I want to study aquatic ecology with an emphasis on insects and some aspects of fish ecology. Physics is one tool for trying to understand man's place in nature and the physical reality about us. The names Newton and Einstein are ingrained in the physics theories of earlier times, but Seely says this discipline is still creating contemporary achievements. Seely notes that very odd things happen to matter when all its energy is removed, as was the case in Weiman's research. Now, with Einstein's predictions observed for the first time, there's a new state of matter to join liquids, gases, solids and plasmas.
Nanotechnology is another example of physics in use today for the world of tomorrow.
In nanotechnology we look at what we can do on the extremely small scale. In the First-Year Seminar, Physics in Perspective, Seely has his students study the development of the atomic bomb, and nuclear fusion as an energy source. Course members launch model rockets, and measure the rocket's height and thrust. Very profound questions are addressed by physics, but physics doesn't have all the answers. It's been making headway, though, into questions of cosmic creation, and what the ultimate nature of reality is.