Birmingham, United Kingdom

Physics and Astronomy

Language: English Studies in English
Subject area: physical science, environment
University website: www.birmingham.ac.uk
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Astronomy
Astronomy (from Greek: ἀστρονομία) is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It applies mathematics, physics, and chemistry, in an effort to explain the origin of those objects and phenomena and their evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, galaxies, and comets; the phenomena include supernova explosions, gamma ray bursts, and cosmic microwave background radiation. More generally, all phenomena that originate outside Earth's atmosphere are within the purview of astronomy. A related but distinct subject, physical cosmology, is concerned with the study of the Universe as a whole.
Physics
Physics (from Ancient Greek: φυσική (ἐπιστήμη), translit. physikḗ (epistḗmē), lit. 'knowledge of nature', from φύσις phýsis "nature") is the natural science that studies matter and its motion and behavior through space and time and that studies the related entities of energy and force. Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines, and its main goal is to understand how the universe behaves.
Physics
The "paradox" is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality "ought to be."
Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964) Volume III, p. 18-9
Astronomy
A fair number of people who go on to major in astronomy have decided on it certainly by the time they leave junior high, if not during junior high. I think it’s somewhat unusual that way. I think most children pick their field quite a bit later, but astronomy seems to catch early, and if it does, it sticks.
Nancy Roman, from interview by Rebecca Wright, Oral History Transcript (15 Sep 2000), on NASA website
Physics
The supreme task of the physicist is the discovery of the most general elementary laws from which the world-picture can be deduced logically. But there is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance, and this Einfühlung [literally, empathy or 'feeling one's way in'] is developed by experience.
Albert Einstein, Preface to Max Planck's Where is Science Going? (1933)
There are solar panels that covert sunlight directly to electricity, and there are others that absorb the sun's rays for hot water. EU-funded researchers have made progress on a solar thermoelectric generator that generates electricity from the sun's heat.
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