What Makes Physics So Fascinating?

[Alexander*GR*]

Well, I want you to tell me the reason that you like physics and which branch you like the most.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I like physics because it opens my mind to the hidden realities of how our world works. I think the quantum world is the most fascinating at the moment.

 

[turbo]

I like physics because ever since I was a young kid (I was born in 1952), I was interested in how things worked and what conditions might make the behavior of such things consistent or erratic. There was no library in our town, but there was a small one in the next town to the south (about a 2-mile walk from home) and I spent a lot of time there as a kid. The librarian was quite tolerant of me, and I was allowed to check out books, which was nice.

The best books for me were HS texts used by previous students in the school district. The books were old and the content was dated, but they gave me a start. When I got to HS, the physics books weren't a whole lot better. Still, I got enough out of them to do well on SATs, and head to college. I decided to study Chemical Engineering, because there were lots of pulp and paper mills in Maine and I wanted to live here.

For me, love of physics arose from natural curiosity about our world. One result was that I spent over a decade traveling through the deep south of the US developing and presenting custom training materials to employees of pulp and paper mills. Few had ever had any formal training, and the fact that their managers kept referring me to the owners/managers of other mills was a good sign that the training I offered was productive and useful.

 

[jack476]

I'm double-majoring in physics and electrical engineering. There are two reasons I like it. The first is the pure intellectual stimulation, it's a unique challenge from engineering. The other reason is the added perspective I get in engineering from physics, and vice versa having an engineering perspective when I go to learn physics.

For instance, I might be in my transmission lines class learning a very applied version of electromagnetism, the properties of certain kinds of waveguide for instance, and I can think back to my advanced electromagnetism class to help me understand what's going on much more deeply than the pure electrical engineering majors who for the most part have only had any electromagnetism in second semester physics.

Conversely, I might be in my acoustics class learning about how musical instruments produce sound and I can think back to circuit theory where we learned about impulse response. Even though it's (at least to my knowledge) impossible to figure out a characteristic equation for, say, a tuba, having intuition about how a complicated system will respond to a force to produce a desirable output is quite useful.

It's having the theory AND the application that interests me.

 

[thankz]

"Why do you like physics?"

better than smoking crack!

 

[Pythagorean]

I did my undergrad in physics because I knew I wanted to do science and physics was the most fundamental science.

 

[blue_leaf77]

I was told by my mom to go to physics in my undergrad because she has a relative who get paid well in his job after graduating from physics undergrad. To be honest I'm more interested in studies of prehistoric life and human's early mobilities. Then why did I like physics for the first time? I guess it's because I was forced to like it, otherwise I wouldn't do well in my exams. But as time flies I begin to be able to enjoy physics.

 

[Silicon Waffle]

I was blind when I was born. Physics or advances in technologies saved my eyes and renewed my mind. It teaches me to acquire critical thinking skills, to understand and explain what is going on around me correctly. My current bad habit is smoking. I fail after every time I try. I feel sad when I realize I always slip back into the same habit. I can't quit it.

 

[thankz]

get a vaporizer, the kind that's rechargeable and uses refillable liquid, I'm 2 months without smoking.

 

[Shinaolord]

get a vaporizer, the kind that's rechargeable and uses refillable liquid, I'm 2 months without smoking.

How is this relevant?

 

[thankz]

sorry for going off topic, just figured I'd give some advice on what worked for me so my fellow pf'er doesn't get cancer and die.

 

[DennisN]

Inspired by the excellent short reply by Greg...

I like physics because it opens my mind to the hidden realities of how our world works. I think the quantum world is the most fascinating at the moment.

...my own short reply would be this: I like physics because it gets me as close to nature/the Universe as I possibly can; physics includes the study of the very small to the very large, e.g. spanning more than 40 orders of magnitude of length.

 

[jerromyjon]

Because it likes me back.

 

[Blackberg]

Reliability

 

[CrystalCaribean]

I finished my nursing degree and couldn't have been more miserable once I started working as a nurse. The repetition was enough to make me want to shove a fork in my eye socket. The knowledge we have right now in the realm of physics is a drop in the bucket compared to what's out there. I love physics because there will always be something new to learn and study! And for a girl who can barely sit still for a full 60 seconds, I most certainly need that. I'd rather not spend tens of thousands of dollars on another degree that is going to bore me to tears!

 

[micromass]

And for a girl who can barely sit still for a full 60 seconds

That's not really good for a physicist. you will encounter certain problem that requires days or weeks of thinking about. If you can't spend that much time on a problem, then science might not be for you. I'm not trying to discourage you, but you should know what you're getting into!

 

[CrystalCaribean]

That's not really good for a physicist. you will encounter certain problem that requires days or weeks of thinking about. If you can't spend that much time on a problem, then science might not be for you. I'm not trying to discourage you, but you should know what you're getting into!

I guess I should've explained that a bit more. I do very well in an environment where I have something to ponder, something to solve. Now, granted, I am VERY much a "pace back and forth while I'm thinking" kind of girl. But, no one said that being a scientist means you need to be confined to your desk chair in a seated position all day, right? I have two giant dry erase boards hanging in my living room and I like to work out my problems/homework there. So, I may be moving, but I'm also thinking! :)

 

[micromass]

I guess I should've explained that a bit more. I do very well in an environment where I have something to ponder, something to solve. Now, granted, I am VERY much a "pace back and forth while I'm thinking" kind of girl. But, no one said that being a scientist means you need to be confined to your desk chair in a seated position all day, right? I have two giant dry erase boards hanging in my living room and I like to work out my problems/homework there. So, I may be moving, but I'm also thinking! :)

Oh ok. I'm a back-and-forth person myself. I like to walk and move while thinking or while listening. I've known quite a lot of people like that too. I guess it really helps :D

 

[CrystalCaribean]

Oh ok. I'm a back-and-forth person myself. I like to walk and move while thinking or while listening. I've known quite a lot of people like that too. I guess it really helps :D

I like to think we have an enhanced sense of our brain-body relationship lol... When the brain moves, so must the body!

