Throughout the course of humanity, the human mind has always wondered WHY ARE WE HERE? What's the purpose of life. Why is nature the way it is. Why do we dream, why do we wonder, why things are the way they are.





Many attempts have been made to answer, these questions, but in the earlier days, around 1500. A.D and before, these questions were mostly in the realm of philosophy. Now philosophy is a hard and complicated subject, but it does not necessarily describes the way NATURE REALLY IS.





The made up answers held for many years may be satisfying, but they certainly weren't true. This is an attempt to celebrate and rejoice the great thinkers and explorers in physics , who dared to challenge the usual beliefs and tried to unveil NATURE the way it really is, who looked deep into reality and expanded our horizon of knowledge and wisdom , who dared to ask questions that nobody asked before , and tried to answer them .





TYCHO BRAHE AND JOHANNES KEPLER.







A portrait of Johannes Kepler by an unknown artist, 1610.





This combination of Kepler and Tycho was really the beginning of physics, in some sense. These are like the grand father's of physics. Tycho was an astronomer. With his equipments he made amazingly accurate observations of the positions and trajectory of stars and planets. And Kepler was a great mathematician. When put together , these minds would really come up with some extraordinary results.





Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe , wearing the Order of the Elephant.



FUN FACT : When Tycho died , on his death bed, his last words were directed to Kepler, he said "Let me not seemed to have lived in vain", hinting towards continuing their work.





Earlier, it was believed , as Aristotle preached, that the Earth is at the center of the Universe , and the Sun , the planets and the stars go around the Earth. This idea was challenged by the Polish preist Nicholas Copernicus, who suggested the Sun is at the center and the Earth is just another planet that goes around the Sun, just like every other planet in circular orbits. He put forth the ideas anonymously since it was clearly against the beliefs held at those times. From the observations obtained by Tycho , Kepler was able to formulate his three laws, now knows as Kepler's Laws, which tells us that the planets go in elliptical orbits around the Sun, with the Sun at one of its foci. These are the three Laws of Kepler

1. All the planets move around the Sun in elliptical orbits with Sun at one of its foci.

2. The planets sweep equal areas in equal time interval.

3. The square of the time period is proportional to the cube of its semi major axis.





Just imagine, being able to write down an equation, a one inch equation that describes the motions of the heavens , and to be able to predict the positions of the planets , to see and understand nature completely, and give a mathematical expression for how it behaves.





"We do not ask why the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure. Similarly we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens"

-Johannes Kepler.

It can be said that Galileo was, in many ways THE FIRST SCIENTIST. Rather than just talking about something, he embraced the idea of making observations and precise measurement , thus laying path for much of the physics of later years. In order to understand motion, he used to roll balls on inclined planes . He figured out, that the balls as they roll on an inclined plan , covered more distance in more time. Basically distance is proportional to square of time.(He chose inclined planes because that slowed the motion of the ball, rather than studying on vertical or horizontal planes, so it was easier to make observation). In those days clocks were not available to measure time, he used his heart pulses for time keeping, an ingenious , creative and thoroughly dedicated human being. So if something covers 1m in 1 sec, it coverts 4 m in 2 sec, 9 m in 3 sec and so on...





A portrait of Galileo in 1636 by Justus Sustermans.

He had shown that the bodies accelerate as they roll down the inclined plane, which was further developed by Newton.

He was also the very first person to look through the telescope, to see the 4 Moons of Jupiter(Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede, Ganymede is also the largest moon in the Solar System as of now),he observed the rings of Saturn, which he described as 'Ears' and he also observed the Sun Spots. His observations showed that the Moon's of Jupiter clearly orbited Jupiter , and thus not everything goes around the Earth, and hence Copernicus was completely correct.



FUN FACT: Galileo was sent into house arrest because of the views that the Sun was that

center, The moment Galileo was set free, he looked up to the sky and down to the ground, and, while stamping his foot, in a contemplative mood, he said, Eppur si muove, that is, and yet it moves, meaning the planet earth.“



He had shown that the bodies accelerate as they roll down the inclined plane, which was further developed by Newton.He was also the very first person to look through the telescope, to see the 4 Moons of Jupiter(Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede, Ganymede is also the largest moon in the Solar System as of now),he observed the rings of Saturn, which he described as 'Ears' and he also observed the Sun Spots. His observations showed that the Moon's of Jupiter clearly orbited Jupiter , and thus not everything goes around the Earth, and hence Copernicus was completely correct.FUN FACT: Galileo was sent into house arrest because of the views that the Sun was that

"The Sun with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it , can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else to do." -Galileo Galilei



ISSAC NEWTON

He is regarded in some ways, as the Father of physics, he started all of this. His Universal Law of Gravitation published in his book Philosophæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) would describe how the Moon revolved around the Sun, the motion of planets and the tides on Earth , everything could be explained by his simple one inch long equation , F=ma, Force is mass times acceleration.

Potrait of Newton at 46 by Godfrey Keller, 1689.





He also showed that when a beam of light is passed through the prism, it splits into its component colors, thus enhancing our understanding of Rainbows. He built the first reflecting telescope, which overcame the problem that the previously used refracting telescopes had. His book is still regarded as the most influential book in the history of science. He also discovered calculus, a branch of mathematics that allows certain calculations which otherwise seem difficult to do. He truly revolutionized the way we see and understand Nature, a true Genius. His laws of motion are as follows

1. An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion unless some external force acts upon it.

2. The Force on an object is mass times acceleration.

3. Every object exerts an equal and opposite force on every an other object, thus there is a cause and effect relationship, but they happen at the exact same instant.



