in everyday life, arise from the properties and mutual
interactions of the constituent atoms. A magnet levitating above a high-
temperature superconductor (with boiling liquid nitrogen underneath),
demonstrating the Meissner effect, is a phenomenon of importance to the field of
condensed matter physics.

• The field of atomic, molecular, and optical physics deals with the behavior of
individual atoms and molecules, and in particular the ways in which they absorb
and emit light.

• The field of particle physics, also known as "high-energy physics", is concerned

with the properties of submicroscopic particles much smaller than atoms,
including the elementary particles from which all other units of matter are
constructed.

• Finally, the field of astrophysics applies the laws of physics to explain celestial
phenomena, ranging from the Sun and the other objects in the solar system to the
Universe as a whole.

Since the 20th century, the individual fields of physics have become increasingly
specialized, and nowadays it is not uncommon for physicists to work in a single field for
their entire careers. "Universalists" like Albert Einstein (1879–1955) and Lev Landau
(1908–1968), who were comfortable working in multiple fields of physics, are now very
rare.

Many fields and subfields of physics are listed in the table below.

Field Subfields Major theories Concepts

Astrophysics Cosmology, Big Bang, Lambda-CDM Black hole, Cosmic

Gravitation physics, model, Cosmic inflation, background radiation,
High-energy General relativity, Law of Cosmic string, Cosmos,
astrophysics, universal gravitation Dark energy, Dark
Planetary matter, Galaxy, Gravity,
astrophysics, Plasma Gravitational radiation,
physics, Space Gravitational singularity,
physics, Stellar Planet, Solar system,
astrophysics Star, Supernova,
 Universe

Atomic physics,
Atom, Molecule,
Molecular physics,
Atomic, Diffraction,
Atomic and Quantum optics, Quantum
molecular, Electromagnetic
Molecular chemistry, Quantum
and optical radiation, Laser,
astrophysics, information science
physics Polarization, Spectral
Chemical physics,
line, Casimir effect
Optics, Photonics

Standard Model, Quantum Fundamental force (

field theory, Quantum
chromodynamics,
Nuclear physics, Electroweak theory,
Nuclear astrophysics, Effective field theory,
Particle
Particle astrophysics, Lattice field theory, Lattice
physics
Particle physics gauge theory, Gauge
phenomenology theory, Supersymmetry,
Grand unification theory,
Superstring theory, M-
theory
gravitational,
electromagnetic, weak,
strong), Elementary
particle, Spin,
Antimatter, Spontaneous
symmetry breaking,
Brane, String, Quantum
gravity, Theory of
everything, Vacuum
energy

Phases (gas, liquid, solid,

Solid state physics, Bose-Einstein
High pressure condensate,
Condensed physics, Low- BCS theory, Bloch wave, superconductor,
matter temperature physics, Fermi gas, Fermi liquid, superfluid), Electrical
physics Nanoscale and Many-body theory conduction, Magnetism,
Mesoscopic physics, Self-organization, Spin,
Polymer physics Spontaneous symmetry
breaking

Classical, quantum and modern physics

Further information: Classical physics, Quantum physics, Modern physics,
Semiclassical

Since the construction of quantum mechanics in the early twentieth century, it generally
became evident to the physical community that it would be preferable for many known
descriptions of nature to be quantized, that is, to follow the postulates of quantum
mechanics. To this effect, all results that were not quantized are called classical: this
includes the Special Theory and General Theory of Relativity. Simply because a result is
classical does not mean that it was discovered before the advent of quantum mechanics.
Classical theories are, generally, much easier to work with and much research is still
being conducted on them without the express aim of quantization. However, there exist
problems in physics in which classical and quantum aspects must be combined to attain
some approximation or limit that may acquire several forms as the passage from classical
to quantum mechanics is often difficult — such problems are termed semiclassical.

However, because relativity and quantum mechanics provide the most complete known
description of fundamental interactions, and because the changes brought by these two
frameworks to the physicist's world view were revolutionary, the term modern physics is
used to describe physics which relies on these two theories. Colloquially, modern physics
can be described as the physics of extremes: from systems at the extremely small (atoms,
nuclei, fundamental particles) to the extremely large (the Universe) and of the extremely
fast (relativity).

