PHYSICS: GENERAL SURVEY. Physics, which may be defined broadly as the
study of nature, was long called natural philosophy (from the Greek physikos); its exact scope is not fixed
nor easily delimited. From decade to
decade in modern times, the principal effort in physics has changed as, on the
one hand, fields of scientific knowledge were reduced to practice, whereupon
they were regarded as branches of engineering or applied physics; and, on the
other hand, new fields were opened by fresh experimental or theoretical
discoveries. Physics may be called a
point of view about the natural world and a method of attack on its problems, a
method based upon certain general principles
and disciplined by the close interplay between
experiment and theory. With a kind of
confidence that the understanding of nature may be reduced to a few
comprehensive principles, physicists seek for those central ideas by which
great areas of common experience may be brought into order and coherence. To achieve their
purpose, they proceed by use of mathematical and logical tools, and by
experimentation.
---- sometime back in the good old days.
I see the “close interplay between experiment and theory” as
being an instance of the Hegelian dialectic.
I also see a correspondence between theory and several other things such
as doctrine, economics, policy, ....
With experiment corresponding to operations, engineering, practice,
.... The terms “top down” and “bottom
up” were used in the Washington DC area.
Top down is policy/management driven and bottom up is
operations/technology driven. In the operations
research/management science community, the term “middle out” was also
used. Physics is a balanced
approach. It may be more “both ends to
the middle” rather than middle out but it is “balanced.”
The new part this time is the realization that the physicist
who “seeks the central ideas” is seeking the OR/MS type’s starting place.
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