15/04/2025
History of Physics - The Mind-Blowing Story of Physics You Never Learned in School
The history of physics is the story of how humans have tried to understand the natural world, how things move, why they move, and what invisible forces shape the universe.
1. Ancient Physics (Before 500 AD)
Early Observations:
Long before physics had a name, ancient civilizations like the Egyptians and Babylonians tracked stars and seasons to build calendars and temples. They didnโt have scientific theories, but they were brilliant observers.
Greek Thinkers:
Then came the Greeks. Aristotle (384โ322 BC) believed heavy objects fall faster than light ones, and the Earth was the center of the universe. His ideas dominated for over a thousand years, even though many were wrong.
But others like Archimedes (famous for shouting โEureka!โ) began using math to explain things like levers and water displacement. This was the birth of physics as a science.
2. Islamic and Medieval Contributions (500โ1500)
While Europe fell into the Dark Ages, scholars in the Islamic world preserved Greek knowledge and added their own insights. Ibn al-Haytham, for instance, studied optics and wrote about how light reflects and refracts, paving the way for modern physics.
3. The Scientific Revolution (1500โ1700)
This was a game-changer. People started questioning old ideas and using experiments to test theories.
โข Nicolaus Copernicus said the Earth orbits the Sun, not the other way around.
โข Galileo Galilei used telescopes and dropped balls from towers, proving Aristotle wrong about falling objects.
โข Johannes Kepler figured out that planets move in ellipses, not circles.
Then came the giantโฆ
โข Isaac Newton (1643โ1727): He tied everything together with his laws of motion and universal gravitation. Suddenly, the universe looked like a giant clock, a machine that followed clear, mathematical rules.
4. The Age of Energy and Electricity (1700โ1900) and lots more...โ