Jingly Bells and Big Bangs

Hohoho, Christmas  must be in the air and as always, we have some religious nuts going around complaining about secularism. Now I try to maintain my stance as irreligious in this debate, so I don't usually argue with them, but a really funny question popped up. 

"Why do people still believe in the Big Bang Theory when it's been disproved by the Bible?"

Sorry, but if you in some way agree with that reasoning, I am pretty sure you are not a Catholic. Or you are a really terrible one.

No, not because I think that Catholics are heretic whose only real thing they have going is the fact they are around for pretty much two millennia and for a large portion of that time, were the most powerful corporation in the planet.

And also not because I think not being a catholic means you are an heretical protestant that should receive the wrath of Inquisition, as the good old days of the Holy See as the overseer of the world (as opposed to the modern US, which I am also going to assume you are from)

Now, the reason why I know you’re not a catholic is because, as a former catholic, I know one of the things we would pride ourselves is in the fact that the catholic church and/or catholic individuals were innovators in various fields of science. And every catholic likes to brag about it to their protestant and atheist friends. I used to be like that.

Some of the greatest astronomic discoveries were made by catholic priests like the fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun, by Copernicus, which if I recall, is also in contradiction to the Bible (Actually later, Galileo got in some hot water with the Holy See because of this same heliocentric view). Another catholic priest, Mendel, is known as the father of genetics, which, along with many other things, have been used to prove that evolution is an actual thing (again in contradiction to the Bible). And the topic of your question, the Big Bang theory, was first proposed by a Belgian catholic priest, Lemaitre.

So, you have the biggest christian church in the planet, where its members have made discoveries that well may contradict the Bible, which is like the constitution of Christianity. Now you have a few options on what to believe:

A - You take the catholic approach, that is to say that while it may seem like it contradicts the bible, in reality, it doesn’t contradict it at all, since in essence, even though Bible is the word of god, they may have taken some literary liberty in some descriptions. I mean, if you think about it, while the bible doesn’t say anything about evolution, it doesn’t say anything against it, just like with Big Bang. If anything, the only suspicious “theory” here is that the Earth revolves around the sun, when Genesis clearly says the sun was made as a lighter above the firmaments. Although I do think the Catholics are really good with Jedi Mind tricks and Doublespeech.

B - You take my approach, and assume that a Book written (allegedly) over the span of two millennia with multiple writers none of them with the scientific knowledge we have today, and as such, on a bad trip, assumed to have met a “god” who told them words of wisdom. You know, like when Marduk slayed Tiamat and with her body created the world (you should know about them, they were part of Abraham’s first religion, back when he was just Abram). Fairy tails.

C - Or you take the fun approach, the planet X approach, or the flat-earther approach, believing that the catholic church has somehow allied itself with the scientists and the Muslims (even back when they were killing each other in the crusades) in a massive conspiracy to promote heretical teachings that contradict their own word, for the purpose of… making frogs gay with chemicals in the water? On that note, should we open an inquiry on the subject of heliocentric solar system? It seems like Sun worship to me.

Yeah, this isn’t about the scientific reason, because we both know we wouldn’t understand. The reason why I believe in the Big Bang, is because believing in it wouldn’t really hurt me in any way. And if I believe that the Earth revolves around the sun in an elliptical path, then it’s not much of an stretch to believe that the universe is expanding.

So long, and happy Holidays everyone!!

What is science?

Hey everyone, just got back from hibernation, back to this... Hold on a minute, I still have some drowziness so I might, and probably will mispell something.

I claim to speak a lot about science, however, there is a key detail that I haven't talked about, and that is... What the hell is science?!

Wikipedia says of science “… a enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe” and I think it does hit the main point of what science is all about. Why scientists work on every day? To understand the universe and understand how things work and fit in. Why do we want to understand that? So that we can predict what will happen if we do something, how something is supposed to act if something else happens to it. This is a generalistic approach, but I think it is valid, because it may also ask: “Why do we care?”. You see, you can’t deny that science has had a substantial, I would say without a doubt, a defining rule in the shape of our modern societies. And yet, many question if we should still be working on science. They say something like “Is that going to be useful at all?”. As a scientist, (at least now, I can call myself a minor one) it’s really frustrating. And it depends on the science too.

