“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” It’s simple thermodynamics. If I shove someone forwards, I’ll either absorb the resultant backwards force because I’ve braced myself for it, or I’ll move backwards. Simple.
The law of conservation of energy is my favorite. Even though the law of conservation of matter promises that after I die, my corpse will continue to circulate as dirt or macromolecules or something, I really don’t care too much what happens to my corpse because, let’s face it, I won’t have any use for it after I’m dead. The law of conservation of matter just promises that physically, my molecules (which, if you think about it, were once someone or something else’s) will always exist in some form or another. Maybe that’s comforting in a kind of twisted way, but it just makes the law of conservation of energy even more special because energy is always energy. Energy is always moving or changing something—there are so many types of energy, but all of them share this concept of motion. (Matter? Matter just kind of sits there while it takes up space and has mass). The law of conservation of energy is like this promise that the world will never, ever stand still or stop changing.
When I was really little, there was this montage of baby pictures hanging on my bedroom wall, and one night I took it to my parents and started crying because I didn’t want to grow up. I didn’t want to change. It’s ironic, really, that at age five, when I didn’t know or care too much about who I really was, I would’ve been totally content to stay exactly as I was. In fourteen years, I’ve gone from total contentment with myself to looking through practice college interview questions and trying to pick out only one thing that I would change about myself if I could. The fact is, though, that although there are tons of things that I would hypothetically change about myself (like suddenly becoming neat or able to make sense all the time), I wouldn't actually want to change them.
The promise of thermodynamics is there, though—the promise that the world around me will never stop changing and that the world will never stop changing me. After all, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Change is coming, whether I like it or not, and I honestly cannot wait to see where it leads me.
The law of conservation of energy is a promise. I love that. So much. And your little-kid anecdote was perfectly placed.
ReplyDeletePotential energy is my favorite energy, because it's like saving money in the bank. Sometimes you make good purchases and sometimes you make bad purchases, but it's up to you to decide how to spend it.
I'll say it again: science is beautiful when you apply it to life, but then again, that makes sense because I mean, life is made up of science.