I love physics. Physics not only answers my insatiable thirst to know everything about the world around me but it also gives me some superpowers. My love for physics began before I even knew what physics was. As far back as I can remember I have questioned how the world works and why it works in a certain way. I would ask myself: why is the sky blue, how can birds fly, and why are some days shorter than others? I put those questions aside until my junior year of high school when I entered a physics class. I had been taught to believe that physics would be a horrible subject that I had to struggle through, but it turned out to be the beginning of an infatuation. All of the questions that I had asked and had not been able to answer arose again, as well as new ones. It is an amazing feeling to be able to look around your world and know why things happened. To know how sounds are formed, where things will fall, even how a magician does his trick, all mysteries are revealed through physics. Physics has not only answered my questions, but also proposed new ones that challenge not only my views, but my imagination as a whole. I remember the first time I was explained the theory of relativity, and the moment I heard about the string theory. For days it was all I could think and talk about. I have discussions with my friends over it and watch videos on YouTube about it. Now I walk into AP Physics enthusiastically everyday not knowing what it will hold and what other mysterious it will reveal.
The magic of physics isn't constrained to only explaining why things happen, but more intriguingly what's going to happen. Physics is the only way to tell the future, besides what Nostradamus and phone psychics might lead people to believe. For example, if you were to jump off a skyscraper, given the proper information a physicist would be able to tell you when and how fast you would hit the ground, before you even jumped. Therefore, the first superpower that physics has instilled in me is the ability to tell the future. Physics also enables me to see things that are invisible to regular humans. For instance there is no doubt that black holes are invisible. Yet through the laws of physics any physicist will tell you not only that they exist but their precise location, given enough information that is. Now a physicist obviously can't see a black hole, but they know how matter behaves around it, and by looking for that, they spot black holes.
I plan to discover even more powers at Yale's physics program. I hope to enroll in a class taught by Yale's Professor Ramamurti Shankar, and actually sit down in the lecture hall, instead of watching him from my computer thousands of miles away. More importantly I would love to be able to discover these powers on my own, as 95% of science undergraduate students do research with Yale faculty. Yale will give me the opportunity and resources to become a full-fledged physics superhero.
The magic of physics isn't constrained to only explaining why things happen, but more intriguingly what's going to happen. Physics is the only way to tell the future, besides what Nostradamus and phone psychics might lead people to believe. For example, if you were to jump off a skyscraper, given the proper information a physicist would be able to tell you when and how fast you would hit the ground, before you even jumped. Therefore, the first superpower that physics has instilled in me is the ability to tell the future. Physics also enables me to see things that are invisible to regular humans. For instance there is no doubt that black holes are invisible. Yet through the laws of physics any physicist will tell you not only that they exist but their precise location, given enough information that is. Now a physicist obviously can't see a black hole, but they know how matter behaves around it, and by looking for that, they spot black holes.
I plan to discover even more powers at Yale's physics program. I hope to enroll in a class taught by Yale's Professor Ramamurti Shankar, and actually sit down in the lecture hall, instead of watching him from my computer thousands of miles away. More importantly I would love to be able to discover these powers on my own, as 95% of science undergraduate students do research with Yale faculty. Yale will give me the opportunity and resources to become a full-fledged physics superhero.
