Why Physics?

From my earliest days, I have been a naturally curious person. Many of my childhood memories are of intellectual stimulation and exploration, from my astrophysics-themed ninth birthday party to long conversations about string theory with my next door neighbor Mr. Danzy, a retired Black statistician who piqued my interest in the sciences as he reminisced about his days spent working to develop the GPS system at the Naval Research Lab. My father in particular was wonderfully nurturing towards my love of science; when I was a kid he took hours to run stimulating and instructive experiments with me, frombaking an erupting vinegar-and-baking-soda volcano cake for my fourth birthday (yes, it tasted terrible-- but I was thrilled to see it belching red-dyed foam at onlookers) to researching quasars and blackholes so we could discuss them during my astrophysics phase a few years later. As I grew older, my attraction to science became more scholastic, and in my freshman year of college I became enamored with the way physics could unveil so much of reality via the rigorous application of a few widely applicable principles.

My attraction to physics is twofold. For one, I am truly curious about the world, and physics is the best way I know how to go about understanding it. (Thus the website title, which has Greek roots and in Classical Latin roughly translates to "a love of wisdom of the natural world.") It is able to make incredible predictions about seemingly fundamental occurrences while yielding exquisitely detailed insights into the driving nature of these phenomena, transmuting even the seemingly irreducible into statements of logic and quanta. I enjoy the hybridization of rigor and intuition inherent to this approach, as in order to be successful one must have a deep understanding of the topic at hand as well as possess a sort of tenacious intuition so as to learn from persevering through the complications inherent to experimental research. Additionally, the humanitarian potential of physics, with its ability to improve society and advance our species in unison, is deeply fulfilling, and I believe it to be an effective way for me to leverage my passion for discovery to create great benefits for humankind. I envision my career as one which reveals fundamental truths about our reality as well as improves the lives of human beings in the near future. I expect that after obtaining my PhD, I will pursue postdoctoral research to further explore an area related to the one I covered in my dissertation. From my experience as a teaching assistant and as a tutor, I also know that I greatly enjoy helping others by reducing difficult topics to more accessible concepts. As a limited being, it is also clear to me that one of the most meaningful and important things I can do is to instruct another generation of physicists so that they can go on to exceed my capacity for comprehension. As such, my ultimate goal is to one day become an experimental researcher and  teaching professor so that I can combine these passions.