Physics is the science of motion. This includes the motion of everything from galaxies and stars to baseballs and atoms. Since many other sciences are now at the point of using the motion of atoms to understand phenomena in their field, physics is of fundamental importance to current advances in virtually all the sciences. The importance of physics to biology, for example, is illustrated by the fact that a physicist, Francis Crick, co-discovered the structure of DNA and another physicist, George Gamow, was the first to suggest that its nucleotide groups were coded information for the construction of proteins.
Also, no science has been more influential in shaping our overall view of the world. For example, the simple idea that natural phenomena on Earth share the same rules that govern celestial affairs can be traced to Isaac Newton. Currently, our world view is continually enlarged and modified by physics discoveries ranging from cosmologial implications of the Hubble Space Telescope's images to new computational technologies made possible by advances in solid state physics.
In addition to making practical contributions to technology, physics addresses the fundamental questions regarding the nature of the universe. Physicists ask such questions as: What are the fundamental constituents and processes of nature? How old is the universe? How big is the universe? How will it all end?
Although only a service department, the physics program at ENMU also has a research program that focuses on gravitational physics. Much of this work is done in collaboration with the Summer Science Program (www.summerscience.org). Past work includes a theoretical investigation of the stability of hierarchical triple star systems done in collaboration with Russian astrophysicists at Volgograd University and the Sternberg Astronomical Institute.