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Portal:Physics
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The Physics Portal


Physics is the scientific study of matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. It is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines. A scientist who specializes in the field of physics is called a physicist.
Physics is one of the oldest academic disciplines. Over much of the past two millennia, physics, chemistry, biology, and certain branches of mathematics were a part of natural philosophy, but during the Scientific Revolution in the 17th century, these natural sciences branched into separate research endeavors. Physics intersects with many interdisciplinary areas of research, such as biophysics and quantum chemistry, and the boundaries of physics are not rigidly defined. New ideas in physics often explain the fundamental mechanisms studied by other sciences and suggest new avenues of research in these and other academic disciplines such as mathematics and philosophy.
Advances in physics often enable new technologies. For example, advances in the understanding of electromagnetism, solid-state physics, and nuclear physics led directly to the development of technologies that have transformed modern society, such as television, computers, domestic appliances, and nuclear weapons; advances in thermodynamics led to the development of industrialization; and advances in mechanics inspired the development of calculus. (Full article...)
This is a Featured article, which represents some of the best content on English Wikipedia.
Louis Alexander Slotin (/ˈsloʊtɪn/ SLOHT-in; 1 December 1910 – 30 May 1946) was a Canadian physicist and chemist who took part in the Manhattan Project. Born and raised in the North End of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Slotin earned both his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from the University of Manitoba, before obtaining his doctorate in physical chemistry at King's College London in 1936. Afterwards, he joined the University of Chicago as a research associate to help design a cyclotron.
In 1942, Slotin was invited to participate in the Manhattan Project, and subsequently performed experiments with uranium and plutonium cores to determine their critical mass values. After World War II, he continued his research at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. On 21 May 1946, he accidentally triggered a supercritical nuclear chain reaction, which released a burst of hard radiation. He was rushed to the hospital and died nine days later on 30 May. Slotin had become the second fatal victim of a criticality accident in history, following Harry Daghlian, who had died of a related accident with the same plutonium "demon core" the previous year. (Full article...)
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- ... that Femto satellites are the smallest types of satellites, and the Kalam SAT is one of the smallest Femto satellite ever made?
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September anniversaries
- 6 September 1809 - Sir George Cayley identifies the four aerodynamic forces
- 3 September 1821 - Faraday discovers electromagnetic rotation (the principle behind the electric motor).
- - September 1911 - The Sackur-Tetrode Equation is published in Annalen der Physik.
- 29 September 1904 - Nature publishes Wood's letter discrediting N-rays.
- 27 September 1905 - E=mc2 --- Annalen der Physik publishes the Mass–Energy equivalence
- 9 September 1934: The American Rocket Society (ARS) launched Rocket No. 4 to 400 feet.
- 17 September 1959 - The first powered X-15 flight.
- 9 September 1959 - The Atlas 10-D rocket is launched.
- 1 September 1974 - Pioneer 11 sends polar images of Jupiter.
- 20 September 1979 - The High Energy Astronomical Observatory (HEAO) 3 is launched.
- - September 1981 - Invention of the scanning tunneling microscope.
Births
- 22 September 1791 Michael Faraday (d.1867)
- 29 September 1901 Enrico Fermi
Deaths
- 5 September 1906 - Ludwig Boltzmann
- 7 September 1783 - Leonhard Euler
- 9 September 2003 - Edward Teller
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The following are images from various physics-related articles on Wikipedia.
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Fundamentals: Concepts in physics | Constants | Physical quantities | Units of measure | Mass | Length | Time | Space | Energy | Matter | Force | Gravity | Electricity | Magnetism | Waves
Basic physics: Mechanics | Electromagnetism | Statistical mechanics | Thermodynamics | Quantum mechanics | Theory of relativity | Optics | Acoustics
Specific fields: Acoustics | Astrophysics | Atomic physics | Molecular physics | Optical physics | Computational physics | Condensed matter physics | Nuclear physics | Particle physics | Plasma physics
Tools: Detectors | Interferometry | Measurement | Radiometry | Spectroscopy | Transducers
Background: Physicists | History of physics | Philosophy of physics | Physics education | Physics journals | Physics organizations
Other: Physics in fiction | Physics lists | Physics software | Physics stubs
Physics topics
Classical physics traditionally includes the fields of mechanics, optics, electricity, magnetism, acoustics and thermodynamics. The term Modern physics is normally used for fields which rely heavily on quantum theory, including quantum mechanics, atomic physics, nuclear physics, particle physics and condensed matter physics. General and special relativity are usually considered to be part of modern physics as well.
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