Theoretical and experimental physics

The culture of physics research differs from the other sciences in the separation of theory
and experiment. Since the 20th century, most individual physicists have specialized in
either theoretical physics or experimental physics. The great Italian physicist Enrico
Fermi (1901–1954), who made fundamental contributions to both theory and
experimentation in nuclear physics, was a notable exception. In contrast, almost all the
successful theorists in biology and chemistry (e.g. American quantum chemist and
biochemist Linus Pauling) have also been experimentalists, though this is changing as of
late.

Roughly speaking, theorists seek to develop through abstractions and mathematical

models theories that can both describe and interpret existing experimental results and
successfully predict future results, while experimentalists devise and perform
experiments to explore new phenomena and test theoretical predictions. Although theory
and experiment are developed separately, they are strongly dependent on each other.
However, theoretical research in physics may further be considered to draw from
mathematical physics and computational physics in addition to experimentation. Progress
in physics frequently comes about when experimentalists make a discovery that existing
theories cannot account for, necessitating the formulation of new theories. Likewise,
ideas arising from theory often inspire new experiments. In the absence of experiment,
theoretical research can go in the wrong direction; this is one of the criticisms that has
been leveled against M-theory, a popular theory in high-energy physics for which no
practical experimental test has ever been devised.

Discredited theories

Scientific theories sometimes end up being discredited or superseded. In some of these

cases the theory was announced prematurely and gained press attention before being
discredited. Other times an established theory is overthrown and a new one erected in its
place. Some famous examples are:

• Dynamic theory of gravity — Announced in a press release by Nikola Tesla in

1937 but never published.
• Steady state theory — An established theory of cosmology in the early and middle
20th century, made obsolete by the success of Big Bang theory.
• Luminiferous aether — An established theory in the late 19th century, which was
contradicted by observations and made "superfluous" by relativity.
• Cold fusion — Announced in a press conference in 1989 but never confirmed.
Still controversial.
• Phlogiston theory — An established theory of the 18th century that attributed
combustion to the liberation of phlogiston from a material.

Phenomenology

Phenomenology is intermediate between experiment and theory. It is more abstract and

includes more logical steps than experiment, but is more directly tied to experiment than
theory. The boundaries between theory and phenomenology, and between
phenomenology and experiment, are somewhat fuzzy and to some extent depend on the
understanding and intuition of the scientist describing these. An example is Einstein's
1905 paper on the photoelectric effect, "On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the
Production and Transformation of Light".

Applied physics
Applied physics is physics that is intended for a particular technological or practical use,
as for example in engineering, as opposed to basic research. This approach is similar to
that of applied mathematics. Applied physics is rooted in the fundamental truths and basic
concepts of the physical sciences but is concerned with the utilization of scientific
principles in practical devices and systems, and in the application of physics in other
areas of science. "Applied" is distinguished from "pure" by a subtle combination of
factors such as the motivation and attitude of researchers and the nature of the
relationship to the technology or science that may be affected by the work. [1]

Branches of Applied Physics

Accelerator physics, Acoustics, Agrophysics, Biophysics, Chemical Physics,

Communication Physics, Econophysics, Engineering physics, Fluid dynamics,
Geophysics, Materials physics, Medical physics, Nanotechnology, Optics,
Optoelectronics, Photovoltaics, Physical chemistry, Physics of computation, Plasma
physics, Solid-state devices, Quantum chemistry, Quantum electronics, Quantum
information science, Vehicle dynamics

History
Main article: History of physics
Further information: Famous physicists, Nobel Prize in physics

Since antiquity, people have tried to understand the behavior of matter: why unsupported
objects drop to the ground, why different materials have different properties, and so forth.
The character of the Universe was also a mystery, for instance the Earth and the behavior
of celestial objects such as the Sun and the Moon. Several theories were proposed, most
of which were wrong. These first theories were largely couched in philosophical terms,
and never verified by systematic experimental testing as is popular today. The works of
Ptolemy and Aristotle, however, were also not always found to match everyday
observations. There were exceptions and there are anachronisms - for example, Indian
philosophers and astronomers gave many correct descriptions in atomism and astronomy,
and the Greek thinker Archimedes derived many correct quantitative descriptions of
mechanics and hydrostatics.

