Concepts of physics are employed in all aspects of everyday life. The scope of physics is so broad and plays such a basic important role in all engineering and science disciplines that it is hard to define physics without limiting its breadth. The most basic of the sciences, physics, is all around us every day. The laboratory of the physicist extends from the limits of the known universe to inside the nucleus of an atom. A physicist may work in a laboratory designing materials for the computer chips of the future or colliding atomic particles against each other to determine the nature of quarks or to understand how our universe began.
Some astronauts have degrees in physics.
Other physicists have made instruments that diagnose and cure disease, developed safer and cleaner fuels, harnessed the power of the seas and created smaller, faster electronic components and integrated circuits. Research physicists work in industry and government, in laboratories and hospitals and on university campuses. Increasingly, doctors and other medical professionals have undergraduate degrees in physics. Astrophysicists have the largest possible laboratory - the entire universe Elementary Particle Physicists are interested in what happens inside the atomic nucleus They want to learn about Nature's most fundamental building blocks which make up nuclear particles. Although these two extremes may seem unrelated, new discoveries on the sub-nuclear scale are now thought to be keys that will unlock the mysteries of the universe on the grandest scale.