Reading Journal 3 - The Relation of Physics to Other Sciences

This chapter of Six Easy Pieces shows how physics affects all the other sciences. Despite Feynman’s earlier tone towards chemistry and its inferiority to physics, he does realize the importance in all the other sciences. He discusses how each one gives knowledge of the world and furthers understanding of physics. For chemistry, he talks of how theoretical chemists are actually physicists and that the deepest levels of chemistry end up in quantum mechanics. For biology, he discusses how biologists helped discover conservation of energy. For astrology, he discusses how physics came to be from people noticing the simplicity of the movement of stars and planets. For meteorology, he gives a cynical view in which he says that the reason the measurements are for meteorology are possible is physics and how they have everything wrong. Water and air is unstable, making it impossible to know the condition of the air. For geology, his tone lightens as he discusses the unknowns of geology and how there is much more to be known. For psychology, he discusses two parts. One for psychoanalysis, which is not a science, and the other for the way our brains interpret sensation. He also explains how when we learn, cells have to change, therefore meaning atoms have to change, which brings us back to physics in the interest of the atom. Finally, the explanation of how physics relates to all the other sciences. In his explanation, Feynman analyzes that every other science wants to know what created what they study, and that each science is constantly changing. However, physicists do not interpret what physics is now as anything different of what it was at the beginning of time. Once and for all, he ends his conversation of other sciences to tell the importance of bringing it all together so they can truly understand the world.