Personal statement

It was reading Marcus Chown’s ‘We need to talk about Kelvin’ during my GCSEs that sparked my interest in physics. I find pleasure in using physics to model common problems that I encounter; it allows me to use analytical methods to break down a problem and find a solution. Studying physics trains me to think logically and laterally, as there are many different disciplines to be mastered within the subject. It is part of our nature to look beyond what our sensory world can tell us. Therefore research into physics seems natural and attractive to me, and is something that I want to be a part of.

My education in physics and maths so far has given me great enjoyment and the motivation to further my knowledge in these areas. Learning about new concepts such as quantum mechanics, electromagnetism, and gravity has transformed my perception of the scientific aspects of the world. Maths plays a central role in the analysis of problems in physics, for example the unified field theory. Therefore I believe that maths is the greatest tool that we have to make sense of the world around us and that a thorough knowledge of maths is paramount to success in physics. Studying A-level maths (with two modules in mechanics) has correlated well with the mathematical side of my physics studies. As maths is the language of physics, I have realised that it has a very strong link with many branches of science, for example, the occurrence of exponential decrease in radioactivity, or the use of calculus in Maxwell’s equations. Therefore my A-level mathematics has vastly improved my all round problem solving ability within the study of physics.

As my interest in physics in recent years has begun to build, I started to read extensively around the subject. A book that inspired me was, ‘The pleasure of finding things out’, containing transcripts of some of Richard Feynman’s most famous interviews and lectures. In analysing his interviews I concluded that Feynman was not just a scientist, but a philosopher, inventor and in my opinion, one of the most influential minds of the 20th century. In an interview by Omni magazine, Feynman says that ‘physicists are trying to find out how nature behaves’. Had I been presented with the question why I wish to pursue a degree in physics, my response would be that I am simply interested in finding out about the way that nature behaves.

Earlier this year I travelled to Switzerland to see the large Hadron collider at CERN. I visited the Proton Synchrotron, a part of the