#THIS NEXT PART IS JUST A PERSONAL RANT. TL;DR: PEOPLE ARE NOT CARING ENOUGH ABOUT SCIENCE BECAUSE WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH SCIENCE POSTER CHILDS THAT CAUSE A HUGE UPROAR AND BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE TURNING SCIENCE POLITICAL.

In life and environmental sciences, it’s easy to show how it can affect our daily lives, since regularly they have applications that may affect us directly. Chemistry also has some clear motivations for the public, because while they may not have a direct application, they have an industry, which is interested in the progress of chemistry. As for physics, we kind of reach a dilemma. Now we have applied physicists, and the projects I have worked on was essentially applied physics, so there is still some interest in that area. But I want to work on the fundamental fields someday, and it’s really hard to find any useful application for fundamental physical research in less than 60 years. It didn’t use to be like that. A good example would be the discovery of x-rays. Less than 20 years after its discovery, doctors had already seen its use for something that was very hard to do back then. Being able to see inside of someone without cutting they open. It was revolutionary.

Somehow, medicine has been the area that has benefitted from physics the most this last century, other than the tech industry. The new diagnostic and therapeutic tools provided to medicine due to the quantum revolution, that also led to the development of computers and everything that followed it. General relativity allowed for the development of GPS, and for the proper usage of artificial satellites. These are all things that now are more and more prevalent in our lives, and yet, most of the physics required for them is more than 60 years old. Again, we do have some exceptions in the tech industry and medicine, but as for as the common person goes, physics stopped being relevant. And right now, science as a whole as grown so complex that it’s hard for one person to even revolutionize one single field of a science, let alone revolutionize all of it. What would it take to do so? I can’t fathom it, and that’s because I’m not an Einstein. And because I’m a Feynmann either, I can’t show people the marvels of science and captivate an audience as he did, specially since back then he wouldn’t be competing with the Kardashians or Marvel movies (just comics).

So these and many other factors explain why science has lost importance in the eyes of the public, and scientists themselves are losing trust from the public, for things that really shouldn’t be political, like climate change. But that doesn’t change science core principle of understanding the universe and predicting its next move.

#THAT ENDS THE RANT. SORRY ABOUT THAT

But in the end, science is all about working hard, (now as a team more than often) to try and solve an existing question, and maybe from there understand the universe a little bit better, predict what happens in similar circumstances and solve the new questions that will unavoidably pop up. I hope that helped.

Extra: What about not-physics?

I am doing this resigned of the test I will do tomorrow. I may sound pissed or something, but it is not because of the subject, far beyond that, I find it quite interesting (I'm only like this because tomorrow I will have to wake up really early). 

Most subjects I've had were either physical, mathematical or some weird juxtaposition of biological or chemical concepts for physicists or people who work with physics, so having Economics has been a blast. Being able to look at underlying mecanisms that are behind our policies, and that have influenced much of history. And the debates, where you have different ideologies clashing each other, as if you were in a japanese anime with a villain and a hero (Dragon Ball Z is a good example, the classical shounen genre) were both of you were villains on each other's eyes. I am not an economist, nor will I be one, as far as I know, which is why I cherish this subject I am having right now, because I know I will likely work on it again, but I am very certain I will be working with it, whether it be as an engineer or as a physicist.

Sure, the current dynamics of your society shows everyone in bubbles, more or less isolated from each other, none standing each other. It's kind of sad actually. I am specially sad for the so-called "far-left and far-right activists" in our social media. Sure, classifying political ideologies as being binary is about as stupid as classifying sexuality as such. There is a whole spectrum, and it should even be one-dimensional. Now, we pretty much assume that if you are pro-LGBT and pro-choice, you automatically are a leftist, a socialist (or as any right-wing in the US would say, communist "UUUUuuuuhh the commies are coming, and they are coming hard"). And I pretty much thought of myself as such as well. Now, while I still consider myself as progressive, I don't think of everything as black and white anymore. There are many sides to one issue, some with more validity than others.

