What it means
فیزیک (fizik) means physics, the branch of science that investigates the fundamental nature of matter, energy, motion, and force. Persian borrowed the word from French physique, which comes from Greek physika, meaning things of nature. A person who studies or teaches physics is called a فیزیکدان (fizik-dan). Within physics you will often hear sub-fields like فیزیک کوانتومی (fizik-e kvantomi, quantum physics) or فیزیک هستهای (fizik-e haste-i, nuclear physics).
How to use it
- فیزیک برام از همه درسها جالبتره. (fizik baram az hame dars-ha jaleb-tare.) “Physics is more interesting to me than any other subject.”
- قوانین فیزیک در همه جای کیهان یکسانه. (qavanin-e fizik dar hame ja-ye keyhan yeksane.) “The laws of physics are the same everywhere in the universe.”
- اون داره دکترای فیزیک میگیره. (un dare doktora-ye fizik mi-gire.) “He is getting a PhD in physics.”
- فیزیک کوانتومی خیلی انتزاعیه. (fizik-e kvantomi kheyli enteza-ie.) “Quantum physics is very abstract.”
Cultural note
Iran has a long history of scientific inquiry into the natural world. The eleventh-century scholar Abu Rayhan al-Biruni conducted remarkably accurate measurements of the earth’s circumference and wrote extensively on optics and mechanics centuries before European science formalized physics as a discipline. In modern Iran, فیزیک is a required course throughout secondary school, and Iranian universities produce a significant number of physics graduates annually. The country also has an active nuclear physics research program, which has made فیزیک هستهای a politically charged term in recent decades.