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americanforest
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Here is an interesting question that my urge for simplification and basic/fundamental understanding has lead me to ask:
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What would you say are the most fundamental ideas of Physics, the most fundamental science? By fundamental what I mean is, what laws/ideas do you think are the minimal theoretical basis from which all our current knowledge (and possibly more) can be derived?
Or more succinctly:
What are the ideas that comprise the foundation of Physics as we know it today?
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On a similar subject, Richard Feynman states (from The Feynman Lectures on Physics):
I hesitate to give my opinion because I am only an second year Physics student and I still have an immense amount to learn but I will try just to start off:
1. The discreteness of matter at the smallest scales
2. Conservations of Energy and Momentum
3. The Idea of a phase space cell
4. The constancy of the speed of light
5. All fundamental forces are manifestations of four "forces" and are described by certain properties (charge, etc.) and respective conservation laws
6. The Idea that we live in the middle of a spectrum of sizes in our universe that ranges from incomprehensibly large to incomprehensible small and that both of those extreme domains cannot be understood using our "middle of the road" intuition.
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What would you say are the most fundamental ideas of Physics, the most fundamental science? By fundamental what I mean is, what laws/ideas do you think are the minimal theoretical basis from which all our current knowledge (and possibly more) can be derived?
Or more succinctly:
What are the ideas that comprise the foundation of Physics as we know it today?
--------------------------------------------------------------
On a similar subject, Richard Feynman states (from The Feynman Lectures on Physics):
"If, in some cataclysm, all scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made of atoms — little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence you will see an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied."
I hesitate to give my opinion because I am only an second year Physics student and I still have an immense amount to learn but I will try just to start off:
1. The discreteness of matter at the smallest scales
-Feynman's "Atomic Fact"
2. Conservations of Energy and Momentum
-The most basic conservation laws
3. The Idea of a phase space cell
-This is my attempt to condense the Exclusion and Uncertainty and other key Quantum Mechanics principles into one idea
4. The constancy of the speed of light
-Special Relativity can mostly be derived from this idea
5. All fundamental forces are manifestations of four "forces" and are described by certain properties (charge, etc.) and respective conservation laws
-I'm sure this can be put more succinctly
6. The Idea that we live in the middle of a spectrum of sizes in our universe that ranges from incomprehensibly large to incomprehensible small and that both of those extreme domains cannot be understood using our "middle of the road" intuition.
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