Министерство науки и высшего образования Российской Федерации Федеральное государственное автономное образовательное учреждение высшего профессионального образования «Уральский федеральный университет имени первого Президента России Б.Н.Ельцина» Реферат The similarities and differences between ancient and modern physics Студент: Группа: Преподаватель: ЕКАТЕРИНБУРГ 2021 . What physics is? Physics is a science which tries to describe the environment and phenomena in it. It has a huge story of formation, so the concepts of physics in the ancient and the modern worlds are quite different. Anyway, they also have some similarities. First attempts First attempts to describe the world were undertaken in such ancient civilizations as Ancient Egypt, Ancient China and Ancient India. Actually, in those times there wasn't such a term as physics, but there was natural philosophy, because most of the descriptions of the world were metaphysical. Due to the fact that math theory wasn’t advanced enough, it was hard to build reasonable mathematical-physical model which could be well-connected with the real world, so people often described some phenomena as something mysterious and religious. For example lightning was described as a demonstration of fury by Gods and Solar eclipse as intrigues of a dragon. However, some astronomical and optical phenomena were described quite accurate for those times. According to the fact that ancient people could build such great monuments such as Egypt’s Pyramids, we can say that ancient people actively used leaver arms, crossbars etc., which means that they knew some basics of applied physics. Anyway, although they could use it, it doesn’t mean they had theory of it. Antique physics Antique world has a special place in the formation of physics. As we know, philosophers of Ancient Greece founded great system of mathematical knowledge of algebra and geometry. The Pythagorean were the first who manifested conception, which stated that all nature phenomena can be described mathematically. It had a great influence on physics in general, because even nowadays it is impossible to understand physics clearly without knowing some important parts of math. Although this idea led to some really important results, there still were some metaphysical attempts of describing the nature. Most of them were wrong; however, some of them were right. (For example: atomistic idea about substance). Classic and modern physics Extremely important discoveries in physics, which became a forerunner of classic and modern physics, were made in the renaissance. It led to great advancement in such parts of physics as mechanics, astronomy, optics etc. All of it was caused by an extremely important revolution in physics which put experiment in that science in the first place. Over time, new sections of physics and phenomena were discovered; theory of math was being advancing a lot, which helped to build new theoretical-physical models (e.g. vector differential algebra in theory of electricity and magnetism, or linear algebra in quantum physics). Over time scientists were making more and more difficult experiments from some classical experiments, such as experiments with mathematical pendulum, to extremely difficult experiments with modern technically advanced equipment which involves a participation of many specialists. Nowadays, science of physics has been changed. If earlier scientists tried to find the root cause of the universe, then now technological discoveries, which could make routine life easier, are more in demand. Similarities and differences All in all, we can say that the ancient and the modern physics are quite different. If ancient scientists tried to describe the world by metaphysical reflections, then nowadays modern scientists mostly rely on mathematical calculations and reasonable mathematical-physical models. If the ancient physics tried to find out the root cause of everything, then the modern physics has become the tool of technological progress, which helps only to describe some difficult phenomena. Anyway, the modern and the ancient physics both were intended for exploring the world.