Physics, Technology, and Society

Study Notes

The connection between physics, technology, and society has many examples, such as the development of thermodynamics from the need to understand and improve heat engines.
The steam engine, which arose from thermodynamics, had a significant impact on the Industrial Revolution in England in the 18th century and human civilization.

Sometimes technology gives rise to new physics, and at other times, physics generates new technology.
The discovery of the basic laws of electricity and magnetism in the 19th century led to wireless communication technology.
The applications of physics are not always easy to foresee, as exemplified by Ernest Rutherford's initial dismissal of the possibility of tapping energy from atoms, only to be proven wrong by the discovery of neutron-induced fission of uranium.

Physics has contributed to the development of nuclear power reactors and nuclear weapons.
The silicon 'chip' triggered the computer revolution in the last three decades of the 20th century.
Physics has also contributed to the development of alternative energy resources, such as conversion of solar energy and geothermal energy into electricity.

Table 1.1 lists some of the great physicists, their major contributions, and their countries of origin, highlighting the multi-cultural, international character of the scientific endeavor.
Examples include Archimedes (Principle of buoyancy; Principle of the lever, Greece), Galileo Galilei (Law of inertia, Italy), and Marie Sklodowska Curie (Discovery of radium and polonium; Studies on natural radioactivity, Poland).

Physics is the study of nature and natural phenomena.
Physicists try to discover the rules that are operating in nature, on the basis of observations, experimentation, and analysis.
Physics deals with certain basic rules/laws governing the natural world.