The willingness to question previously held truths and search for new answers eventually
resulted in a period of major scientific advancements, now known as the Scientific
Revolution of the late 17th century. The precursors to the scientific revolution can be
traced back to the important developments made in India and Persia, including the
elliptical model of the planets based on the heliocentric solar system of gravitation
developed by Indian mathematician-astronomer Aryabhata; the basic ideas of atomic
theory developed by Hindu and Jaina philosophers; the theory of light being equivalent to
energy particles developed by the Indian Buddhist scholars Dignāga and Dharmakirti; the
optical theory of light developed by Muslim scientist Ibn al-Haitham (Alhazen); the
Astrolabe invented by the Persian astronomer Muhammad al-Fazari; and the significant
flaws in the Ptolemaic system pointed out by Persian scientist Nasir al-Din Tusi.

As the influence of the Arab Empire expanded to Europe, the works of Aristotle
preserved by the Arabs, and the works of the Indians and Persians, became known in
Europe by the 12th and 13th centuries. This eventually led to the scientific revolution
which culminated with the publication of the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia
Mathematica in 1687 by the mathematician, physicist, alchemist and inventor Sir Isaac
Newton (1643-1727).

The Scientific Revolution is held by most historians (e.g., Howard Margolis) to have
begun in 1543, when the first printed copy of Nicolaus Copernicus's De Revolutionibus
(most of which had been written years prior but whose publication had been delayed) was
brought to the influential Polish astronomer from Nuremberg.
Further significant advances were made over the following century by Galileo Galilei,
Christiaan Huygens, Johannes Kepler, and Blaise Pascal. During the early 17th century,
Galileo pioneered the use of experimentation to validate physical theories, which is the
key idea in modern scientific method. Galileo formulated and successfully tested several
results in dynamics, in particular the Law of Inertia. In 1687, Newton published the
Principia, detailing two comprehensive and successful physical theories: Newton's laws
of motion, from which arise classical mechanics; and Newton's Law of Gravitation,
which describes the fundamental force of gravity. Both theories agreed well with
experiment. The Principia also included several theories in fluid dynamics. Classical
mechanics was re-formulated and extended by Leonhard Euler, French mathematician
Joseph-Louis Comte de Lagrange, Irish mathematical physicist William Rowan
Hamilton, and others, who produced new results in mathematical physics. The law of
universal gravitation initiated the field of astrophysics, which describes astronomical
phenomena using physical theories.

After Newton defined classical mechanics, the next great field of inquiry within physics
was the nature of electricity. Observations in the 17th and 18th century by scientists such
as Robert Boyle, Stephen Gray, and Benjamin Franklin created a foundation for later
work. These observations also established our basic understanding of electrical charge
and current.

In 1821, the English physicist and chemist Michael Faraday integrated the study of
magnetism with the study of electricity. This was done by demonstrating that a moving
magnet induced an electric current in a conductor. Faraday also formulated a physical
conception of electromagnetic fields. James Clerk Maxwell built upon this conception, in
1864, with an interlinked set of 20 equations that explained the interactions between
electric and magnetic fields. These 20 equations were later reduced, using vector
calculus, to a set of four equations by Oliver Heaviside.

In addition to other electromagnetic phenomena, Maxwell's equations also can be used to

describe light. Confirmation of this observation was made with the 1888 discovery of
radio by Heinrich Hertz and in 1895 when Wilhelm Roentgen detected X rays. The
ability to describe light in electromagnetic terms helped serve as a springboard for Albert
Einstein's publication of the theory of special relativity in 1905. This theory combined
classical mechanics with Maxwell's equations. The theory of special relativity unifies
space and time into a single entity, spacetime. Relativity prescribes a different
transformation between reference frames than classical mechanics; this necessitated the
development of relativistic mechanics as a replacement for classical mechanics. In the
regime of low (relative) velocities, the two theories agree. Einstein built further on the
special theory by including gravity into his calculations, and published his theory of
general relativity in 1915.

