Dead and Alive
When I was 14, my dad handed me 'In Search of Schrodinger's Cat' by John Gribbin. He'd been getting right into popular science books at the time, but this was the first he'd passed on to me to read - "It's great," he said, "you'll enjoy it."

And I did - I fucking loved it. The book itself was enjoyable by itself, but the concepts of quantum mechanics that it described were what really entranced me. It was all just so bloody weird, so amazingly different from anything I'd ever experience in the normal world. And what's more, it was all real - this is how the world works at a tiny level.

I enjoyed it so much that by the time I reached the last page, I'd decided that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. This is what I was going to go study at university and come to grips with. I wanted to truly understand it all.

So four years later, when it came to pick courses to study at university I made no hesitation - physics, physics and physics. I had pretty good grades, so I got into my first choice of uni and that's where I am now.

University, however, has been a different story. I've struggled, barely scraping the marks needed to stay on the course. It's the maths - the maths proves a constant barrier to a deeper understanding of it all. No matter what I do, it only gets more dense and obscure.

So that puts me here, a couple days before the start of my junior honours exams. I'm shitting enough bricks to rebuild Sichuan, and I'm staring down the barrel of a pretty crap degree. My nerves are wrecked, I can barely sleep and I want to be sick.

Do I regret it? No. I still love physics, though it's a pity it doesn't love me back.

Did the book change my life? Most definitely, though whether for better or worse remains to be seen.

Length- if it appears too long, you should probably go faster.
(TheSphericalCow, Thu 15 May 2008, 23:56, 5 replies)

Good luck
I read that book a couple of years ago and found it amazing. I'd love to study physics but my understanding of maths is pretty poor.

Have you read any of Richard Feynman's book? "Surely you're joking Mr Feynman?" should be on every secondary school pupil's required reading list.
(hagis_uk, Fri 16 May 2008, 0:15, closed)

Cheers
I've not read that one yet, though it's on my summer reading list. Read a bit of his lecture books though, and they're ace.
(TheSphericalCow, Fri 16 May 2008, 0:16, closed)

Hang in there!
The world needs more mad scientists! :D
(vkacademy has made a kitten tank, Fri 16 May 2008, 4:06, closed)

Keep at it
Soon the maths will all begin to make sense, once you learn the physics which requires it. In my experience, the maths I learned in 1st and 2nd year was used primarily for the physics I learned in my Honours years.

I've forgotten it all now too :-(
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 16 May 2008, 8:37, closed)

well
you could always try being an experimental physicist instead of a theoretical one. :-)
(haberman is singing in the changes, Fri 16 May 2008, 10:23, closed)