Physics is the natural science of matter, involving the study of matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines, with its main goal being to understand how the universe behaves. A scientist who specializes in the field of physics is called a physicist.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to physics:
Computational physics is the study and implementation of numerical analysis to solve problems in physics. Historically, computational physics was the first application of modern computers in science, and is now a subset of computational science. It is sometimes regarded as a subdiscipline of theoretical physics, but others consider it an intermediate branch between theoretical and experimental physics — an area of study which supplements both theory and experiment.
In physics, a shock wave, or shock, is a type of propagating disturbance that moves faster than the local speed of sound in the medium. Like an ordinary wave, a shock wave carries energy and can propagate through a medium but is characterized by an abrupt, nearly discontinuous, change in pressure, temperature, and density of the medium.
Physical Review Letters (PRL), established in 1958, is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal that is published 52 times per year by the American Physical Society. As also confirmed by various measurement standards, which include the Journal Citation Reports impact factor and the journal h-index proposed by Google Scholar, many physicists and other scientists consider Physical Review Letters to be one of the most prestigious journals in the field of physics.
Ludwig Prandtl was a German fluid dynamicist, physicist and aerospace scientist. He was a pioneer in the development of rigorous systematic mathematical analyses which he used for underlying the science of aerodynamics, which have come to form the basis of the applied science of aeronautical engineering. In the 1920s, he developed the mathematical basis for the fundamental principles of subsonic aerodynamics in particular; and in general up to and including transonic velocities. His studies identified the boundary layer, thin-airfoils, and lifting-line theories. The Prandtl number was named after him.
Applied mechanics is the branch of science concerned with the motion of any substance that can be experienced or perceived by humans without the help of instruments. In short, when mechanics concepts surpass being theoretical and are applied and executed, general mechanics becomes applied mechanics. It is this stark difference that makes applied mechanics an essential understanding for practical everyday life. It has numerous applications in a wide variety of fields and disciplines, including but not limited to structural engineering, astronomy, oceanography, meteorology, hydraulics, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, nanotechnology, structural design, earthquake engineering, fluid dynamics, planetary sciences, and other life sciences. Connecting research between numerous disciplines, applied mechanics plays an important role in both science and engineering.
Howard Alvin Stone is the Donald R. Dixon '69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. His field of research is in fluid mechanics, chemical engineering and complex fluids. He became an Editor of the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics in 2021.
Roddam Narasimha FRS was an Indian aerospace scientist and fluid dynamicist. He was a professor of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science (1962–1999), director of the National Aerospace Laboratories (1984–1993) and the chairman of the Engineering Mechanics Unit at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. He was the DST Year-of-Science Chair Professor at JNCASR and concurrently held the Pratt & Whitney Chair in Science and Engineering at the University of Hyderabad. Narasimha was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian award, in 2013. for his contributions to advance India's aerospace technology.
Physics of Fluids is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering fluid dynamics, established by the American Institute of Physics in 1958, and is published by AIP Publishing. The journal focus is the dynamics of gases, liquids, and complex or multiphase fluids—and the journal contains original research resulting from theoretical, computational, and experimental studies.
Andrea Prosperetti is the Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston, the Berkhoff Professor of Applied Physics at the University of Twente in the Netherlands and an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2012. He is known for his work in the field of multiphase flows including bubble dynamics and cavitation.
John Stewart Turner, FAA, FRS was an Australian geophysicist.
Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research on fluid mechanics. It is published once a year by Annual Reviews and the editors are Parviz Moin and Howard Stone. As of 2023, Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics is being published as open access, under the Subscribe to Open model. As of 2023, Journal Citation Reports gives the journal a 2022 impact factor of 27.7, ranking it first out of 34 journals in "Physics, Fluids and Plasmas" and first out of 137 journals in the category "Mechanics".
Raymond Ethan Goldstein FRS FInstP is the Alan Turing Professor of Complex Physical Systems in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge.
Peter George Baines is an Australian geophysicist. He is an honorary senior fellow at University of Melbourne and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Victoria.
Rajat Mittal is a computational fluid dynamicist and a professor of mechanical engineering in the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He holds a secondary appointment in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is known for his work on immersed boundary methods (IBMs) and applications of these methods to the study of fluid flow problems.
Ellen Kathryn Longmire is an American applied physicist and mechanical engineer known for her research in experimental fluid dynamics and turbulence. She is a professor of aerospace engineering and mechanics at the University of Minnesota, where she is also Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Science & Engineering,, the former chair of the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics, and one of three editors-in-chief of the journal Experiments in Fluids.
Élisabeth Guazzelli is a French experimental physicist whose research concerns fluid mechanics, suspensions of particles in liquids, and particle-laden flows. She is a director of research for the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), affiliated with the Laboratoire Matière et Systèmes Complexes at the University of Paris. Currently, Guazzelli serves as the editor of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics Rapid edited by Cambridge University Press.