No sides are equal, but if we notice a logical flaw we shouldn't just shut it down. As something that kind of pisses me off, a good example is astrology. I may think that an astrologer is a legalized con-artist, but I won't shut down someone for believing stars millions of miles away will have any influence in their lives. I even enjoy reading the horoscopes to my "alleged" signs. It's quite funny actually what they think of Taurus. But if  you don't go with a sceptic eye, you might start thinking, "Hey, I am like that too. This thing really can say something about me.". Heck, even as a sceptic, I noted some things were the same for what I thought was my personality. I am pretty sure some psychologists have studied this, if you know who they are, please leave your comments down below.

Here's a dilemma we were talking about on class. Something about an huge oil reserve in Alaska, worth something like 700 billion USD. To give you perspective, you know how many countries have a GDP below that value? Pretty much all of them, besides the 18 wealthiest countries (Not counting the European Union as a single economic entity, although it is a single economic entity). So naturally there is an huge interest in exploiting the resources. But the debate was not because this oil reserve was found, but because of the location. It happened to be on a natural reserve, I think, where there are some animals who might be endangered, and the method that was being discussed for extracting the oil could put that ecossystem in jeopardy (not the game) so obviously you had two sides in the issue.

One side (the proxy republicans) obviously thought that 700 billion dollars was too much to let go to waist, and specially after the wealthy people tax cut, they should probably find money to cover for government expenses, because these poor people can't even afford their healthcare anymore. The other side (the environmentalists) were already against this before the debate started, for the simple reason that our planet is FUCKING DYING and we should go solar before it's too late. After that, they also thought about the endangered species, I mean, at least think of the children, will they even know what these animals were in the future, if they go extinct? It's a matter of patrimony.

In the end, the debate remained unconclusive, because we still had two many people in both sides. But, a third group appeared. I started as an environmentalist and ended in this group, because ignoring our feelings, and destroying our emotions we decided to look at this from a survival and economic perspective. Something that would allow us that have a sustainable future, while still enjoying the benefits from that oil. Maybe we could still exploit the oil, with a method that wasn't so damaging to that environment. Sure, you could argue, that is not gonna help the planet. But realistically, it is the best option. Our energetic needs right now, or at least, those of the US, which is the country that matters for this particular issue, can't really be suplemented by solar alone, so even if all governments decided to start replacing every fossil fuel energy with renewable, it would still take decades to fully replace everything. So if that oil is gonna sit there, it may as well be used. On the same time, let's admit that maybe use a better, safer method, and while many say they are not even sure if the oil reserves are that big or if the terrain allows to use that method, the Secretary of Interior, the "geologist", I think his name was Zinke, still allowed for using that controversial method. We believe that yeah, maybe use the oil, but at least, make sure to look like you give a shit about the environment.

That was a fun day, and we had other debates, most of them about issues affecting our own Portuguese reality, so I don't think it would of much interest to you guys. It was cool, we were able to exchange ideas, oppose ideas, have a bit of conflict (I secretly like chaos) and even change your own personal beliefs. Economics not only taught me how to make decisions (it is literally the science of decision-making) but it also taught me how to change my decisions if they happen to be stupid, and to find if they are stupid by sharing them with someone you disagree with. Again, this doesn't mean you should take it as a subject.

The core message I wanted to share from my experience was that maybe discussing your ideas with people outside of your echo-chamber is not a bad thing. And yes, you will find out you are wrong in many things, and yes, you will be pissed about it, but you will thank it, one day.

What do physicists whine about most?

I wouldn’t say whine. I have never seen a physicist whine. We are too high on coffee to do that, we just tear things apart, ripping the fabric of space-time. But I can tell what a physicist may feel uncomfortable with, and will use myself as an example for a couple of those.