The idea that the apple fell on Newton's head is apocryphal ,although the historical view is he was sitting under a tree in a contemplative mood, and the idea came into his mind.



His Universal law of gravitation states that the Force between two objects is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

Thus by these simple equations, he was able to explain the tides on Earth, the motion of planets , the nature of light , how bodies behave in motion and so on and on and on. It is truly remarkable , the power mathematics has in describing the world around us. His laws could explain Galileo's discovery of motion of bodies on an inclined plane, Keppler's laws and equations could be easily derived from his equations and he truly , unified the physics known in his time , a truly remarkable achievement, but he still couldn't answer everything.





"If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants."-Issac Newton



ALBERT EINSTEIN



Einstein on a beach with David Rothman in summer of 1939. For about 200 years , Newton's ideas were held as a remarkable understanding of nature, until came Einstein. He was a visual thinker , he would imagine experiments in his head and try to push the limits of newtons ideas , like what would happen if I travelled along a beam of light, or if I cut off the wire on an elevator or a man started to fall freely from a building, he wouldn't feel Gravity, he would be weightless. Newton considerd time and space to be static, that everything happens in a static space which we could never interact with, but he showed that time and space are dynamic , he came up with a truly new and revolutionary understanding of Gravity, Space and Time. His ides was that massive objects warp Spacetime , and then bodies moving through spacetime execute their motion. So the Sun bends the fabric of spacetime and planets around follow a path in this curvature of spacetime. And if space can ne manipulated , so could time. The faster one moves through space , the slower you move through time. So if a person is near the surface of the Earth and the other person is high up in space , TIME MOVES FASTER FOR THE PERSON IN SPACE . This has got nothing and absolutely nothing with their clocks, time itself moves faster, that is the nature of time. The difference is not huge , but all the GPS satellites in space have to take in account the relativity factor.



"The important thing is not to stop questioning, curiosity has its own reason for existing."-Albert Einstein





These were all great thinkers, but the thing that all had deeply in common was a desire to understand our surrounding, to really grasp reality with both hands and being able to explain it. This in no way takes away the beauty of nature , in fact I would say it adds an extra layer of subtlety to nature, it changes the way you look at an ordinary mundane everyday object and shows you the amazing things happening at the atomic level , or sometimes on a large scale. The fact that these can be explained by mathematics is astounding , the very fact that it works is something to think about. But physicist are not trying to take the beauty away from nature , in fact it is a very humble pursuit by these men and women to see Nature the way nature intended it to be seen. For about 200 years , Newton's ideas were held as a remarkable understanding of nature, until came Einstein. He was a visual thinker , he would imagine experiments in his head and try to push the limits of newtons ideas , like what would happen if I travelled along a beam of light, or if I cut off the wire on an elevator or a man started to fall freely from a building, he wouldn't feel Gravity, he would be weightless. Newton considerd time and space to be static, that everything happens in a static space which we could never interact with, but he showed that time and space are dynamic , he came up with a truly new and revolutionary understanding of Gravity, Space and Time. His ides was that massive objects warp Spacetime , and then bodies moving through spacetime execute their motion. So the Sun bends the fabric of spacetime and planets around follow a path in this curvature of spacetime. And if space can ne manipulated , so could time. The faster one moves through space , the slower you move through time. So if a person is near the surface of the Earth and the other person is high up in space , TIME MOVES FASTER FOR THE PERSON IN SPACE . This has got nothing and absolutely nothing with their clocks, time itself moves faster, that is the nature of time. The difference is not huge , but all the GPS satellites in space have to take in account the relativity factor."The important thing is not to stop questioning, curiosity has its own reason for existing."-Albert EinsteinPhysics just like anything else , was not build by five people, but these could easily be regarded as the founding members of our attempt to understand nature. Physicists like Richard Feynman , Paul Dirac, Marie Curie, Neils Bohr , Werner Heisenberg , Max Planck , Emmy Noether and many more have contributed enormously in the search to uncover nature's mysteries.These were all great thinkers, but the thing that all had deeply in common was a desire to understand our surrounding, to really grasp reality with both hands and being able to explain it. This in no way takes away the beauty of nature , in fact I would say it adds an extra layer of subtlety to nature, it changes the way you look at an ordinary mundane everyday object and shows you the amazing things happening at the atomic level , or sometimes on a large scale. The fact that these can be explained by mathematics is astounding , the very fact that it works is something to think about. But physicist are not trying to take the beauty away from nature , in fact it is a very humble pursuit by these men and women to see Nature the way nature intended it to be seen.









Margaret Burbidge (1919-2020)





One such explorer was Margaret Burbidge , British American astronomer . Her work in stellar nucleosynthesis along with her peers tells us how the elements in the periodic table were cooked up in the stars and spewed out into the Cosmos during supernova explosions .

The very famous B2FH paper on nucleosynthesis, named after the initials of the writers Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge, William Flower and Fred Hoyle.





This reminds me of a beautiful saying, that the aim is not to live forever, but to make something that lasts forever.







"The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve."

-Eugene Wigner





Article by: Shanawaz Shaikh (F.Y.BSc)