Although the history of physics as an independent science began only in the 17th century, its origins date back to the deepest antiquity, when people began to systematize their first knowledge about the world around them. Until modern times, they belonged to natural philosophy and included information about mechanics, astronomy and physiology. The real history of physics began thanks to the experiments of Galileo and his students. Also, the foundation of this discipline was laid by Newton.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, key concepts appeared: energy, mass, atoms, momentum, etc. In the 20th century, the limitations of classical physics became clear (in addition to it, quantum physics, the theory of relativity, the theory of microparticles, etc., were born). d.). Natural science knowledge is being supplemented even today, as researchers face many unresolved problems and questions about the nature of our world and the entire universe.
Antiquity
Many pagan religions of the ancient world were based on astrology and the knowledge of astrologers. Thanks to their studies of the night sky, the formation of optics took place. The accumulation of astronomical knowledge could not but affect the development of mathematics. However, theoretically to explain the reasonsthe natural phenomena of the ancients could not. The priests attributed lightning and solar eclipses to divine wrath, which had nothing to do with science.
At the same time, ancient Egyptians learned to measure length, weight and angle. This knowledge was necessary for architects in the construction of monumental pyramids and temples. Applied mechanics developed. The Babylonians were also strong in it. They, based on their astronomical knowledge, began to use the day to measure time.
Ancient Chinese history of physics began in the 7th century BC. e. The accumulated experience in crafts and construction was subjected to scientific analysis, the results of which were presented in philosophical writings. Their most famous author is Mo-tzu, who lived in the 4th century BC. e. He made the first attempt to formulate the fundamental law of inertia. Even then, the Chinese were the first to invent the compass. They discovered the laws of geometric optics and knew about the existence of the camera obscura. In the Celestial Empire, the beginnings of the theory of music and acoustics appeared, which for a long time were not suspected in the West.
Antiquity
The ancient history of physics is best known thanks to the Greek philosophers. Their research was based on geometric and algebraic knowledge. For example, the Pythagoreans were the first to declare that nature obeys the universal laws of mathematics. The Greeks saw this pattern in optics, astronomy, music, mechanics and other disciplines.
The history of the development of physics is hardly presented without the works of Aristotle, Plato, Archimedes, LucretiusKara and Gerona. Their works have survived to our times in a fairly complete form. Greek philosophers differed from contemporaries from other countries in that they explained physical laws not with mythical concepts, but strictly from a scientific point of view. At the same time, the Hellenes also made major mistakes. These include the mechanics of Aristotle. The history of the development of physics as a science owes much to the thinkers of Hellas, if only because their natural philosophy remained the basis of international science until the 17th century.
Contribution of the Alexandrian Greeks
Democritus formulated the theory of atoms, according to which all bodies consist of indivisible and tiny particles. Empedocles proposed the law of conservation of matter. Archimedes laid the foundations of hydrostatics and mechanics, outlining the theory of the lever and calculating the magnitude of the buoyancy force of a fluid. He also became the author of the term "center of gravity".
The Alexandrian Greek Heron is considered one of the greatest engineers in human history. He created a steam turbine, generalized knowledge about the elasticity of air and the compressibility of gases. The history of the development of physics and optics continued thanks to Euclid, who studied the theory of mirrors and the laws of perspective.
Middle Ages
After the fall of the Roman Empire came the collapse of ancient civilization. Much knowledge has been forgotten. Europe stopped its scientific development for almost a thousand years. Christian monasteries have become temples of knowledge and have managed to preserve some of the writings of the past. However, progress was hindered by the church itself. She subdued philosophytheological doctrine. Thinkers who tried to go beyond it were declared heretics and severely punished by the Inquisition.
Against this background, the primacy in the natural sciences passed to the Muslims. The history of the emergence of physics among the Arabs is connected with the translation into their language of the works of ancient Greek scientists. On their basis, the thinkers of the East made several important discoveries of their own. For example, the inventor Al-Jaziri described the first crankshaft.
European stagnation lasted until the Renaissance. During the Middle Ages, glasses were invented in the Old World and the appearance of the rainbow was explained. The 15th-century German philosopher Nicholas of Cusa was the first to suggest that the universe is infinite, and thus far ahead of his time. A few decades later, Leonardo da Vinci became the discoverer of the phenomenon of capillarity and the law of friction. He also tried to create a perpetual motion machine, but having failed to cope with this task, he began to theoretically prove the impracticability of such a project.
Renaissance
In 1543, the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus published the main work of his life, "On the rotation of celestial bodies." In this book, for the first time in the Christian Old World, an attempt was made to defend the heliocentric model of the world, according to which the Earth revolves around the Sun, and not vice versa, as the Ptolemaic geocentric model adopted by the church suggested. Many physicists and their discoveries claim to be great, but it is the appearance of the book "On the rotation of celestial bodies" that is considered the beginning of the scientific revolution, which was followed byemergence not only of modern physics, but of modern science as a whole.
Another famous scientist of modern times, Galileo Galilei, is best known for his invention of the telescope (he also invented the thermometer). In addition, he formulated the law of inertia and the principle of relativity. Thanks to the discoveries of Galileo, a completely new mechanics was born. Without him, the history of the study of physics would have stalled for a long time. Galileo, like many of his broad-minded contemporaries, had to resist the pressure of the church, trying with its last strength to defend the old order.