One thing I believe we’re not comfortable with is when people assume we are geniuses just because we are doing physics. Don’t get me wrong, I am talking about the kids (and by kids, I mean mentally immature, not an actual minor. We have to specify everything, or else the internet crucifies you, like "someone" was allegedly... I am digressing) on the internet who say things like “Hey look, I have an IQ in the 99th percentile, look at me”, and also, physics does demand a lot of work to be understood, but I don’t like when I see people using things like “I read Quantum Mechanics books because I am very smart”. Like, many people think Einstein achieved what he did just because of his intellect, and I think that is an offense to Einstein, by disregarding the efforts he did. Sure, having an IQ of 200 is great, but if you don’t make at least the effort to learn something you will definitely not achieve anything. That being said, there are various examples of physicists you could describe as being prodigies, like Von Neumann, Dyson or Witten. But most physicist that go to work on the field, do it because they love what they are working on, and not because they feel like “With my intellect, this is the least I could do to you, mere lesser minds (Who speaks like this?)”. Again, I am not generalizing. Maybe there are geniuses who are also selfish pricks, and yes that sounds contradictory, but we are humans, contradiction, dichotomy materialized in flesh. Just so we can be clear, I looked up for dichotomy in the dictionary before using it. In the same, even best physicists today will still look for work done by those before him. Not only because we want to learn what they discovered, but for more trivial reasons, like plagiarism. Who cares if you found a new cure for cancer? If you don't quote those who did a prior work on that, who may have had come close to reaching your conclusion, a lawyer is coming up in your ass with a lawsuit. And you will lose credibility, and the scientific community will pretty much ignore you, and we don't want our brightest minds to go to waste, just because of some silly pride. So yeah, that is one frustration for me. Sure, we can say, that it may also be because I am stupid, and I take it. Yeah, I am stupid. Which is why I try to find ways to not be stupid anymore.

And also, really important, all this new age bullsh*t about quantum this, quantum that, magnetic something something, usually related to some biological or medical principle, like quantum mind (Now there is quantum biology, and that is a legit science)… The reason this ticks me of is because it affects my field. Whenever someone hears medical physics, or biophysics they start saying, oh yeah I heard about your field. I am like, “Really? I thought mine was a darkhorse in the different subfields of physics”, and then I just hear a “I’ve reading specially a lot on the quantum nature of consciousness” (Now again, we can use the mathematical methods in quantum mechanics and apply it to neurophysics, but in no way we assume brain activity to have a quantum feature) or “Do you work on magnetic therapy?” (We do use magnetic fields in medical and biological physics, but as far as I am aware, only in imaging and spectroscopy)*. I guess it is the same with astronomers and astrophysicists when they get asked “I was born in April, do you know the effects Jupiter has on me?” (While this is a hypothetical, I do know a friend of mine who went through this). Sure, these people are not at fault, they were just misinformed, my real frustration is with those gurus that spread these false statements as factual. We physicists do enjoy a bit of pondering and philosophy, but when you take that thought experiment and turn it into something “factual”, not only you have gone out of physics, you left the realm of science altogether.

I mean, today I was talking about it with this friend of mine. She is more tolerant to them, and even sometimes we joke around with astrology, but that is because most of us have already accepted astrology as a pseudo-science. And those who go there, don't think they will actually meet with a scientist. However, those who go to homeopaths, actually believe they are meeting with a respectable doctor. And that is dangerous. 

Sorry for my long rant, but these are things that I think could possibly make us whine a lot. And to all other physicists, if you think I exagerated on some parts or if you think I left something out, please tell me.

*An update to that, actually we can use magnetic fields for therapy, but definitely not in the way they are talking about it.

What is wrong with modern physics?

I will rant a bit about my personal frustrations and hopes for the future of modern physics. Now, sure I ain't shit, but to be honest neither are most future physicists. As of right now, we are only prospect physicists, many of us will work on the tech industry, many in the financial market, and many will give up to insanity and start talking nonsense like "quantum mysticism". But if we want to start, if you are talking about concepts in modern physics, well, is the fact that it is incomplete. Why that is? Well, for many reasons. For one, right now, we are trying to understand physics at the most extreme environments in the universe, many of which we will probably never be able to reach. Before an hypothesis has been well established you already have a new, better hypothesis (which is great, so that is actually what is right with modern physics).

