By: Bryan Dutton
In high school and college you will learn a lot of things, about history, math, languages, art, music, and literature, and all of these things will help you to experience and appreciate the world around you, and to create and communicate with your fellow human beings. But none of this knowledge will help you to understand the way that the world actually works like physics.
In physics we learn about motion, forces, and energy, and these concepts help us to see the world differently. You start seeing force diagrams when you're climbing up a steep hill and trying not to slip, or balancing a golf club on your finger. You start thinking about how energy is transferred from a bat to a ball when you see one of the Angels hit a home run. The world becomes explainable.
The great thing about physics is that it is predictable and repeatable. In a world full of politics and seeming chaos, physics not only helps us to explain WHAT IS, but helps us to predict WHAT MAY BE. Black holes were never observed until physicists told astronomers to look for them, based upon the results of their calculations. Some of the brightest minds in the world predicted the contents of the early universe, which has since been measured and confirmed by our modern observations to a stunning degree of accuracy.
We won't be getting nearly that in depth in our classes, but what we do offer in our high school classes is no less than a conceptual understanding of the fundamental forces in our universe, to help you make sense of the world that you observe and walk with confidence and understanding along whichever path you choose.