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So, what am I
doing that’s so important? I could be texting friends, or watching YouTube videos, or even
Googling “college essay tips.” Actually, I am watching YouTube. It’s a video about black holes
and how they form. Something about them has always captivated me, they are so mysterious and
powerful. I imagined them as invisible monsters roaming the universe and eating helpless planets
and stars.
As a child I loved playing “the why game.” I constantly asked questions about how and
why things are as they are. Of course, I wouldn’t always get an answer. My grandma isn’t a
biologist who knows why birds lay eggs, and my uncle isn’t a geologist who knows how
volcanoes erupt. Eventually I found science, which was perfect. It turns out there is a proper
method to ask questions and find the answers. I would devour every piece of scientific
I look at my clock and suddenly it’s 9 pm. Somehow two hours of my life just
disappeared. I’m also not sure how I got to a video about colonizing Mars when I was just
watching one about black holes. I turn off my laptop and get to work. I have problems about
projectile motion to solve. While physics calculations can be tedious, I find them interesting and
even fun. It’s like a puzzle in that I must use the limited information available to find what I
don’t know. As I progress, my mind wanders back to the videos I was watching earlier. I think of
the thing that black holes and falling projectiles have in common: gravity.
I know that gravity was first described mathematically by Sir Isaac Newton. He stated
that every object is attracted to every other object through a force directly related to their masses
and inversely related to their distance squared. As I think, it occurs to me how profound this
must have been for people hundreds of years ago. Newton showed that the force that makes
apples fall from trees is the same force that dictates the movement of the heavens. Moreover, this
force can be expressed by a single mathematical equation. It is amazing and powerful that the
I sit in my chair contemplating my thoughts. Not only did the knowledge of gravity
change our world, but it allowed us to step onto other worlds. However, I also know that
Newton’s law of gravitation isn’t the end of the story. It was Albert Einstein who showed that
gravity actually isn’t a force. Rather, mass curves space-time and this curvature dictates the path
an object follows. His theory of general relativity made many predictions, including objects that
deform space so much that all possible directions point inside. This means nothing, not even
With that my thoughts this night come full circle. I find it amazing that even though we
know so much about the universe, there is still so much mystery. Even gravity is not fully
understood. It is the only fundamental force not described by quantum mechanics. Like most
people, I have troubles understanding quantum mechanics and have no idea how it could be
united with general relativity. Yet, this is what I find fun about science. The answers are not just
given to us, they must be pried from the universe using our best tools available: logic, reason,
mathematics, and science. I know it’s improbable that I will ever understand the universe
completely. However, I think that if I’m going to bother to dream, then I should dream big. I
have to start somewhere though, so I clear my head and focus on finishing homework.