But the main problem is the fact that our technology can’t keep up. Many of the theories in Modern Physics can only be confirmed if they are verified experimentally. Before when Physics was mostly done by people who had their own wealth, experimentalists would take a year or two to dismiss or prove some hypothesis, but nowadays, while it is easier to become a physicist than ever before, it is also harder to do physics, so hard that only budgets of countries could afford to do so.

And then we reach another problem, countries may not be that interested in investing in physical research, because while research in chemistry and biology have a clear practical use, usually it takes 60 to 70 years for one to find any sort of use from physical principles. I mean, many of the technologies we take for granted today are based on physics from 60 years ago, to say the least. And lawmakers aren’t interested in investing in things at such long scales (F*ck why do you think many of them don’t believe in Climate Change?). I mean, in the 30’s and 40’s they at least had the motivation of nukes.

But still we are doing some advancements every year, and I understand your feelings, if you compare to last century and how fast physics seemed to advance, in a couple of decades, entire paradigm shifts occurring, it was a joy to be alive back then. But it is not all that bad today. As I said, we have more people working on physics now than ever before, even though many people are dropping out. So while we may not have a generation of physics wonders, we do have an entire army of physicists working not only in fundamental research, but also on applied physics, so we can directly improve your life, and so those lawmakers can see that “Hey, maybe we should invest a bit more on this, and less on our behemoth of an army”.

I let my anti-war sentiments slip there a bit, but I hope I answered your question.

Who is smarter between theoretical physicists and experimental physicists? - A personal take

So this was a question asked by someone on Quora, and I found it interesting enough to answer not because I am a theoretical or experimental physicist and I am butt-hurt or similar. But because  many outside of the scientific community seems to think there is some sort of rivalry between physicists of different approaches or fields. So this is my take on that. In the time, I will try to look for someone who has actually worked for more than a decade as a physicist, they would have a lot more to say than me. But to start...

I guess it really depends on what you mean by smart.

For instance, the usual definition of smart, is someone that is quick-witted, someone is quick to take decisions, but also intelligent, so a smart person is someone that has quick-witted intelligent. Just because you are intelligent, wouldn’t mean you are quick-witted and vice-versa. Now it is true, that in American english, smart is synonymous with intelligent, so I guess what you mean is who is more intelligent. And going by that, an intelligent person is someone who is able to acquire AND apply knowledge and skills. 

And we can assume both theoretical and experimental physicists would need to be able to acquire knowledge and apply such knowledges, for the sake of obtaining new knowledge. Now as for who is more intelligent, that depends on what you need, what knowledge or skill you are considering. Pure logical or mathematical reasoning may seem like the bulk of a theoretical physicist’s work, but they also need to be able to interpret new results obtained by an experimentalist, in order to either reject or change their previous theory. On that same note, an experimentalist would need to know how to obtain and analyze the results of an experiment, but also would to know enough about the theory to either dismiss the results as nonsense or an artifact, or to actually challenge the theory itself (or hypothesis, if the theory has yet to be established as such). And actually, many physicists end up working a certain time of their careers in both sides, so trying to say one is smarter than the other may be tough, with this mass flip-flopping around the pond.

