In particular, the final word on physics teaching has not been said. The same judgement can be made on research and on physics research. For teaching and researching are inseparable activities, specially, at advanced levels. One step forward in telling the final word about teaching and researching on physics is to state clearly the general goal of physics, and its utility.
In the formal courses of physics it is not stated explicitly what the physics is and what is its utility. The main problem is from the teacher who presents the course, at least in Latin America. The problem is akin in the rest of the world. Most of the time, even for the teacher, it is not clear what the goals of physics are, specially at elementary levels. Textbook on physics and external world are two eternally separated entities. Physics textbook concepts and daily life objects are divorced. The reality, however, is other. Physics and external world are intimately connected; ideally, there is a one to one relation.
The physics is the description and the interpretation of the external world. This let physicists understand the way nature is organized and structured; this understanding conduces the physicist to the practical manipulation of the nature. The practical manipulation of the nature can be used to rectify and to go deeper in the description of the external world. In this form, the circle is closed. It is the circle of theorization-experimentation. Therefore, the correct way of viewing physics is as an interpretation and a description of the external nature.
In the Section 2 we will confront and exhibit that circle. We will show that physics is an experimental science. That is, physics is not a collection of experimental data, but a science based strictly on experimental evidences. We will show this circle using fragments of the master pieces of two fathers of physics: A. Einstein and E. Fermi.
In this course, the circle is presented using the experimental high energy physics. In the Section 3 we will introduce this branch of physics; there we will speak about the atom, about the particles, about the families of particles, and about the classification of particles; we will describe an experiment of high energy physics. Also, we will speak of the situation of the experimental high energy physics in Latin America; and about its incipient development.
Additionally, in the Chapter 4 we will show the utility of the experimental high energy physics. First, we will describe how the physicists reached the actual image on the structure of the nature; the actual knowledge of the nature. Second, we will show how the physics has generated the developments in electronics, in new materials, in computation, in new technologies, and in medicine. This is the main utility of physics.
Each one of those technological areas, created on the advances of physics, has contributed back to physics. New materials for the ultra speedy electronics, new technologies for the fabrication of solid state devices, have founded a new more rapid computation. And this new computation has opened new branches in science, particularly in physics. The computational physics is an instance. This new physics will provide the basis for a new generation of technologies, materials, computations, etc. and these new technologies will push the physics forward.
From that, physics corrects itself. In the continuous process of studying and understanding nature, new ideas are proposed and tested using new technologies. The successful ideas propel new technological progresses. For that, in its roots, physics is an experimental science and still in its own way of edification.
Furthermore, it remains a lot to investigate in physics. This investigation of the nature necessarily must carry us to a deeper description and interpretation of the external world. The understanding of the form nature is structured, necessarily let us to manipulate it to practical purposes.
For that, the formal courses on physics, and the expositions of new results on physics, should reflect that physics is an experimental science; that is, that physics is based on experimental evidences; and that it describes and interprets the external world. That will clarify physics a lot. In this course we will do it; for this, we will use the experimental high energy physics.