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  • Writer's pictureJaumila Gonzalez

What is Physics?


I believe through my humble and vague understanding of what Physics is to be, in plain English, the study of how everything in our world works; through the numerous laws of our universe and beyond explained by intricate mathematical calculations. From gravity, a law that says what goes up must come down. To velocity, the speed and way of direction that an object travels from one place to another. To lastly, Einstein showing that mass and energy are interchangeable through his famous calculation E=mc2.


As someone who graduated in the medical sciences, my personal interests lied mostly in the sciences of the human body. Therefore, I guess my definition of physics is very general and broad. So, I’ve asked a few of my colleagues to give me their view of what physics is to them, according to their academic research, with hopes that with each explanation, this fascinating and daunting science becomes more relatable and easier to understand beyond its layman generalities.


Have a read below and see what some of my colleagues had to say.


Lotte ter Haar


Physics is about being curious about everything that is happening around us, both visible and invisible to the eye. To me, physics often feels like a playground, where your brain can be free and creative in trying to solve the puzzles posed by often complex processes and the laws of nature. It is fun to work together with others to think about why small things such as particles or instead large objects like black holes behave the way they do. I feel physics is crucial in understanding at least a bit how our world works, and what is our place in it.


Sebastian Völkel

To me, physics is the human effort to explore the fundamental principles of the world in which we live. Beyond its description of fundamental particles, black holes and the evolution of the Universe, we all experience physics in everyday life. Whether these are the colors of the sky, the sound of musical instruments or GPS navigation, physics takes place all around us!


Nicola Franchini


So, in a nutshell, I would say that I'm interested in the phenomenology of black holes and neutron stars - which are the most compact objects in the universe - when one allows modifications to General Relativity. The hope is that these modifications can leave an imprint on emissions that we can observe, the most notable of which being gravitational waves.


Regarding physics, I like to say that our job is akin to that of a translator: there are two independent languages, the language of the observable world and the language of mathematics, and we enjoy spending our time trying to find a mapping between the two.


Guillermo Lara


The meaning(s) of physics for me are the following:


- The study of Nature


This is the literal meaning of the word. I like studying something that is broader than humanity and its inventions/fictions/politics.


- I like to imagine things


One doesn't need math to imagine how the world might work. I enjoy picturing, for example, black holes moving through space, or the hot soup of particles during the Big Bang while sipping my morning coffee. That's one reason I enjoyed reading popular physics books before uni. Sure, if one wants to precisely describe how things might work then one needs math. I'm lucky that I also find math fun and probably that's because I can also imagine things there, like geometric shapes, etc.


- Community


Of course, it's quite motivating to see that other people are seriously interested in these things. I've had the pleasure of meeting people that spent their lives building an experiment ( for example at SNOLAB in Canada ;-) ). I also enjoy hearing people giving talks about what they do, even if often I can only understand a fraction of what they say. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic I haven't had much opportunity to travel to conferences, just had a taste of it with the online ones.

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