But anyway, here are some famous physicists from both sides (Not including Einstein, because well, you know him)

Experimentalists:

• Michael Faraday (which is actually interesting, albeit not having formal education in physics, and being kinda sloppy in mathematics, actually was such a brilliant experimentalist that he was one of the forefathers of the classic theory of electromagnetism)
• Wilhem Roentgen - The first Nobel Prize in Physics, for the discovery of X-rays
• Ernest Rutherford, known as the father of nuclear physics, and the greatest experimentalist of his time, since Faraday. Also he discovered the nucleus, for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Also, he has an element with his name (Cool!)
• Enrico Fermi, creator of the world first nuclear reactor, and called by some as the “architect of the nuclear age” (or the atomic bomb). He is actually one of those physicists who are great both experimentally and theoretically, making advancements in quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics and statistical mechanics. Also a Nobel Prize winner.
• John Bardeen, also a physicist and electrical engineer, who has part of the trio who made the first transistor (which revolutionized the world, I mean, the entire modern computation can stem its hardware to that pivotal moment) with Shockley and Brattain, and also the guy who made the first formal theory of superconductivity (also known as BCS theory, for Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer). He is actually the ONLY physicist to have won two Nobel Prizes in Physics. (Marie Curie won one in Chemistry. Of course, she was a great experimentalist as well)

Theoretical Physicists (I tried to pick those who are not Nobel Prizes, so that you don’t think only Nobel physicists are great):

• Leonhard Euler (everyone knows him first as a mathematician or a god of mathematics, but did you know he was also a physicist? There are literally entire books with his achievements.)
• James Clerk Maxwell, a mathematical physicist (like Einstein). He is considered by many physicists as being as important as Einstein and Newton, due to his pivotal contributions. He was the second great unifier of physics, joining electricity, magnetism and light onto a single theory of electromagnetism. And his equations were pivotal enough that led to the formulation of the special relativity by Einstein, so you know he is a big deal. And his works were fundamental to the developments of fields like Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Which is why he is held with such respect by the scientific community, albeit not the same by those outside of it.
• Georges Lemaitre, a physicist and catholic priest who was the first one to derive the theory of universe expansion, and the first proponent of the Big Bang Theory.
• Ettore Majorana (look about him. There’s a whole conspiracy theory surrounding him)
• Roger Penrose, the co-author of Penrose-Hawking Singularity theorem and a bunch of other things.

In truth, we can’t really say who is smarter, because as you can see we have plenty of great physicists on both sides. The core message I want to take is that both are instrumental for the advancement of physics and science as a whole.

And also, I will make sure to talk about Majorana more in the future, so sorry for the cliffhanger

No special relativity this week, just an opening of heart

Hawking, the challenger!

I woke up Wednesday and when I got to college I saw the news that Prof. Hawking had passed away. It kinda hit me hard, because I think it is no exageration to say he was an inspiration to many young physicists and future physicists.

So this week I decided to give a piece of the influence Hawking had on me and on those who were close to me. Not as a mourning, but mostly as praise, and celebration for the life he lived.

As most on Earth, I heard about him in the usual way, through some news about his opinions on current events on the world at the time. At the time, I was likely a kid, probably going to start middle school or something close to that. And I just saw this guy on television talking about something. The ammount of attention people were giving to him, made me think that perhaps he was an important person. But that was about it. I liked space when I was young and I even had the luxury of having an amateur telescope (it was not good though), so I would constantly be fascinated with everything new I would learn about planets, stars and galaxies, and I would devour the pop-science books who had these contents (sometimes literally, I mean, the pages looked appetizing).

In one of these books I happened to come across Hawking again, probably about black holes. As a pre-teen, you can imagine I would love the ideas of black holes, and knowing someone who worked on them, and was able to explain them, made him into someone I definitely admired. At this time, I had just started memorizing famous scientists names, mostly to look inteligent, because that's how things were in the late 00's. So I already knew of Galileo, Newton and Einstein. And I would look for quotes of them on the internet, and try to make those my personal philosophy (later I found out most of those quotes were misquoted or fake, so it came and bit me in the ass). What would fascinate me most about Hawking was how he was still able to do physics while on a wheel chair. I was the kind of person to believe that just because I would have a bad grade on some subject I wasn't able to do it, and yet you have someone who if he didn't try, no one would judge him, you could even say he was justified to not do physics anymore, and yet he persisted, even when losing his voice. I begged my mother for a copy of  "A brief history of time" (One of the perks of being a kid, you can still get some things from your parents if you beg properly) and I read, and re-read, and re-re-read the book.

