Modern Physics

Physics is the study of matter and how it behaves to gain a better understanding of how the universe works as a whole. Modern Physics is considered to be physics that was discovered after the beginning of the twentieth century or post Newtonian conception of physics. Since about the 1890 there have been paradigm shifts that caused the development of modern physics such as quantum mechanics and Einstein relativity. Contributions of many scientists lead to the development of modern physics such as Max Planck who is considered to be the originator of quantum theory. One scientist that was motivated by Planck's work was Albert Einstein, who invented the concept of photons to explain the photoelectric effect. The thing that both of these theories had in common was that Newton’s laws were incomplete and that there is still more to be discovered and created a new age of physics.

Modern Physics differs from classical physics because it provides a broader and therefore more accurate interpretation of the universe today. Classical physics is a lot easier to use and is more likely to happen in everyday life because it uses large masses and velocities that are not closely comparable to the speed of light such as computing the force needed to move a heavy object or calculating the speed of a train. Unlike classical physics, modern physics considers masses of extremely small sizes and speeds that are almost approaching the speed of light such as calculating the energy in a photon or the speed of sub-atomic particles.

Modern physics contains many branches since anything that works with extremely small particles or very high velocities is considered to fall under modern physics. Quantum mechanics is one which deals with physical phenomena at micr...

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... be able to move from an excited energy state to a lower one.

In 1939 a new physical phenomenon was discovered by two German scientists named Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann where they found that under certain conditions uranium will split into two smaller nuclei and this process became known as nuclear fission. The fission, using fission-produced neutrons, is the source of energy for nuclear power plants and fission type nuclear bombs, such as those used by the United States in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, at the end of World War II. The opposite of this process is nuclear fusion which is when two low mass nuclei are close together and the force causes them to fuse together. The binding energy per nucleon increases with mass number up until nickel-62. Natural nuclear fusion is the origin of the light and energy produced by the core of all stars including the sun.