Northeastern State University

Department of Natural Sciences

DR. ERIK TERDAL
Department Chair(Interim)
E-mail: terdal@nsuok.edu

TINA FANNING
Department Secretary
E-mail: fannintl@nsuok.edu
Phone: (918) 444-3850

General Physical Science

Physics attempts to describe the natural world by the application of logic and the scientific method, through a process which includes both modelling by theoreticians and detailed observations and experiments.

Discoveries in physics find connections throughout the other natural sciences as they regard the basic constituents of the universe. Some of the phenomena studied in physics, such as the conservation of energy, are common to all material systems. These often are referred to as laws of physics. Other phenomena, such as superconductivity, stem from these laws, but are not laws themselves because they only appear in some systems. Physics is often said to be the "fundamental science", because each of the other sciences (biology, chemistry, geology, physiology, archaeology, anthropology, etc.) deals with particular types of material systems that obey the laws of physics.[1] Discoveries in basic physics have important ramifications for all of science. For example, chemistry is the science of matter (such as atoms and molecules) and the chemical substances that they form in the bulk. The structure, reactivity, and properties of a chemical compound are determined by the properties of the underlying molecules, which can be described by areas of physics such as quantum mechanics (called in this case quantum chemistry), thermodynamics, and electromagnetism.

Physics is firmly rooted in and relies heavily upon mathematics, which provides a language in which physical laws can be precisely formulated and their predictions quantified. Physical definitions, models and theories are invariably expressed using mathematical relations.

Faculty