I started being fascinated for this new science I wasn't aware of. Physics. I wanted to be a doctor prior to that, so it was kind of a change on paradigm. Where I grew up, no one really knew about physicists, we knew they were people who studied stuff and were super smart (we believed that) and knew all the mysteries of the  universe. However, the closest to physicists we had there were engineers. Which was not bad, but an engineer is not necessarily a physicist. They may know about the physics required to their field, but they are more of an applied physicist than the ones I truly admired. I didn't really admire many engineers at the time, maybe Archimedes. And besides those, we only have physics teachers from high schools, which may be good. But still they didn't give me the feeling I would feel with my "idols". To me, I felt like being a physicist was nothing but a dream, that someone from a small African country shouldn't really think about. But again, I would remember that I wasn't on a wheelchair, so fuck what I thought back then.

 After passing through high school, I already knew english and also, how to use Wikipedia, so I would spend my time there reading biographies and things that I would really understand. Those formulas would end up giving me headaches, which only cemented my idea that physicists were above regular people. But I knew enough about maths to start to notice a particular beauty in the physical laws and formulas I would see in high school. Luckily, I always loved maths, and the unusual apathy that most had for math was unknown to me (Really, one day I should do a post about this crazy idea people have about math), probably because there were some great pop-science books about mathematics I would read. And also because I had great teachers who kept me motivated to learn. So I was trained in trying to see things abstractly, or through just mathematical expressions. But I still was not able to understand the expressions of the scientists of old.

I got to college. My first year was fairly tough. I had to suddenly adjust my schedule from high-school to university, and believe me, college will not be easy (specially if you spend more time in bars than in your bedroom studying, but you should still relax at least once a week). But I still remembered those same ones who inspired to go through this journey. One of the things I thank the most while being here in college, was not only seeing actual physicists who dealt with the various fields of physics and were active on research (many of them inspired me to keep going) but I also got to meet various other genious of before who made key contributions in physics and mathematics, like Maxwell, Boltzmann, Dirac, Schrodinger, Feynmann, Euler, Gauss, Laplace and Ramanujan. And also some contemporary who still live, like Englert, t'Hooft, Gell-Mann and Witten. My personal favourite when it comes to explaining physics is Feynmann, mostly for the way he exposed physics in such a way that both physicists and layman could understand. I aspire to someday explain people as well as he did.

But still Hawking was someone I deeply admired. Maybe it was because he had such a deep presence in my life as a child compared to the others. I mean, he was still alive, and I could daydream of a day we would meet, and I could ask him all sort of questions, while sadly I couldn't do it with Feynmann (I still can with t'Hooft and Englert, at least that). Now I already knew a bit about physics, a tiny bit that could give me a basic notion of what he was trying to say on his equations. Yeah, now, I had the luxury to know a bit about what he actually did for physics, besides bringing it to the eyes of the public. And I was hoping that in the next years, I could muster enough knowledge to finally be able to talk with him. And this fatality happened.

At the beginning I was sad, but later that sadness was replaced with a feeling of admiration. While only having two years to live, he outlived all expectations, reaching the new century and 55 years beyond what he should. And he was able to bring a field like physics to the public. If someone was able to do for maths what he did for physics, we wouldn't have to worry about kids not liking math. Now it is true that many other physicists did relevant contributions, some more than Hawking, (many of the names I have above), but Hawking brought physics to the spotlight, and thanks to him, and others who like him, saw the usefulness in bringing physics to the public, people like me, could become physicists. Now roughly 10 years after I first heard about him, I am going to graduate in an Applied Physics and Engineering course (it's a double major, so I get to have the best of both worlds and I know, this isn't theoretical nor mathematical physics, which were his expertise but those are PhD objectives). But still through his work on physics, and through the exposition of this wonderful field to the masses, he will be remembered.

We may have never met, but the impact he had on me was not trivial. So, instead of farewell, I will say, for all others who like me, got to know the field of physics through him, thank you, Hawking.