The joys of learning Physics
Recently, I stumbled upon a very popular video of Prof Walter Lewin, the beloved MIT Physics professor adored by all students. It rekindled the beauty of the subject and a harsh realization of what it takes to convey this beauty of the understandings of nature and the creator's world. It was a similar realization when I had watched another beautiful video lecture on Calculus by Steven Strogatz where he qualifies it as the language that God talks through to us.
Every phenomenon in nature follows certain laws. Sheer will and intelligence of certain individuals ensured that these laws were understood and spread across the world to dispel ignorance and ensure that our lives become easier to lead with the help of tools built through this understanding. Most schools teach Newton's laws of Physics and Law of Conservation of Energy which appear intuitive and easy to understand. Prof Lewin performs experiments to test the limits of his understanding of the laws. These limits not only make the lecture rivetting but also establish his supreme confidence on the fact that Physics works. He explains very simple concepts like time period of a pendulum and its independence of amplitude and mass, energy conservation and Rayleigh scattering. These concepts explain the simple phenomena of nature like the swinging of a pendulum, the colour of the sky and clouds, red colour of sun during sunrise and sunset.
Towards the end, there is a QnA where one of the listeners asks the professor what are the qualities that make a good physicist. He earnestly replies about love for the subject. He also says that if one hates Physics which, by the way is very much possible, it is because they have had a very bad teacher at school for the subject. I feel this is a very genuine and true observation. Studying Physics is understanding nature which is similar to understanding the creator. I find a lot of similarities between studying religion and studying Physics as both can be complementary tools to achieve the goal of finding the answers within.
