Greetings fellow Steemians!
Today I would like to begin my physics posts by first telling you about my physics independent research: how I stumbled upon the Thin Satellite Project and what led to my acceptance into the internship.
Spoiler: It was because of my Philosophy class
During the 2017 Spring semester, I was enrolled in Philosophy 202 – Enlightenment to the Present, Physics 236 – Engineering Physics II: Electricity & Magnetism, and Math 208 – Calculus II. At that time, I was also working part-time and volunteering part-time which might sound difficult to manage, but it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. As a requirement for my Philosophy class, we had to write three five-page essays on whichever philosopher we chose. It was recommended that we didn’t argue directly with the philosophers since that would be the most difficult to do. Of course, I went all out and chose to argue directly with Spinoza, and I still disagree with Spinoza!
It is difficult to explain Spinoza’s philosophy and I don’t want to get too philosophical in this post. Basically, for Spinoza, God = Nature (to say it the most simply). Later, Spinoza states that God’s “thoughts” are infinite. My first essay dealt with whether those thoughts (they’re not actual thoughts; it’s more complicated than that) are in fact, infinite. My conclusion was no, and I used Calculus II, Biology, and Physics to prove my point. Unfortunately, my philosophy professor didn’t understand the calculus explanations since, apparently, he only knew trigonometry… nor did he understand the other explanations for that matter despite my attempt to simplify the explanations. Joy. Pure Joy.
(Yes, I solved this problem to make sure the joke was correct.)
To help organize my thoughts when I was first assigned the paper, I talked about the math behind my proofs with my physics professor who, thankfully, understood what in the world I was talking about. I think he was more excited about my proofs than I was.
I spent time theorizing about new math I had never learned before and I was stoked, to say the least, when I discovered, on my own, something about integration I wasn’t taught before. So much that, I told my philosophy professor about my math discovery (the perfect person to talk to about math). Then, one day, in my Calculus 2 class, I learned that someone already discovered it. Some old guy. I can’t remember his name. My heart was too busy crying.
I went back to my philosophy teacher to tell him the sad news, that the math was already discovered (of course it was… lol), “NO! They stole my idea!!!”
My philosophy teacher laughed at me, “Plagiarism doesn’t work backwards!”
I knew he was right, but still… It’s only because they were born first…
I took the opportunity to ask my physics teacher as many physics questions as I could: Why is the universe expanding at an accelerated rate? What are all the theories behind the primordial universe? What is space time? Is there any updated news about black holes? Why is the matter in the universe distributed at random? You need to leave in 20 minutes? Okay, can I ask you one more question and then can I ask you more questions after next class?
I had already considered these things on my own, but just like any normal person (well, I like to think I’m normal), I still had more questions I wanted to ask. I think I kept my professor after class for at least a grand total of eight hours just asking all my random physics questions. So, my physics professor recommended me for the Thin Sat Project since I wanted to learn physics so much. Thanks, philosophy, for spurring me on to learn more physics.
