Physics · Curated list
Big Bang, Quantum mechanics, Thermodynamics and 27 more, ranked by how much of the world has written about each one.
Most written-about first. Each description summarises the branch or theory's Wikipedia article, which its name links to.
1
Physical theory of the cosmos
The physical theory of how the universe grew out of an early, extremely hot and dense state. Cosmological models built on the idea account for many observations: how much of the light elements exists, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, galaxies' redshift and how the universe is structured on the largest scales.
Wikidata · Photo: NASA/WMAP Science Team, Public domain
2
Description of physical properties at the atomic and subatomic scale
Also called quantum physics, the basic theory of physics describing how matter and light behave, usually at the scale of atoms and smaller, where its predictions have often been called counterintuitive. Its ideas and techniques now reach into quantum field theory, quantum chemistry, quantum biology, quantum technology and quantum information science.
3
Physics of heat, work, and temperature
The part of physics dealing with heat, work and temperature, and with how they connect to energy and entropy and to what radiation and matter are physically like. Four laws of thermodynamics govern these quantities, described through measurable large-scale properties; statistical mechanics can explain the same behaviour through the microscopic parts of a system.
4
Two interrelated physics theories by Albert Einstein
Two connected theories of physics by Albert Einstein: special relativity, put forward in 1905, and general relativity, in 1915. Special relativity covers every physical phenomenon where gravity is absent.
Wikidata · Photo: SVG version: K. Aainsqatsi at en.wikipedia Original PNG version: Stib at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
5
Description of large objects' physics
The theory in physics of how forces move large-scale objects and bulk matter. It leaves out quantum effects, and often relativistic effects as well.
Wikidata · Photo: DemonDeLuxe (Dominique Toussaint), CC BY-SA 3.0
6
Theory of gravitation as curved spacetime
Albert Einstein's geometric theory of gravitation, also called the general theory of relativity or Einstein's theory of gravity, published in May 1916 and accepted today as the description of how large bodies gravitate. It extends special relativity and improves on the law of universal gravitation of Isaac Newton, describing gravity in a single way as a geometric feature of four-dimensional spacetime, space and time taken together.
Wikidata · Photo: Einstein (gravitational) field equations including the cosmological constant Λ {\displaystyle \Lambda } by Albert…, CC BY-SA 4.0
7
Branch of physics that studies light
The physics of electromagnetic radiation: how it behaves, how it can be manipulated and detected, and how it interacts with matter and with the instruments that use or sense it. It deals mostly with visible, infrared and ultraviolet light.
8
Theory of interwoven space and time by Albert Einstein
Also called the special theory of relativity, a scientific theory in physics of how space and time are related.
9
Fundamental interaction between charged particles
An interaction in physics between electrically charged particles, carried by electromagnetic fields. Its force is one of nature's four fundamental forces.
Wikidata · Photo: Gregory F. Maxwell < gmaxwell@gmail.com > PGP : 0xB0413BFA, GFDL 1.2
11
Study of the universe
The branch of study that asks what the universe, or cosmos, is by nature. As an English word it dates to 1656, when Thomas Blount's Glossographia used it to mean "a speaking of the world".
Wikidata · Photo: Heikenwaelder Hugo, Austria, Email : heikenwaelder@aon.at, www.heikenwaelder.at, CC BY-SA 2.5
12
Subfield of astronomy
A science that brings the principles and methods of physics and chemistry to bear on astronomical objects and phenomena, the universe included. In the words of James Keeler, one of its founders, it "seeks to ascertain the nature of the heavenly bodies, rather than their positions or motions in space—what they are, rather than where they are"; positions and motions belong to celestial mechanics.
Wikidata · Photo: The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA), Public domain
13
Field of physics that studies atomic interactions
The part of physics that studies atomic nuclei, what they are made of and how they interact, along with nuclear matter in its other forms.
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14
Study of subatomic particles and forces
Also called high-energy physics, the study of the fundamental particles and forces that make up matter and radiation. It covers elementary particles and the combinations they form, as far as the size of neutrons and protons; how neutrons and protons combine is the subject of nuclear physics.
Wikidata · Photo: DimitrisSideridis, CC BY-SA 4.0
15
Interdisciplinary science
An interdisciplinary science that takes the approaches and methods of physics and turns them on biological phenomena.
16
Scientific study of earthquakes and propagation of elastic waves through a planet
The science of earthquakes and of how elastic waves arise and travel through planets and other planetary bodies. It also covers what earthquakes do to the environment, tsunamis for example; other seismic sources, from volcanoes, glaciers, rivers and plate tectonics to oceanic microseisms and the atmosphere; and human-made ones such as explosions.
