Fable: The Undeterred Physicist

The young man recounted: “When I began my physical studies and sought advice from my venerable teacher, he portrayed to me physics as a highly developed, almost fully matured science. Possibly in one or another nook there would perhaps be a dust particle or a small bubble to be examined and classified, but the system as a whole stood there fairly secured, and theoretical physics approached visibly that degree of perfection which, for example, geometry has had already for centuries.”

The venerable teacher’s view of physics was, he declared: “In this field, almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few unimportant holes.”

The young man persisted in his studies and originated new fields of physics which transformed the science.

Moral: Follow your heart