Getting started with physics

Remarks#

This section provides an overview of what physics is, and why a developer might want to use it.

It should also mention any large subjects within physics, and link out to the related topics. Since the Documentation for physics is new, you may need to create initial versions of those related topics.

Overview

Physics is the natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion and behaviour through space and time, along with related concepts such as energy and force. The main goal of physics is to understand how the universe behaves. In a StackOverflow context physics usually refers to simulating the universe (or some small part of it).

There are several main areas of physics that people commonly try to simulate. Although not an exhaustive list these include:

• motion of objects, including changes to the objects because of:
  • gravitational force from other objects
  • relativistic speeds
• collisions between objects, including changes to the objects because of:
  • the momentum of the objects
  • the force imparted by the collision
• structural mechanics, including changes to the objects because of:
  • forces larger than the tensile or compressive strength of the objects involved

There are libraries already available for simulating physics in many languages. A list can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_engine