• Question: What's most important in the real world ~ Biology, Chemistry or Physics? :}

    Asked by munchbunchismygawd to David, Luna, Mark, Melanie, Probash on 14 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: David Pyle

      David Pyle answered on 13 Mar 2011:

      Mathematics!

      Seriously, though, there is no real answer to this question.. Each of these sciences is important in the real world, and each field has helped to provide solutions to real world problems (whether it is through solving problems of disease, food supply, energy supply, and so on). It is probably also the case that many people trying to solve real world problems will be working together as specialists, but in teams. So it’s more about ‘how can we use biology to solve the world’s energy supply crisis’ (for example) rather than thinking that the only physics could be relevant to this sort of problem.

    • Photo: Melanie Stefan

      Melanie Stefan answered on 14 Mar 2011:

      They are just different ways of looking at the same thing.

      If you see a tree, you can think about how it grows, what it needs to survive, how it out-competes other trees or guards itself against parasites and why it looks a bit like its parents – that’s obviously biology.

      But you can also think about how it uses sunlight to get energy, why its leaves are green (and why they turn yellow in the autumn) or what health benefits we could get from eating its fruits – that would be chemistry

      Or you can ask yourself (as the story goes about Newton) why the fruit falls from the tree, or whether the wood might make good building material or how the tree manages to get water from the ground up all the way into its crown. That’s physics.

      In your daily life, the most important of the three will be the one that you like best, because it will affect the way you think about things and go about solving problems.

    • Photo: Probash Chowdhury

      Probash Chowdhury answered on 14 Mar 2011:

      I don’t think there is one more important than another. The real word is made up of all three with the boundaries blurred more than you might realise.

    • Photo: Mark Vesey

      Mark Vesey answered on 14 Mar 2011:

      I think they are all important, we need to understand the theories behind things to develop technology, processes, improvements etc and all 3 sciences are very relevant in the real world. All the technology you use today is based on science of some kind.

      I personally think that Chemistry kind of connects the other two and i’d vote for that but i’m biassed!! Probably depends on the situation really.

    • Photo: Luna Munoz

      Luna Munoz answered on 14 Mar 2011:

      I think each of these are important in their own way. That sounds like a cop out, but I couldn’t say that one is more important than another. The other day, I was reading about hydrogen peroxide, which I used to use to bleach my hair (don’t try this at home, kids!) and the chemical compound includes oxygen and hydrogen so it decomposes into water! So, I find that I need to know this stuff ‘in the real world’. I think like Melanie said, you need to be open to learning.

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