Why Physics Intimidates Me

A cute little post I found lying around in my saved posts, dating from early February. ~ The post being shown here in its mostly unedited state - just a stream of conscience that flowed from my itching fingertips - I must apologize for the poor quality of writing. ~
Admittedly, my views have changed somewhat after surviving my first-ever semester of "legit" (excuse the slang) physics, though not all too greatly, surprisingly. ~ I admit that the opinions expressed in this post are skewed somewhat by the fact that my previous physics knowledge can be condensed into one week in Science 10 pre-IB and two months in Chemistry 20 IB, under teachers who were most comfortable in the science of chemistry (obviously), yet even after having taken physics under what I consider to be an excellent teacher, for Physics 30, I can readily reassert the fact that physics should still be left to mathematical minds than my own. ~

All of the smartest people - those who are geniuses and are recognized to have off-the-chart IQs - are physicists. ~ Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, even the fictional Dr. Sheldon Cooper. ~ These are men society has long regarded as being the smartest of them all, so to speak. ~ The "best and brightest" of mankind. ~

Physics is also closely interrelated to mathematics - another area that intimidates me. ~ Not the basic 1+1, mind you - no; I'm talking about the abstract, "imaginative" mathematics. ~ Think of what men such as Leonhard Euler, Rene Descartes Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Gottfried Liebnitz have thought up, tested and proven - feats that I hadn't even considered, let alone would have been able to approach. ~ Also, reflect on the fact that many high school and university students have much trouble just learning these concepts - not even deducing or developing then, but merely understanding them. ~ This hints at the magnitude of these men's intelligence, creativity and imaginativeness. ~

This is evidently a biased opinion, but I believe that it takes much less intelligence to write proficiently than to develop algorithms or dream up new theories. ~ That's not saying that anyone can produce brilliant pieces of writing - that would be completely undermining the works of such men as William Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe, to mention just two - but I do believe that writing is a tool in everyone's box of skills that is at least present, if not sharpened. On the contrary, one does not always find the math drill or the physics saw so conveniently handy as the writing screwdriver often is. ~ In fact, these physicists and mathematicians all eventually need to draft and publish papers on their findings, and that implies having at least a solid enough knowledge of the literary arts to be able to clearly communicate their ideas. ~

(Here, I went off and had a discussion with GL, who is a whiz at physics and math, which prompted the little post-blurb found below. ~ Ah, the joys of argumentation and debating.)

Presumption: almost all of the topics worth dealing with have been addressed deeply and extensively by literature already. ~ The millions of books written on practically any and all subjects imaginable provide proof to this claim. ~ Of course, there exists future topics that will spring up depending on evolution of the earth and of the human species. Yet even these can be tied back to aspects that have already been examined. ~ Take the example of environmental concern - a subject that may seem novel to our era. ~ However, First Nations have always sensed a deep connection to nature that to them is inviolable. Does protecting the environment, with its shiny new gloss of modernism applied on, seem so new after all? ~ The point that I'm trying to get at with all of this is that writing can hardly be called novel or original anymore - at least not fully. ~ Yet mathematics and physics still continue to expand and grow into m-theory, dark matter and entropy. All this makes me feel as though literature is much more dusty and old in comparison. ~

And there you have it. Perhaps at a later date I shall write up a new and improved version of this post, or merely continue the self-debate. ~ Just a writer's whim, perhaps? ~

Bonus (or just an amusing factoid, for those who care): My physics teacher wrote up little blurbs on each of us students and showed them to us on the last day of classes. Imagine my amusement when he popped down to me:

Answer: Biology.

Question: What was [Resa's] favourite part of physics class?

Yes, just a little bias.~