Member-only story
How I Fell in Love With Physics
From nightmare to love affair
This past summer the Barbie and Oppenheimer movies hit theaters like the atomic bomb that Robert Oppenheimer helped create. Their merging was like nuclear fusion: diverse, distinct, or separate elements being unified as a whole was given the nickname-Barbenheimer. Two movies colliding together. The cultural impact could be classified in physics as energy and momentum of bodies interacting and undergoing a change as a result of the collision.
Both films addressed physics in their own way:
For Barbie: Physicists have proven that a subatomic particle can switch into its antiparticle alter-ego and back again.
For Oppenheimer: Theoretical physicist Robert Oppenheimer discovers how to weaponize nuclear fission. Along with a team of scientists, he builds the first atomic bombs in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Physics is a main character in the film and could be listed in the credits at the end.
Physics as the dream killer.
As science majors in the late 1970’s, on the first day of chemistry class we were told to “look to your left and look to your right”. Then the professor said, “only one of you will graduate as a science major”. Chemistry had the dubious distinction of being the “gatekeeper” and physics was…
