History of Physics

Natural Philosophy also called philosophy of nature comes from the Latin phrase “philosophia naturalis”. Natural Philosophy is the philosophical study of the cosmos and nature’s elements and how the materials around the world are formed. There are many branches of natural philosophy including: cosmology, etiology, astronomy, probability, the study of matter, the study of elements, and many other subjects. The pioneers of natural philosophy are mainly pre-Socratic philosophers; the most famous philosophers of them were Thales, Democritus, and Aristotle. Thales argued that natural phenomena always occurred because of natural reasons; he refused the supernatural or mythological explanations. Another philosopher that contributed to natural philosophy was Democritus. Democritus, collaboratively with Leucippus, created the theory of atomism. While Aristotle, arguably the most iconic of all philosophers during this time period, further promoted the idea that natural phenomena is caused by natural reasons, which meant that it can be studied so that laws can be formed. Aristotle also wrote about metaphysic, poetry, music, physics, logic, politics, rhetoric, ethics, linguistics, biology, zoology, and theater arts. Aristotle also tried to discover the laws of motion and gravity.

The term “Classical physics” is used to describe physics before 1900 A.D. and after 1600 A.D. In classical physics matter and energy became two different things that made up the universe. Matter is anything that occupies space and has mass and must exist in either of these forms: solid, liquid, gas, or plasma while energy does not need space and exists in various forms including: magnetic energy, thermal energy, electric energy, and kinetic energy. Classical Physic...

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