Showing posts with label big. Show all posts
Showing posts with label big. Show all posts

March 6, 2010

The smallest and the biggest


When I was in junior high school, I used to sit in the back of the class, next to my friend Foggy. We were talking all the time, and making some noise, for sure, but were still able to learn what we should. My favorite class was mathematics, no doubt. But this was before I discovered theoretical physics.

In senior high, I had a really good physics teacher. I got very fascinated by the most extreme ends of physics, the smallest and the biggest: Elementary particles and atoms at the smallest scale, stars and galaxies on the biggest scale. All the everyday physics in between, the kind of things we experience and feel in our lives on earth, I found mostly boring.

When I went to the university, it was an easy choice, it had to be physics. I found that astrophysics was kind of boring at the advanced level. Most of the time we were computing equations of state for white dwarfs and neutron stars. However, elementary particles was really cool. So, I was majoring in quantum field theory; this amazing mixture of quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of relativity.

Unfortunately, there are not many jobs in the quantum business. When I graduated, I started to work with the plain everyday stuff; geophysics. Surprisingly, I find it really interesting, because the mathematical methods we use to solve our problems are basically the same in all branches of science.
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