Microwave ovens to computers, refrigerators to mobile phones, air travel to advanced surgery — can we imagine a world without these? But most of us are unaware of what they owe to classical and modern physics.
Physics helps us understand motion, the impact of forces on objects and energy — heat, light, sound, electricity, magnetism — and what these can do for us. It thus underpins all the technology that makes our lives easier. But, treated as just another subject to mug up and pass exams, students learning by rote the laws and processes of nature, teachers racing to complete the syllabus, boring textbooks, overriding objective to clear exams, and a lack of inclination to imbibe knowledge for its own sake have taken the magic out of Physics.
American physicist Jearl Walker, in the preface to his revised 10th edition of David Halliday and Robert Resnick’s seminal ‘Fundamentals of Physics’, wrote: “Physics is the most interesting subject in the world because it is about how the world works, and yet the textbooks had been thoroughly wrung of any connection with the real world. The fun was missing.”
Perhaps, if there were textbooks like Walker’s own ‘The Flying Circus of Physics’ (2011), which promises to show how physical phenomena, such as high-flying acrobatics and other stunts, and mind-bending illusions, are all a part of everyday life, or Paul Parsons’ engagingly-titled ‘How to Destroy the Universe: And 34 Other Really Interesting Uses of Physics’ (2012), they would better ignite minds.
This indifference to Physics is well described in ‘Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character’ (1985), the anecdotal autobiography of Nobel laureate Richard Feynman, deemed to be one of the top three physicists of the 20th century — along with Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.
