Modern classical physics optics, fluids, plasmas, elasticity, relativity, and statistical physics

The study of physics (including astronomy) is one of the oldest academic enterprises. Remarkable surges in inquiry occurred in equally remarkable societies—in Greece and Egypt, in Mesopotamia, India and China—and especially in Western Europe from the late sixteenth century onward. Independent, rational inquiry flourished at the expense of ignorance, superstition, and obeisance to authority. Physics is a constructive and progressive discipline, so these surges left behind layers of understanding derived from careful observation and experiment, organized by fundamental principles and laws that provide the foundation of the discipline today. Meanwhile the detritus of bad data and wrong ideas has washed away. The laws themselves were so general and reliable that they provided foundations for investigation far beyond the traditional frontiers of physics, and for the growth of technology.