Editing History of physics (section)

=== Division into classical and modern ===

[[File:Solvay conference 1927.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.2|1927 [[Solvay Conference]] included prominent physicists [[Albert Einstein]], [[Werner Heisenberg]], [[Max Planck]], [[Hendrik Lorentz]], [[Niels Bohr]], [[Marie Curie]], [[Erwin Schrödinger]],  [[Paul Dirac]]]]

The conceptual differences between physics theories discussed in the 19th century and those that were most historically prominent in the first decades of the 20th century lead to a characterization of the earlier sciences as "classical physics" while the work based on quantum and relativity theories became known as "modern physics". Initially applied to mechanics, as in "classical mechanics", the divide eventually came to characterize quantum and relativistic effects.<ref name="Kragh-2015">{{Cite book |last= Kragh |first=Helge |author-link=Helge Kragh |title=The fin-de-siècle world |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-67413-3 |editor-last=Saler |editor-first=Michael T. |series=The Routledge worlds |location=London |chapter=The “new physics”}}</ref>{{rp|411|q=The period from about 1890 to 1905 saw several attempts at establishing a new,
modern foundation of physics, but what today is known as modern physics – essentially relativity and quantum physics – had other roots.}} This characterization was driven initially by physicists like [[Max Planck]] and [[Hendrik Lorentz]], established scientists who nevertheless saw issues that established theories could not explain. Their involvement and contributions to the 1911 [[Solvay Conference]] lead to the introduction of this split as a concept.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Staley |first=Richard |date=December 2005 |title=On the Co-Creation of Classical and Modern Physics |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/498592 |journal=Isis |volume=96 |issue=4 |pages=530–558 |doi=10.1086/498592 |pmid=16536154 |issn=0021-1753}}</ref>{{rp|558|q=The theory of relativity and the Solvay Council set the stage for the later public understanding that the ''fin de sie`cle'' had witnessed the overthrow of classical and the birth of
modern physics.}}

This division is reflected in the titles of many physics textbooks. For example, the preface of Goldstein's [[Classical Mechanics (Goldstein)|Classical mechanics]] explains why the topic is still relevant for physics students.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Goldstein |first=Herbert |title=Classical mechanics |date=1980 |publisher=Addison-Wesley Pub. Co |isbn=978-0-201-02918-5 |edition=2 |series=Addison-Wesley series in physics |location=Reading, Mass}}</ref> In ''Concepts of Modern Physics'' Arthur Beiser starts with a definition of modern physics:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Beiser |first=Arthur |title=Concepts of modern physics |date=2003 |publisher=McGraw-Hill |isbn=978-0-07-244848-1 |edition=International ed., 6. |location=Boston}}</ref>
{{blockquote| Modern physics began in 1900 with Max Planck’s discovery of the role of energy quantization in blackbody radiation, a revolutionary idea soon followed by Albert Einstein’s equally revolutionary theory of relativity and quantum theory of light.}}
Kenneth Krane's ''Modern physics'' begins a text on quantum and relativity theories with a few pages on deficiencies of classical physics.<ref name=Krane-2019>{{Cite book |last=Krane |first=Kenneth S. |title=Modern physics |date=2020 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Inc |isbn=978-1-119-49548-2 |edition=4 |location=Hoboken, New Jersey}}</ref>{{rp|3|q=We begin our study in this chapter with a brief review of some important principles of classical physics, and we discuss some situations in which classical physics offers either inadequate or incorrect conclusions. These situations are not necessarily those that originally gave rise to the relativity and quantum. theories, but they do help us understand why classical physics fails to give us a complete picture of nature.}} E.T. Whittaker's two-volume [[A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity|History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity]] subtitles volume one ''The Classical Theories'' and volume two ''The Modern Theories (1900–1926).''<ref name="Whittaker">{{Cite book |last=Whittaker |first=Edmund T. |title=A history of the theories of aether & electricity. 2: The modern theories, 1900 - 1926 |date=1989 |publisher=Dover Publ |isbn=978-0-486-26126-3 |edition=Repr |location=New York}}</ref>