(no subject)
An epiphany is a realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something or someone. Here are a few epiphanies I can remember growing up.
History - This one was in middle school. Up to this point I looked at history as a bunch of isolated events and movements that happened periodically. Then I saw this map on the wall or in a book or something. It had a timeline running across the bottom showing time periods of civilizations. I saw how the Egyptians overlapped the Greek which overlapped the Romans. I learned later how they interacted with each other. Soon after that I read something in the book about how WWI lead to WWII which lead to Korea and Vietnam and the Cold war, and even the Cold war’s influence on the Persian gulf war. I started to look at history as an evolution or flow instead.
Simplicity - Sometime, probably middle school age, I’m playing with legos. At this point I’ve moved on from castles and houses to little machines. I was learning a lot about gear reduction building things. I know that connecting a small gear to a big gear makes it go faster. So I want to see how fast I can make this lego propeller go. I keep connecting small and big gears to see how high I can step it up. So I have probably 50 moving parts between the motor and the propeller. I turn on the motor and it goes then stops, goes then stops. I mess with it for like an hour rebuilding it trying to make it work. Then I think, what if I just put the propeller directly on the motor. Sure enough it goes way faster. It was all the friction between the moving parts that was slowing it down. I learned that the simplest design to get something done is the best.
Calculus in Physics - this one happened senior year. I was taking both Calculus and Physics. About half way through the semester I’m looking at the physics equation sheet and notice a trend. There’s a lot of equations that are divided in half and squared. It clicked how some things were the rate of change of others. It helped my understanding of both subjects. I remember showing Studard right as I discovered it. He said something like “duhh, you’re just figuring this out now?”
History - This one was in middle school. Up to this point I looked at history as a bunch of isolated events and movements that happened periodically. Then I saw this map on the wall or in a book or something. It had a timeline running across the bottom showing time periods of civilizations. I saw how the Egyptians overlapped the Greek which overlapped the Romans. I learned later how they interacted with each other. Soon after that I read something in the book about how WWI lead to WWII which lead to Korea and Vietnam and the Cold war, and even the Cold war’s influence on the Persian gulf war. I started to look at history as an evolution or flow instead.
Simplicity - Sometime, probably middle school age, I’m playing with legos. At this point I’ve moved on from castles and houses to little machines. I was learning a lot about gear reduction building things. I know that connecting a small gear to a big gear makes it go faster. So I want to see how fast I can make this lego propeller go. I keep connecting small and big gears to see how high I can step it up. So I have probably 50 moving parts between the motor and the propeller. I turn on the motor and it goes then stops, goes then stops. I mess with it for like an hour rebuilding it trying to make it work. Then I think, what if I just put the propeller directly on the motor. Sure enough it goes way faster. It was all the friction between the moving parts that was slowing it down. I learned that the simplest design to get something done is the best.
Calculus in Physics - this one happened senior year. I was taking both Calculus and Physics. About half way through the semester I’m looking at the physics equation sheet and notice a trend. There’s a lot of equations that are divided in half and squared. It clicked how some things were the rate of change of others. It helped my understanding of both subjects. I remember showing Studard right as I discovered it. He said something like “duhh, you’re just figuring this out now?”