What a rush

practicum starting tmr. should sleep soon. but want to squeeze one blog in before that happens.

watched this documentary just now, "Einstein's Big Idea". it's about how Einstein came up with his most famous equation linking energy to matter.

there was this bit about how Maxwell managed to prove Faraday's idea that electricity and magnetism are just different sides of essentially the same thing and that light is but a form of electromagnetic wave.

one particular scene stood out. the young Maxwell showed the old Faraday a paper Maxwell just published. and told Faraday that he showed that electricity induces magnetism which induces electricity, hence the two forms a pulsating wave. and how he (Maxwell) showed, mathematically, that this wave travels at the speed of light. this was something which Faraday has been trying to prove for years and years. it was something that he knew to be right but was not able to prove. and now, Faraday's good friend and protegé (of sorts) Maxwell has vindicated him. this look of sublime joy washing across Faraday's face (or rather, the person acting as Faraday). and at that point, i thought to myself... to have been the person to see such a fundamental truth before anyone else, how great a feeling that must be! and how great the satisfaction and joy it must be to have been proven right! to know that what one believes in for one's entire life is right... Faraday must have died a happy man.

and the actor captured it really well... the change of expression was so subtle. so sublime. eyes teared, but only ever so slightly. a gentle smile breaking ever so slowly. eyes lost, as if peering into the heart of the universe. at that moment, i felt that the joy that Archimedes must have felt, the elation which every great scientist must have experienced when they know that they have peeled away another layer and gotten closer to the truths of the cosmos.