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17
Branch of physics
A branch of physics that explains and predicts natural phenomena with mathematical models and abstractions of physical systems and objects. Broadly, it tries to say why things happen as they do, rather than only recording that they happen.
Wikidata · Photo: A. T. Service, CC BY-SA 3.0
18
Study of still or slow electric charges
The physics of electric charges on large objects that are still or moving slowly, where quantum effects can be ignored. In that setting, the electric field, the electric potential and the density of charge relate to one another without magnetic complications.
Wikidata · Photo: Original image: Sean McGrath from Saint John, NB, Canada Derived image: Black Rainbow 999, CC BY 2.0
19
Scientific study of crystal structures
The science of the structure and properties of crystals and molecules. Its name comes from two Ancient Greek words, κρύσταλλος and γράφειν.
Wikidata · Photo: Anastasiyagrig, CC BY 4.0
20
Theory of forces and subatomic particles
The theory of particle physics that classifies every known elementary particle and describes three of the four fundamental forces known in the universe. Many scientists around the world built it up in stages over the second half of the 20th century, and its present form was settled in the mid-1970s, once experiments confirmed that quarks exist.
Wikidata · Photo: Yang Chen-Ning and Robert Laurence Mills, Public domain
21
Field of physics that studies the atom
The physics of atoms treated as isolated systems of an atomic nucleus and its electrons, usually meaning how atoms are structured and how they interact.
Wikidata · Photo: JabberWok at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
22
Theory of subatomic structure
A theoretical framework in physics that swaps the point-like particles of particle physics for one-dimensional objects called strings. It describes how those strings travel through space and interact through their vibrations.
Wikidata · Photo: Nina Hernitschek, CC BY-SA 2.5
23
Theoretical framework in physics
Often shortened to QFT, a framework of theoretical physics that brings together quantum mechanics, special relativity and field theory. Particle physics uses it to model subatomic particles, and condensed matter physics to model quasiparticles.
Wikidata · Photo: Parcly Taxel, CC BY-SA 3.0
24
Branch of applied mathematics
The development of mathematical methods for physics and their use there. Defined more broadly, it also covers mathematical ideas that physics has inspired, an area called physical mathematics.
Wikidata · Photo: Yulia Meshkova, CC BY 4.0
25
Category of theories
Theories of physics that leave out quantum effects, or leave out both quantum and relativistic effects, depending on context. Historically the term means physics before 1900, as opposed to modern physics after 1900, which takes in the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.
Wikidata · Photo: G YassineMrabet Talk ✉ This W3C-unspecified vector image was created with Inkscape ., CC BY-SA 3.0
Branch of theoretical physics
Also called classical electrodynamics, a branch of physics that studies how electric currents and charges interact, using an extended version of Newton's classical model; that makes it a field theory of the classical kind.
27
Quantum field theory of electromagnetism
Often shortened to QED, the quantum field theory of electrodynamics in particle physics, framed relativistically. At heart it describes how matter and light interact, and it was the first theory in which special relativity and quantum mechanics fully agree.
Wikidata · Photo: Kulmalukko, CC BY 3.0
Branch of physics
The physics of the large-scale and small-scale properties of matter, especially liquids and solids, that come from electromagnetic forces between electrons and atoms. More broadly it covers condensed phases of matter: systems of many parts that interact strongly.
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29
Theory of the strong nuclear interactions
Often shortened to QCD, the part of theoretical physics that studies the strong interaction between quarks, carried by gluons. Quarks are fundamental particles; composite hadrons such as the pion, the neutron and the proton are made of them.
Wikidata · Photo: original by Maschen derivative by B. Jankuloski, CC0
Description of gravity using discrete values
Often shortened to QG, a field of theoretical physics trying to unify gravity's theory with quantum mechanics and its principles. It deals with settings where gravitational and quantum effects both matter, such as near black holes and similar compact astrophysical objects, and the first moments of the universe after the Big Bang.
Every Wikidata item that is a branch of physics — which is where Wikidata files most theories, from relativity to quantum field theory, and that has its own English Wikipedia article, ranked by the number of Wikimedia sites with a page about it — Wikipedia's language editions, mostly, and sister projects such as Wikiquote. That counts how many communities independently thought it worth describing, and nobody can buy a place on it. The top 30 are shown.
Wikidata files these under this list's query, but they are not what the list is about:
These belong on the list but Wikidata does not file them where the query looks:
Fetched from Wikidata on 2026-09-25. Each description is this site's summary of the entry's Wikipedia article, which its name links to: the wording is ours, the facts are Wikipedia's, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. To correct an entry, correct it there; the next refresh carries the change.
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