electromagnetic phenomena

The entirety of electromagnetic phenomena requires only four basic equations. Not too shabby, Maxwell!

The blueprints for all life on Earth, from the smallest bacteria to the largest marine mammals, are constructed from combinations of just four simple nucleotides.

Dc Stewart wrote:The entirety of electromagnetic phenomena requires only four basic equations. Not too shabby, Maxwell!

That's why I liked studying Physics at school - the entirety of things I had to actually remember would fit on 2 pages of A4 paper.

Dc Stewart wrote:

The blueprints for all life on Earth, from the smallest bacteria to the largest marine mammals, are constructed from combinations of just four simple nucleotides.

It was a close call whether I felt that DNA or Mitochondria were the coolest things in cells back in high school biology class. I think Mitochondria won, but both are essential for life as we know it!

Jay,

Your post rekindled and old, random memory I had from college.  I can’t remember who told me, but the phrase went something like:

Philosophy is really history
History is really sociology
Sociology is really psychology
Psychology is really biology
Biology is really chemistry
Chemistry is really physics
Physics is really math

But I don’t know if I could put that all down on a note card.

Eric

DC, everyone,

Just as a note, the Maxwell equations were very influential on a young Albert Einstein who was impressed by their simplicity.  This eventually inspired perhaps the most well known equation in history—E=MC2.

Eric

For those who have crawled through the Laws of Thermodynamics, you've already been stricken by the hand of the World's Greatest Troublemaker Ever:  Lazare Carnot.

Lazare was first to deduce the fundamental concept of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, driving more scientists mad than anyone ever.

Next he deduced the military concept of levee en masse and brought humanity "Total War".  As if the Second Law had not already wrecked enough lives.

And...he's also the guy who gave young Napoleon Bonaparte his start by choosing him to command the Italian Campaign.  Then light Europe on fire and fuel the state-on-state schisms of two world wars.

All One Dude!  In decades of formal education, I never heard his name once (only his son, Sadi).  I mention it here because since I stumbled on this weird thread of history a few years ago, I've not found any polite company with whom I could share it.  

Thanks for letting me get that off my mind!

Eric Hanson, the ranking of fields once appeared in an XKCD cartoon, seen below.

All kidding aside, mathematics is the universal language that ties things together. A problem is that many people (me included) have to get many years into it before the sense of wonder kicks in. I sucked at everything that came prior to calculus, like arithmetic, geometry and algebra. It felt like trying to learn a language by memorizing a random vocabulary with no idea how to use the words: "Today I learned 'follicle', 'goose' and 'never'."

When calculus and differential equations came along, things started making sense, as though I could assemble the vocabulary into useful sentences but the sentences were awfully dull, like learning to say "I wish to purchase cheese" or "please direct me to the train station."

Then came formal field theory and epiphany. I distinctly remember that the moment came during a 2am sojurn in the "Squid Hole" (aka, the college library). I abruptly realized that the set of equations I was looking at had transformed from a jumble of dry symbols into a coherent story about the underpinnings of part of the universe.

Not that it wasn't painful to put the wondrous stories to practical use. My dissertation had to devote an entire chapter to a painstaking solution of Maxwell's equations, partly from a desire to never gloss over a half-dozen steps of the development by tossing in lazy phrases like "simplifying, we obtain" or the repugnant "proof is left to the student as an exercise."