Voodoo Time Dot Com

For some time now I’ve been growing increasingly interested in the study of physics. For those who have mentally blocked such unpleasant high school memories, physics is the science of matter and energy and the interactions thereof. Physics is simultaneously the study of the very smallest components of the universe, and of the very largest forces and bodies in the universe - including the very universe itself. The ultimate goal of physics, in a nutshell, is to discover the rules under which all forces in the universe interact. The end result being definitive methods by which anything in the universe could be calculated with reasonable precision.

Fascinating. But this all smells suspiciously of mathematics…

And not surprisingly, this is, indeed, the case. Unfortunately there is only so far one can delve into the study of physics before a fairly sophisticated understanding of math is required. This presents a bit of a problem for such as myself, as I officially do not do math. This is not to say that I do not have a fundamental understanding of mathematical concepts. I can, for example, quite easily find the hypotonotoneuesse of a right triangle (given the lengths of the other two sides, of course) despite the fact that I cannot spell it. Beyond high school algebra, however, I am completely inept.

So, in the interest of personal embetterment, I have taken it upon myself to learn calculus. And furthermore, in the interest of not increasing my current student loan debt, I will be teaching myself. In legal circles it is said that he who represents himself in a court of law has a fool for a client. And I am convinced that he who teaches himself calculus stands amongst an entire classroom of fools.

But consider this. Isaac Newton was probably the most brilliant man of his day. He discovered that the force that caused bodies on Earth to fall the the ground was the very same force that kept the Earth itself in the spinning grasp of the sun. It was Newton who discovered that white light was the aggregate of every color in the visible spectrum, and it was he who first separated them through a prism. And when Newton found that the mathematical constructs of the day were insufficient for the complex calculations he was doing, he invented calculus. He did all of this by the age of 25.

I am 26. I bought a book.

Me go learn to math good…

Bye for now.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2003 at 9:03 pm and is filed under Funny. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.