Editing Experimental physics (section)

==Overview==
[[File:Sir Ernest Rutherfords laboratory, early 20th century. (9660575343).jpg|thumb|Sir [[Ernest Rutherford|Ernest Rutherford's]] laboratory, early 20th century]]
Experimental physics is a branch of physics that is concerned with data acquisition, data-acquisition methods, and the detailed conceptualization (beyond simple [[thought experiment]]s) and realization of laboratory experiments. It is often contrasted with [[theoretical physics]], which is more concerned with predicting and explaining the physical behaviour of nature than with acquiring empirical data.

Although experimental and theoretical physics are concerned with different aspects of nature, they both share the same goal of understanding it and have a symbiotic relationship. The former provides data about the universe, which can then be analyzed in order to be understood, while the latter provides explanations for the data and thus offers insight into how to better acquire data and set up experiments. Theoretical physics can also offer insight into what data is needed in order to gain a better understanding of the universe, and into what experiments to devise in order to obtain it.

The tension between experimental and theoretical aspects of physics was expressed by James Clerk Maxwell as "It is not till we attempt to bring the theoretical part of our training into contact with the practical that we begin to experience the full effect of what Faraday has called 'mental inertia' - not only the difficulty of recognizing, among the concrete objects before us, the abstract relation which we have learned from books, but the distracting pain of wrenching the mind away from the symbols to the objects, and from the objects back to the symbols. This however is the price we have to pay for new ideas."
<ref> James Clerk Maxwell, "Introductory Lecture on Experimental Physics," The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1890) Vol.2 </ref>