What is Physics?

Physics seeks to discover the fundamental regularities or “laws” that govern our universe and to apply these laws to explain the behavior of complex and interesting systems. The same underlying principles describe the behavior of atoms, lasers, living cells, and galaxies. Physics is, therefore, at the base of all modern science and technology, and even at an elementary level this fundamental nature can be appreciated.

"The aim is to see complete nature as different aspects of one set of phenomena."

- Richard Feynman

"Science without epistemology is --- in so far as it is thinkable at all --- primitive and muddled."

--- Albert Einstein

What is the "Scientific Method"?

Science employs a logical and empirical methodology to understand the natural world. Scientific research entails observation of natural phenomena, formulation of hypotheses as tentative, testable statements to explain these phenomena, and experiments or observations to test these hypotheses. Scientific theories, like evolution and relativity and plate tectonics, are hypotheses that have survived extensive testing and repeated verification. Scientific theories are therefore the best-substantiated statements that scientists can make to explain the organization and operation of the natural world. Thus, a scientific theory is not equal to a belief, a hunch, or an untested hypothesis.

- Position Statement, American Geophysical Union

"Although I have been reading science prose all my life, I found that I had a somewhat constricted theory of scientific thinking. For example, I had thought that scientific observation without some prior notion to be tested was impossible, and I would have insisted that speculation without data was more metaphysical than scientific. But these assumptions were shown to be false. Science comes less from method than from attitude."

--Edmund Blair Bolles

"The role of mathematical physics is to ask questions; it is only experience that can answer them."

- Henri Poincare