 

[Bucho]

I like physics because it's the branch of the sciences which provides me the most awe.

 

[gleem]

You need a reason?

 

[blue_leaf77]

Had the question been "Why do you study physics?", then yes you don't need a reason because everyone needs knowledge of physics even only at its very basic level. This is also why most students are taught physics at least until they graduated from high school. But for a person to like something, he/she needs a reason for liking/hating is a result of stimulus being sent to our brain and are processed to yield our action. You like your girl for a reason, don't you?

 

[gleem]

I guess I could rationalize some contributing factors.

 

[Entanglement]

Because I'm curios and because it's the most fundamental science.

 

[micromass]

Because I'm curios and because it's the most fundamental science.

 

[Pythagorean]

You've gone too far, micromass!

 

[mfb]

Physics the most fundamental natural science.

Is mathematics science? I guess that depends on the definition.

 

[Entanglement]

Because "Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."
Richard P. Feynman.

 

[yrjosmiel73]

Well, because learning it is like explaining the universe. It gets your mind to think more.

Also because I get bragging rights to my friends.

 

[gleem]

Let's face it as scientists we should know that the reason we all "like" Physics is that the Serotonin levels in the brain spike when we do it.

 

[jerromyjon]

Let's face it as scientists we should know that the reason we all "like" Physics is that the Serotonin levels in the brain spike when we do it.

That's what I meant by "It likes me back"... That rush you get with the "A-Ha!" moment when you discover something new for yourself.

I could only imagine what it is like to discover something new to science... perhaps someday I'll know!

I have a sneaking suspicion it would go something along the lines of your Kindergarten teacher announcing to the class that you were correct, we do not use periods after metric abbreviations. In USA in those days NO ONE used metric, except scientists. I never once doubted I was correct.

The real tear-jerker is all the classmates who learned by example, believe in yourself!

 

[Enclose]

I am fascinated by physics because, as was stated above, I consider it to be the most fundamental of sciences (lets leave out that mathematics debate eh ;) ). The realization that everything in our world follows unchangeable laws that we can discover is ... well, fascinating!
Unlike human-made laws, rules or constructs that often aren't based on logic (or faulty logic) and usually become a big mess, nature is actually extremely structured in a logical way (not always at first sight though). One might argue that taking nature apart this way makes it lose much of its mystery, but to me it only adds to the magic. It actually raises more, deeper questions.
Maybe paradoxically, it also gives me a sense of purpose. The thought that I as a person, or even we as humanity, am insignificant compared to the greater scheme of things is not the least bit bothersome to me. I believe I would find it more disturbing if we actually were a very significant part of it all. It makes me want to search for what the actual greater reasons are (if there even is such a thing). I enjoy the deeper philosophical questions that arise when exploring the edges of our knowledge.

 

[mpresic]

I like physics because it was supposed to be simple. At age 7, the encyclopedia said that atoms were like tiny solar systems with electrons in orbit around protons and neutrons. What could be simpler. All you have to know is the atoms of about a hundred different elements, and you know everything. Age 14, I learned that gravity weakens as the square of the distance. So did electromagnetism. What is simpler than that. There must be a connection. I also learned about age 12 about mu-mesons (as they were sometimes called back then; today they are muons) that apparently lived too long unless time behaves differently at high-velocities. Most people think physicists look for complexity, but this is incorrect. physicists look for simplicity. In high school my best marks were in chemistry. Math was second and physics was third or fourth. I was balanced between Math and physics but I thought only physics could tell me why the sky is blue or the grass is green.
Just before grad school, I really wanted to do modern physics specifically QM as applied to High-Energy physics. My first year of grad school, I took a class in theoretical mechanics (classical) with an inspiring professor, whose research area was theoretical High-energy physics. (I also had excellent quantum mechanics courses which I started out liking better). After my coursework, I still thought I wanted to get involved in a modern area, but the more I studied classical mechanics, the more I got involved,in it. My coworkers told me one day "I do not think you are quite so good at QM as a Classical Mechanics". I started to correct him that he never saw me approach a quantum nechanical problem because most of our work was in applied physics. Then I reflected, he was right. This was not an insult. Despite the fact that most current physics research explores the modern theories, the fact is the "older" physics is fertile ground for research as well. I have to say my favorite branch of physics is classical mechanics, with some statistical mechanics and mathematical physics thrown in.

 

[ShayanJ]

My signature!

P.S.
I remember reading a book containing a series of sci-fi short stories which had some little science between the stories. That was the first time I saw length contraction and time dilation. There was also things about tachyons and other parts of physics which are more exciting for lay people but I remember I was only fascinated with special relativity. Then I started reading about physics on internet and a few month later, I joined here. It goes back to when I was in high school, 2007 or 2008!
Basically I do physics because I enjoy it, and it was then that I discovered I enjoy it.

 

[WannabeNewton]

Also because I get bragging rights to my friends.

This is easily the most honest answer so far.

 

[mpresic]

Sorry Wannabe, Most of my friends are either physicists themselves or they couldn't care less. So much for bragging rights.