Classical Physics

Classical physics encompasses the theories developed from the 17th through the 19th century that describe the macroscopic world with remarkable precision. It begins with Newtonian mechanics, the study of forces and motion that launched the scientific revolution, and extends through thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, which reveal how energy flows and transforms across systems of countless particles. Electromagnetism, unified by Maxwell’s equations, describes the interplay of electric and magnetic fields and predicts electromagnetic radiation, including light itself. Optics and photonics explore the behaviour of light from geometric ray tracing through wave interference to modern laser technology. Fluid dynamics governs the motion of liquids and gases, from laminar pipe flow to the unsolved turbulence problem encoded in the Navier-Stokes equations. Acoustics and wave phenomena complete the picture, studying how vibrations propagate through media as sound, elastic waves, and beyond. Together these seven sub-topics form the bedrock on which all of modern physics is built: quantum mechanics, relativity, and every applied discipline ultimately reduce to classical physics in the appropriate limit.