To get a sense for what this blog is about, it is helpful to know why I created it.

The name of this blog is Physics, Philosophy, and Other Fun Topics. Let us first consider the first word in the title.

Physics

I am an American student currently in my final year of high school. After graduating, I will be moving to England to study theoretical physics.

While independently studying physics using online resources, I noticed that there does not seem to exist on the internet a great deal of quality physics courses offered for free. One goal of this blog is to provide an exhaustive education in theoretical physics, spanning from the introductory courses taken in the first year of undergraduate study to the more advanced areas of study not covered until the postgraduate level. To achieve this goal, I plan to update this blog continuously as I learn more material. Given that I will be writing about what I am currently being taught, it is inevitable that I will occasionally err. If you notice incorrect information, please notify me.

But why “philosophy”?

Philosophy

I first became interested in philosophy after reading Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s Objectivist magnum opus. This book singlehandedly changed my political, philosophical, and religious beliefs. Within the course of a few weeks, I had changed from a conservative Christian to a libertarian atheist. I have since come to disavow many of Rand’s ideas. (Even so, the two latter descriptors still apply.) Yet, I have retained my interest in the study of knowledge, reality, and existence and plan to continue to pursue an education in philosophy through autodidactic study while at university.

Nowadays, I identify as an existentialist. The one book whose effect on my outlook on life rivals that of Atlas Shrugged is Albert Camus’s absurdist masterpiece The Stranger. I am in much accord with the philosophy propounded by this book and by the other works of Camus and similar philosophers—the philosophy that, in the words another existentialist about whom I will momentarily talk, l’existence précède l’essence, i.e., that neither life, the universe, nor anything has any inherent meaning, that existence is “absurd,” and that the thinking individual may create his or her own values and assign his or her own meaning to life.

No existentialist’s education would be complete, of course, without a thorough reading of the works of Jean-Paul Sartre. I have elected not to begin with Nausea or No Exit, which would probably have been easier avenues into understanding Sartre’s philosophy, but with the more rigorous Being and Nothingness. I have at present only made it through part of the introduction and can say with confidence that this book is more challenging than any other book I have ever read.

I had found another blog in which someone else who similarly had no formal background in philosophy essayed to annotate the ontological oeuvre, but he or she neglected to post his or her notes on the introduction and seems to have discontinued the project after having annotated only a few chapters. I plan to undertake such a project myself. The same caveat which I included in my paragraph on physics applies here, too—I am not an expert.

Other Fun Topics

The final part of the title, I believe, does not require much explanation. I am already using this medium to talk about two other interesting topics. Why not use it to write about anything else for which I see fit to do so?