I've often been asked, "Why Physics?" and I've given many different answers.
1) I love it, I love it, I love it: as soon as I found out what experimental science was, I couldn't keep my hands, or my mind, off it.
2) The people I ran across in math and hard sciences tended to be those whose company I most enjoyed and after whom I most wanted to take as a young person.
3) Physics and math are things I was brought up being told I could not do.
4) I got tired of language, literature, and philosophical fields because every time I'd write my own paper on a subject, I'd see the same thing had already been expressed. Everything had been thought before, written before, and done before.
Reading in the humanities was always disheartening because I kept making connections in my head, arriving at new ideas, and then seeing that same idea expressed on the next page; frustration ensued. When you're reading a physics publication and start forming new ideas in your head and then find out the equation you just arrived at is indeed located on the next page, waves of joy ensue instead.
Also, the people I ran into in the humanities tended to be haughty and exclusive and liked nothing better than to say things like, "oh you haven't read that, you just have no idea, and now you're excluded from this conversation; ha ha." So many treated their professions as an outlet for what I like to call "intellectual masturbation," and many more just loved to hear themselves talk above all else.
5) A physics teacher once gave me a college recommendation letter stating that, in his opinion, I would make for a "perfectly adequate" physics major. If you know anything about wiriting a college letter of recommendation for a student, you know that anything short of high praise is considered fairly abysmal damnation. Come on now, I just had to prove that guy wrong (always tempted to think, "God, bless that fellow... with a brick")!
Those are most of the ways in which I've answered that question.
DISCLAIMER: Now all the negative stuff I've said about people in the humanities most certainly CAN, and just as often does, apply to people in the sciences. I'm just saying that when I was young, at the time at which I was making decisions as to which field of study to pursue, and in the particular environments to which I was exposed at the time, these were my general impressions. Oh boy do I have stories to tell about Math Snobs and the "intellectual masturbation" of some scientists who believe the world revolves around them -- but I digress.
Regardless of whom I ran into, ultimately, the joy of science itself always lit my path of study.
_______
But the whole point of this entire bloody post is that I've finally found the perfect answer to the question, "Why Physics?"
The natural realm is the anchor of unbelief. But that realm is not to be considered as evil. Rather the humble of heart recognize the hand of God through what is seen. God has created all things to speak of Him -- whether it is rivers and trees, or angels and heaven. The natural realm carries the witness of His greatness...for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.
-- Bill Johnson, When Heaven Invades Earth: A Practical Guide to a Life of Miracles. Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image Publishers, Inc, 2003. Chapter 4.
In becoming a physicist I trained my eyes to see and my ears to hear God through the natural realm.
Actually, I've given that as a reason before as well, just not nearly as eloquently as Johnson does; I'd blurt out, "I do physics because I'm listening to God talking," or something to that effect, which would most often cause my interlocutor to look at me askance and slowly start backing away, so it's not an answer I've made a habit of giving. But again, perhaps I've just not been hanging around with the ideal crowd.
Now, to continue into the supernatural realm. Yes, I know I've certainly taken my time getting around to reading this book: back to it!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment