The Physics of Marketing is a new project that I am launching. I don’t understand Physics. I have never taken a formal class on the subject, and my exposure to Physics has been limited. However, I find Physics to be fascinating. Something I do know a little about, though some days I question that too, is marketing. So here is the idea. I hope to gain a greater understanding of Physics, by asking the world to describe concepts from the discipline in analogies that would pertain to Marketing. I hope that this will generate a fair amount of discussion and debate, and ultimately I will come to learn more about both physics and marketing.
This project was inspired by two books.
1. Creativity by Mihály CsÃkszentmihályi – an amazing book about what it means to be creative and how to cultivate creativity in every aspect of life.
2. 50 Physics Ideas You Really Need to Know by Joanne Baker. Not being a Physicist, I don’t 
know how good this one is. I do know that it lists 50 Physics ideas, (see the title) and offers a concise, easy to understand, explanation of each. I found this at the Borders outlet for 3 dollars and could not resist.
Ideally the project will work like this. Each week, I will place a concept from the world of physics up for discussion. I will offer my modest, and probably flawed explanation of the principle, and then I will ask the world to help me understand how this could be applied to Marketing. I am hoping that people will decide to play along and we can all learn and have a laugh with this. I have a few engineers in my family, and hope that will decide to chime it, as they are uber smart, funny, and frequently discuss things like this when together around holidays and special occasions. The discussion always ends up somewhere on physics, and I am stuck trying to piece together what they are talking about by listening for contextual clues. Perhaps by next Christmas, I will know what the heck they are talking about, and can participate in the discussion. Worst case, I will strengthen a glaring weakness in my Trivial Pursuit game.
So world, I invite you to play along and teach me, and everyone else who reads this site, a little something about science. Follow the advice of the renowned musical scientists the Beastie Boys, and drop some science knowledge on me “like Galileo dropped the orange.” It’s the sound of science.
Week 1 – Mach’s Principle
Week 2 – Newton’s Laws of Motion
Week 3 – Kepler’s Laws