XVII century
The growing interest in science continued into the 17th century. The German mechanic and mathematician Johannes Kepler became the discoverer of the laws of planetary motion in the solar system (Kepler's laws). He outlined his views in the book "New Astronomy", published in 1609. Kepler opposed Ptolemy, concluding that the planets move in ellipses, and not in circles, as was believed in antiquity. The same scientist made a significant contribution to the development of optics. He studied farsightedness and myopia, elucidating the physiological functions of the lens of the eye. Kepler introduced the concepts of optical axis and focus, formulated the theory of lenses.
French Rene Descartes created a new scientific discipline - analytical geometry. He also proposed the law of refraction of light. The main work of Descartes was the book "Principles of Philosophy", published in 1644.
Few physicists and their discoveries are as famous as the Englishman Isaac Newton. ATIn 1687, he wrote a revolutionary book, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. In it, the researcher outlined the law of universal gravitation and the three laws of mechanics (also known as Newton's laws). This scientist worked on color theory, optics, integral and differential calculus. The history of physics, the history of the laws of mechanics - all this is closely connected with the discoveries of Newton.
New Frontiers
The 18th century gave science many outstanding names. Leonhard Euler stands out among them. This Swiss mechanic and mathematician wrote more than 800 works on physics and such sections as mathematical analysis, celestial mechanics, optics, music theory, ballistics, etc. The St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences recognized him as their academician, which is why Euler spent a significant part of his life in Russia. It was this researcher who laid the foundation for analytical mechanics.
It is interesting that the history of the subject of physics has developed as we know it, thanks not only to professional scientists, but also to amateur researchers, who are much more famous in a completely different capacity. The most striking example of such self-taught was the American politician Benjamin Franklin. He invented the lightning rod, made a great contribution to the study of electricity and made an assumption about its connection with the phenomenon of magnetism.
At the end of the 18th century, the Italian Alessandro Volta created the “voltaic pillar”. His invention was the first electric battery in human history. This century was also marked by the appearance of a mercury thermometer, the creator of whichwas Gabriel Fahrenheit. Another important invention was the invention of the steam engine, which took place in 1784. It gave rise to new means of production and the restructuring of industry.
Applied discoveries
If the history of the beginning of physics developed on the basis that science had to explain the cause of natural phenomena, then in the 19th century the situation changed significantly. Now she has a new calling. From physics began to demand the control of natural forces. In this regard, not only experimental, but also applied physics began to develop rapidly. André-Marie Ampère's "Newton of Electricity" introduced a new concept of electric current. Michael Faraday worked in the same area. He discovered the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction, the laws of electrolysis, diamagnetism and became the author of such terms as anode, cathode, dielectric, electrolyte, paramagnetism, diamagnetism, etc.
New sections of science have emerged. Thermodynamics, elasticity theory, statistical mechanics, statistical physics, radiophysics, elasticity theory, seismology, meteorology - they all formed a single modern picture of the world.
In the 19th century, new scientific models and concepts arose. Thomas Young substantiated the law of conservation of energy, James Clerk Maxwell proposed his own electromagnetic theory. The Russian chemist Dmitry Mendeleev became the author of the periodic system of elements that significantly influenced the entire physics. In the second half of the century, electrical engineering and the internal combustion engine appeared. They became the fruits of applied physics, focused on solving certain problems.technological tasks.
Rethinking Science
In the 20th century, the history of physics, in short, moved to the stage when the crisis of already well-established classical theoretical models began. The old scientific formulas began to contradict the new data. For example, researchers have found that the speed of light does not depend on a seemingly unshakable frame of reference. At the turn of the century, phenomena that required a detailed explanation were discovered: electrons, radioactivity, X-rays.
Due to the accumulated mysteries, a revision of the old classical physics has taken place. The key event in this regular scientific revolution was the substantiation of the theory of relativity. Its author was Albert Einstein, who first told the world about the deep connection between space and time. A new branch of theoretical physics emerged - quantum physics. Several world-famous scientists took part in its formation at once: Max Planck, Max Bohn, Erwin Schrödinger, Paul Ehrenfest and others.
Modern Challenges
In the second half of the 20th century, the history of the development of physics, the chronology of which continues today, moved to a fundamentally new stage. This period was marked by the flourishing of space exploration. Astrophysics has made an unprecedented leap. Space telescopes, interplanetary probes, detectors of extraterrestrial radiation appeared. A detailed study of the physical data of various bodies of the solar planet began. With the help of modern technology, scientists have discovered exoplanets and new luminaries, includingincluding radio galaxies, pulsars and quasars.
Space continues to be fraught with many unsolved mysteries. Gravitational waves, dark energy, dark matter, the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe and its structure are being studied. Expanding on the Big Bang theory. The data that can be obtained in terrestrial conditions is disproportionately small compared to how much work scientists have in space.
The key problems facing physicists today include several fundamental challenges: the development of a quantum version of the gravitational theory, the generalization of quantum mechanics, the unification of all known interaction forces into one theory, the search for "fine tuning of the Universe", as well as the exact definition phenomena of dark energy and dark matter.
