In physics, there are constants, such as the speed of light (c = 3.0 x 100,000,000 meters per second) and the acceleration due to gravity near Earth's surface (g = -9.81 meters per second squared). These values are always constant. As in, they never change. Ever. (Except for the gravitational acceleration as you move away from Earth's surface, but the fluctuation is so tiny that it's practically negligible. But that's beside my point. And this isn't an article about physics.) As I am an engineering major and currently enrolled in classical physics, I get to spend a lot of time working with physical constants, and I have to say, I really am starting to envy them.
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I am very jealous of these physical constants, who know what they are no matter where they stand in an equation. I wish I could have their certainty and their confidence. Moreso, I wish someone could give me those qualities, just like Roemer calculated c and Galileo calculated g. Not only do these constants know exactly what they are, they didn't even have to discover their value themselves. Some simply gave it to them. How nice it must've been to come into the world completely sure of what you are.
In brutal honesty, we all envy these constants. The truth is, none of us want to change. We'd all rather sit inside and stay clean than go out and dig through the mud for the meaning of life, or, more specifically, for our meaning in life. Think of how fast you'd tear into an envelope labeled "The Answers To Everything" if it were simply handed to you. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Instead, there are uncertainties in life. I've learned about those in physics, too. For every value calculated, there is an uncertainty factor; a tolerance, if you will. Everything varies in an experiment.
Out here in the real world, we're all just separate experiments interacting with each other. Sometimes you meet an experiment which you react with; there's smoke, changing colors, and rapid variances in temperature. Other times, you react about as much as a noble gas; that is, you simply don't. Your reaction rates will change each time, and very rarely will you witness two reactions that are exactly, one-hundred percent the same. Chemistry is much more unpredictable than physics.
The point here is, life is not a science. Biology is, but the essence of being alive, of thinking, of talking, of forming relationships and sharing your personality is not. It's not a constant; it's the exact opposite. There is no way of knowing what's to happen at any given moment. As much as we'd all love to be g's and c's, we're not, we're people. It may be exhaustingly varying, but it's much more interesting than physics.