One part of the theory of general relativity is Einstein's field equation. This describes how
the stress-energy tensor creates curvature of spacetime and forms the basis of general
relativity. Further work on Einstein's field equation produced results which predicted the
Big Bang, black holes, and the expanding universe. Einstein believed in a static universe
and tried (and failed) to fix his equation to allow for this. However, by 1929 Edwin
Hubble's astronomical observations suggested that the universe is expanding.

From the late 17th century onwards, thermodynamics was developed by physicist and
chemist Boyle, Young, and many others. In 1733, Bernoulli used statistical arguments
with classical mechanics to derive thermodynamic results, initiating the field of statistical
mechanics. In 1798, Thompson demonstrated the conversion of mechanical work into
heat, and in 1847 Joule stated the law of conservation of energy, in the form of heat as
well as mechanical energy. Ludwig Boltzmann, in the 19th century, is responsible for the
modern form of statistical mechanics.

In 1895, Röntgen discovered X-rays, which turned out to be high-frequency

electromagnetic radiation. Radioactivity was discovered in 1896 by Henri Becquerel, and
further studied by Marie Curie, Pierre Curie, and others. This initiated the field of nuclear
physics.

In 1897, Joseph J. Thomson discovered the electron, the elementary particle which carries
electrical current in circuits. In 1904, he proposed the first model of the atom, known as
the plum pudding model. (The existence of the atom had been proposed in 1808 by John
Dalton.)

These discoveries revealed that the assumption of many physicists that atoms were the
basic unit of matter was flawed, and prompted further study into the structure of atoms.

In 1911, Ernest Rutherford deduced from scattering experiments the existence of a

compact atomic nucleus, with positively charged constituents dubbed protons. Neutrons,
the neutral nuclear constituents, were discovered in 1932 by Chadwick. The equivalence
of mass and energy (Einstein, 1905) was spectacularly demonstrated during World War
II, as research was conducted by each side into nuclear physics, for the purpose of
creating a nuclear bomb. The German effort, led by Heisenberg, did not succeed, but the
Allied Manhattan Project reached its goal. In America, a team led by Fermi achieved the
first man-made nuclear chain reaction in 1942, and in 1945 the world's first nuclear
explosive was detonated at Trinity site, near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

In 1900, Max Planck published his explanation of blackbody radiation. This equation
assumed that radiators are quantized, which proved to be the opening argument in the
edifice that would become quantum mechanics. By introducing discrete energy levels,
Planck, Einstein, Niels Bohr, and others developed quantum theories to explain various
anomalous experimental results. Quantum mechanics was formulated in 1925 by
Heisenberg and in 1926 by Schrödinger and Paul Dirac, in two different ways that both
explained the preceding heuristic quantum theories. In quantum mechanics, the outcomes
of physical measurements are inherently probabilistic; the theory describes the
calculation of these probabilities. It successfully describes the behavior of matter at small
distance scales. During the 1920s Schrödinger, Heisenberg, and Max Born were able to
formulate a consistent picture of the chemical behavior of matter, a complete theory of
the electronic structure of the atom, as a byproduct of the quantum theory.
Quantum field theory was formulated in order to extend quantum mechanics to be
consistent with special relativity. It was devised in the late 1940s with work by Richard
Feynman, Julian Schwinger, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, and Freeman Dyson. They formulated
the theory of quantum electrodynamics, which describes the electromagnetic interaction,
and successfully explained the Lamb shift. Quantum field theory provided the framework
for modern particle physics, which studies fundamental forces and elementary particles.

Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee, in the 1950s, discovered an unexpected asymmetry
in the decay of a subatomic particle. In 1954, Yang and Robert Mills then developed a
class of gauge theories which provided the framework for understanding the nuclear
forces (Yang, Mills 1954). The theory for the strong nuclear force was first proposed by
Murray Gell-Mann. The electroweak force, the unification of the weak nuclear force with
electromagnetism, was proposed by Sheldon Lee Glashow, Abdus Salam and Steven
Weinberg and confirmed in 1964 by James Watson Cronin and Val Fitch. This led to the
so-called Standard Model of particle physics in the 1970s, which successfully describes
all the elementary particles observed to date.

Quantum mechanics also provided the theoretical tools for condensed matter physics,
whose largest branch is solid state physics. It studies the physical behavior of solids and
liquids, including phenomena such as crystal structures, semiconductivity, and
superconductivity. The pioneers of condensed matter physics include Felix Bloch, who
created a quantum mechanical description of the behavior of electrons in crystal
structures in 1928. The transistor was developed by physicists John Bardeen, Walter
Houser Brattain and William Bradford Shockley in 1947 at Bell Telephone Laboratories.

The two themes of the 20th century, general relativity and quantum mechanics, appear
inconsistent with each other. General relativity describes the universe on the scale of
planets and solar systems while quantum mechanics operates on sub-atomic scales. This
challenge is being attacked by string theory, which treats spacetime as composed, not of
points, but of one-dimensional objects, strings. Strings have properties like a common
string (e.g., tension and vibration). The theories yield promising, but not yet testable
results. The search for experimental verification of string theory is in progress.

The United Nations declared the year 2005, the centenary of Einstein's annus mirabilis, as
the World Year of Physics.

Future directions
Main article: Unsolved problems in physics

Research in physics is progressing constantly on a large number of fronts, and is likely to

do so for the foreseeable future.

In condensed matter physics, the biggest unsolved theoretical problem is the explanation
for high-temperature superconductivity. Strong efforts, largely experimental, are being
put into making workable spintronics and quantum computers.
In particle physics, the first pieces of experimental evidence for physics beyond the
Standard Model have begun to appear. Foremost amongst these are indications that
neutrinos have non-zero mass. These experimental results appear to have solved the long-
standing solar neutrino problem in solar physics. The physics of massive neutrinos is
currently an area of active theoretical and experimental research. In the next several
years, particle accelerators will begin probing energy scales in the TeV range, in which
experimentalists are hoping to find evidence for the Higgs boson and supersymmetric
particles.

Thousands of particles explode from the collision point of two relativistic (100 GeV per
nucleon) gold ions in the STAR detector of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider; an
experiment done in order to investigate the properties of a quark gluon plasma such as the
one thought to exist in the ultrahot first few microseconds after the big bang.

Theoretical attempts to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity into a single
theory of quantum gravity, a program ongoing for over half a century, have not yet borne
fruit. The current leading candidates are M-theory, superstring theory and loop quantum
gravity.

Many astronomical and cosmological phenomena have yet to be satisfactorily explained,

including the existence of ultra-high energy cosmic rays, the baryon asymmetry, the
acceleration of the universe and the anomalous rotation rates of galaxies.

Although much progress has been made in high-energy, quantum, and astronomical
physics, many everyday phenomena, involving complexity, chaos, or turbulence are still
poorly understood. Complex problems that seem like they could be solved by a clever
application of dynamics and mechanics, such as the formation of sandpiles, nodes in
trickling water, the shape of water droplets, mechanisms of surface tension catastrophes,
or self-sorting in shaken heterogeneous collections are unsolved. These complex
phenomena have received growing attention since the 1970s for several reasons, not least
of which has been the availability of modern mathematical methods and computers which
enabled complex systems to be modeled in new ways. The interdisciplinary relevance of
complex physics has also increased, as exemplified by the study of turbulence in
aerodynamics or the observation of pattern formation in biological systems. In 1932,
Horace Lamb correctly prophesied the success of the theory of quantum electrodynamics
and the near-stagnant progress in the study of turbulence:

I am an old man now, and when I die and go to heaven there are two matters on which I hope for
enlightenment. One is quantum electrodynamics, and the other is the turbulent motion of fluids.
And about the former I am rather optimistic.