Thank You, Newton by Allyson

Thank You, Newton by Allyson - February 2016 Scholarship Essay

For some reason, I decided to take physics in my senior year of high school. Senior year is supposed to be easy. Because of physics, senior year is not very easy. I blame Sir Isaac Newton. Albert Einstein is usually credited with the title of “the smartest man ever to live” but I would like to challenge that statement. Albert Einstein was a genius, there is no doubt about that, but I believe that the smartest man ever to live is Sir Isaac Newton, the man who, as my physics teacher says, “invented calculus.” Legend has it that one day, Newton was sitting under an apple tree staring up at the sky when suddenly, an apple fell and hit him in the head. At that moment, Newton wonder why the moon didn’t also fall and hit him in the head. Also according to my physics teacher, that is when Newton invented calculus in order to solve this physics problem.
I would like to have dinner with Sir Isaac Newton simply to say that I was once in the presence of the smartest man in the world. I would sit, and stare, and observe the greatness that is before me. I would likely be at a complete loss for words, but if I could bring myself to speak, I would ask about his thought process before and during his most famous discoveries. This man, despite battling several theorized mental disorders, was able to provide the world with groundbreaking information in the fields of math and science that would eventually become crucial components of everyday life. Newton’s laws of motion, theory of color, invention of the reflecting telescope, and countless other revolutionary discoveries make him a key figure in the scientific revolution and classify him as one of the most influential scientists of all time. I am fascinated by Newton because he is not just famous for one experiment, he is responsible for exposing the entire world of physical science and unearthing conclusions to the biggest questions the Earth has to offer.
As a future science major, I can’t help but admire Newton’s work to the greatest extent of appreciation. Without him, we would not have the resources to build airplanes, to go into space, to build cars, or to understand why the moon hasn’t yet fallen and hit us on the head. If Newton had not revealed to us these fundamental concepts of life, we would likely be thousands of years behind in terms of technology and our understanding of the world around us. For me to have dinner with Sir Isaac Newton would be comparable to Barack Obama having dinner with Martin Luther King Jr., nothing short of a dream come true.