Category talk:Concepts in physics

Latest comment: 17 years ago by Complexica in topic What is fundamental?

What is fundamental?

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What qualifies as a fundamental physics concept? I ask this because while I can see approximation being somewhat fundamental (and it is not in this category), it seems odd that spherical cows are considered fundamental (but is in this category). Should concepts be "fundamental" in the sense of being part of the foundations of physics, the sense of being introductory concepts that newcomers should hear of, or something else entirely? Saligron 23:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for your question. I confess to adding most of the categories within the last few days. I had several discussions with colleagues on just what constitutes a fundamental physics concept. What we decided was that a fundamental physics concept was one that any physicist would need to be familiar with before embarking on a specialized experimental or theoretical track. By "familiar" we meant being able to solve problems at the end of the chapter on that topic. We did include various approximation methods (eg. perturbation theory, Hartree-Fock, etc.) but we did not include "approximation" itself. That seemed too general and amorphous. I am afraid we added the spherical cow reference as a bit of comedy that has made it into the physics culture and terminology (see references). We think all physicists shoud be familiar with the lesson of the spherical cow (One of the reasons that Heisenburg failed to develop a bomb, among others, was that he made his reactor spherical to make calculations easier). However, one may argue that the concept is more humorous than fundamental and I would not complain if a serious-minded person removed it.Complexica 17:57, 16 March 2007 (UTC)Reply
Please take this conversation to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics. I'm not feeling very charitable right now, so my gut impression is that this whole category should be nominated for deletion, precisely because the inclusion criteria are vague. All physics is fundamental, that's how we know its physics and not something else. Instead, if you wish, please devote your energies to Category:Introductory physics, which is what I think is what people were looking for. linas 20:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)Reply
Linas, I am sorry, but your response has irritated me. Why in the world would experts want to contribute to wikipedia if their contributions are sumararily dismissed. This category was populated by several experienced and working physicists and expresses their opinion on what is a fundamental knowledge base for the field. Introductory concepts are just that, those concepts that introduce you to the field. They are a subset of fundamental concepts.Complexica 14:50, 17 March 2007 (UTC)Reply
Yes, they are a subset. But are they a proper subset? How do you decide that something is NOT fundamental? How about a few examples of physics articles which should NOT be in this category. JRSpriggs 11:09, 18 March 2007 (UTC)Reply
An example of something that is a fundamental physics concept but is not an introductory concept is
  • curved spacetime.
Examples of items that are not necessarily fundamental concepts are
The list of fundamental concepts is based roughly on the "Theoretical Minimum" of Lev Landau. Complexica 12:12, 18 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

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