Physics: Easy to Hard

At the bottom of this page is a link to harder material. This is a pretty cool way to learn stuff:
The layman’s view of physics is usually far from reality. In fact, the layman’s view of reality is often far from reality: Physics is the study of the fundamental properties of the Universe; but the average person understands little physics, at least not in the way a physicist does. Thus, most people have little understanding of the world they live in, except for things limited to humankind, which tends to have a small influence on the Universe as a whole. Of course, if people understood themselves better, the world would be a nicer place to live, but that’s another story.
This story is about the impressions many people have about physics, and how they differ from the real thing. (See also Are you a quack?) In particular, it is also about high energy physics, the most fundamental part of physics, and the misconceptions of it held even by many students of physics.
Physics is a science. Most misconceptions about physics are about science in general, but these are most obvious in the case of physics, because of all the sciences it is the most foreign to most people, because it seems to relate the least to everyday events. In fact, the opposite is true, since physics applies to everything, while the other sciences are more specialized. (See science and theoretical high energy physics.)
Common misconceptions