Endless Facts, One Snippet at a Time
The Origins of Physics: From Ancient Greece to Today
- Ancient Greek thinkers like Thales first suggested natural causes, not gods, explained the world.
- Pythagoras linked numbers to harmony, laying a foundation for mathematical physics.
- Aristotle proposed laws of motion, though many were later proven wrong.
- Archimedes pioneered ideas of levers, buoyancy, and early mechanics.
- In the Islamic Golden Age, scholars like Alhazen advanced optics and scientific method.
- Galileo used telescopes and experiments to challenge old views, earning the title “father of modern science.”
- Isaac Newton united motion and gravity in his famous laws, creating classical physics.
- The 19th century brought electromagnetism through Faraday and Maxwell’s equations.
- The 20th century revolutionized physics with Einstein’s relativity and quantum mechanics.
- Today, physics explores dark matter, quantum computing, and the origins of the universe.