An object at rest stays at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion. That is, unless an external force acts upon it.
As a child, I was always in motion. I was moved by art in all its forms, music resonating through me in oscillations of melody, color making waves across the paper before me. Scientific invention drew me to its transformation of ideas into physical reality, alongside the observational learning that pulled me to its understanding of physical reality into new ideas. Language attracted understanding between opposites, communication luring me through symbols and sound. But as time passed, external forces began to slow my movements. The force of poverty pushed me from the private lessons that accompanied artistic success. The weight of societal standards held me down, an “emotional” female in the “rational” field of science. The friction of English, rubbing against my tongue, wore down communication in the Korean language. The more I fought against them, the harder these forces seemed to push back; so I let myself decelerate. I came to a stop when I lost the desire to move. No matter how fast I ran, I saw others two steps ahead. No matter how hard I worked, my efforts were cancelled out. Success was so elusive, it seemed nearly impossible.
Then, I discovered physics. It smashed into my static mind as a question from my sister’s homework, forcing my thoughts back into motion. It was a puzzle I was determined to solve, a game I needed to beat, and so I did just that – I found the solution, albeit with a series of confused comments and frustrated scowls. As I circled my final answer, the problem came to an end, but not to a stop: I had only begun to accelerate. Although the same forces that stopped me before – poverty, expectations of society, and a fractured cultural identity – still acted on me, one force drove me beyond them all: curiosity.
Curiosity pushed me to teach myself physics, and the next SAT Subject Test became my goal. It didn’t matter that I had never taken a class in physics before, or that I received my books with only a month left to study. I believed I could do it. I studied for longer than I slept, spending every spare hour poring over pages of physics, up until the very day of the test. Four weeks later, I stared at my computer screen in utter disbelief – I had made a perfect 800. But I knew that my test score was the least of my achievements. Now, I had the ability to see physics where I couldn’t before – in the oscillation of music and in waves of color, in the details of engineering, in the sounds of language. I had the assurance that if I pushed hard enough, I could achieve whatever I wanted. So I continue to push, propelling myself into a future of discovery, filled with the force of physics.
