Physics is one of the oldest academic disciplines, tracing its roots back to the dawn of civilization, when humankind began trying to understand the forces that governed the world around them. It is both theoretical (it describes the laws of the universe) and experimental (it puts hypotheses about these laws into practice), and it adheres to the model of verification and legitimation driven by the scientific method.

It is one of the fundamental or central sciences that exist, and within its field of study, chemistry, biology, and electronics, among others, often converge.