Astrophysicist for a day

Wow, what an opportunity if I could choose to do any job just for one day! I wouldn’t be choosing anything flashy, like astronaut or rocky star. I would choose something quieter, more introspective, but equally thrilling. Probably something on the scientific field. Yes, that’s it, I would be an astrophysicist for a day!

Observatories, space missions, lectures at planetariums

Imagine having the privilege of working one whole day as an astrophysicist? To start off, to maximize my experience, I’d visit a mountaintop observatory. I would watch planets and stars dancing in the sky during a moonless night. Then during the day I’d be a consultant at a space mission control center. I’d help interpret real-time data from satellites, probes, or telescopes. To finish, I’d step into Carl Sagan or Neil deGrasse Tyson’s shoes. I’d deliver a dynamic public talk with mind-blowing visuals about black holes, time dilation, or the multiverse. Certainly, those would be 24 hours well spent.

The Theory of Everything

I watched The Theory of Everything not long after it was released back in 2014. The scientific awe I felt was matched by something deeper: human admiration. The film doesn’t just explore Stephen Hawking’s work—it reveals the extraordinary will behind it. Here was a man who lost control of nearly every muscle in his body. Yet, he retained an iron grip on the cosmos through sheer brilliance. His universe was expanding, even as his body was collapsing inward.

A Brief History of Time

Then I wanted to go to the source and read directly from the thoughts of this extraordinary Cambridge professor. I felt like I was in one of his lectures while I was reading A Brief History of Time. His explanations are surprisingly clear. He has a refined sense of humor—after all, he’s English. But he also makes snarky remarks about his intellectual opponents. All of this reminds us that in the end he was simply human.

Hawking’s writing stretches your mind to the edge of comprehension. It then asks you to take just one step further. That mode of thinking reshapes how you see not just the stars, but yourself.

“The increase of disorder or entropy with time is one example of what is called an arrow of time, something that distinguishes the past from the future, giving a direction to time. There are at least three different arrows of time. First, there is the thermodynamic arrow of time, the direction of time in which disorder or entropy increases. Then, there is the psychological arrow of time. This is the direction in which we feel time passes, the direction in which we remember the past but not the future. Finally, there is the cosmological arrow of time. This is the direction of time in which the universe is expanding rather than contracting.”

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

What would you do if you had the chance to do any job for just one day? Leave that in the comments!