Physicsis the host to the separation between theory and experiment. It is thisseparation, which facilitates the development and benefit of the hostand unravels the mysteries of this universe. The separation grew sincethe elder days, when humans started observing and reading the naturalphenomenon. Today most individual physicists have specialized in eithertheoretical physics or experimental physics.
Theorists or theoretical physicists seek to develop mathematical models that bothagree with existing experiments and successfully predict futureresults, while experimentalists or experimental physicists devise andperform experiments to test theoretical predictions and explore newphenomena. Although theory and experiment are developed separately,they are strongly dependent upon each other, and one nurtures the otherfor better understanding of the phenomenon under study.
Progress in physics frequently comes about when experimentalists make adiscovery that existing theories cannot explain, or when new theoriesgenerate experimentally testable predictions, which inspire newexperiments. It is also worth noting there are some physicists who workat the interplay of theory and experiment who are calledphenomenologist. A Phenomenologist looks at the complex phenomenaobserved in experiment and work to relate them to fundamental theory.
Theoretical physics is closely related to mathematics, which provides the languageof physical theories, and large areas of mathematics, such as calculus,have been invented specifically to solve problems in physics. Theoristsmay also rely on numerical analysis and computer simulations. Today thefields of mathematical and computational physics are active areas ofresearch. On the other hand, Experimental physics informs, and isinformed by, engineering and technology; with an objective of testingand verifying what is known to unravel the unknown.
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