I am in constant awe of the human body. The sheer magnificence of what our bodies do every second of every minute of every day is remarkable.
Recently, neuroscientists at Princeton released a complete neural map of the fruit fly’s miniscule brain. This connectome showed all the connections and cell types in the brain giving insight into processing that can help understand the nuts and bolts of a neurological system. Since the fruit fly brain resembles the basic functionality of a human brain, but on a larger magnitude and complexity, knowing how the system works fundamentally will lead to discoveries toward treating human neurological diseases.
(Side Note: The one fact that caught my attention in the Princeton research was their measurement of the total length of neuron wiring in the fruit fly brain. Although the size of a grain of sand, the fruit fly brain contains about 300 feet of wiring. That’s the size of an American football field! Mind blown!)
When you think of the human body, Newtonian physics is usually not the first thing that pops into your head. Or second. Or third. It’s probably somewhere in the hundreds or thousands on that list. Despite the tendency to dissociate physics from biology, we will wander down that path today to incorporate Sir Issac’s three laws of motion into this STEM Tuesday Writing Tips and Resources post. Please pardon my creative liberty in interchanging Newton’s physics body with the human body.
Newton’s Three Laws of Motion
- A body at rest remains at rest, and a body in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force.
A classic example of the first law of motion is to place a heavy steel ball on a flat surface or table. The ball remains static until it is pushed or the surface is titled. It then moves in a straight line until it falls off the table and lands on your big toe. Then it stops.
The first law also applies to the creative life. For the ideas bouncing around our brain’s connectome to exist, we have to make them exist. Just like the way our bodies feel and work better when we move them, i.e. exercise, the creative object needs to be in action. A creator has to apply a force instead of waiting for the heavy steel ball of an idea to move on its own.
- One has to write to write.
- One has to draw to draw.
Simple creative physics I believe Newton would approve of.
- The acceleration of a body depends on the mass of the object and the amount of force applied.
As creators, we understand the power of creative momentum. When we are in that zone, we are cooking on our projects. The amount of force moves the mass of the object forward. However, when the words come hard and the mass overcomes the level of force we can generate
The struggle is real.
What can we do? I often fall back on my training as an athlete/strength coach and throughout my 35+ year research microbiology career and look to the Fail Cycle for guidance.
- Try something new or hard and fail.
- Step back and do the work to improve.
- Attempt the challenge again.
- Repeat until the challenge is overcome.
- Set a new goal.
The Fail Cycle philosophy provides a plan of attack. It allows for hope when it seems our creative path is blocked. Trying, failing, improving, and trying again is the tilt for our creativity table to get the heavy, steel ball of creativity rolling.
- Whenever one body exerts a force on another body, the second body exerts an equal and opposite on the first.
Creative people have lives. Lives can, and often do, get in the way of creative work. If we have our heavy, steel ball rolling comfortably along, that second object exerts its opposing force. Life gets in the way. Sometimes we even get in our own way. No matter what the source, something inevitably affects the flow.
What can we do? Go with the flow!
Accept the fact these opposing forces are part of the game. Instead of coming to a halt, look at them as a redirect and redirect your energies accordingly. It’s not the easiest thing to do.
I fall back on a 1980-ish interview with the great Ray Bradbury that showed him in his office surrounded by desks on three sides, each with a typewriter. He told the interviewer he always has multiple writing projects on each typewriter station. When he ran into a dead end on one project, he rolled his office chair to another typewriter and worked on the next project. He said his mind had been working on the other projects as they sat there, so his creative mind was ready to roll when he rolled to the previously abandoned project.
He redirected his creative energy to adjust to the opposing force.
When that heavy steel ball falls off the table directly over your big toe, move your foot out of the way and follow where it rolls.
I think Ray Bradbury and Issac Newton would have hit it off fairly well, don’t you?
Good luck! Keep creating and doing what you do. Now, more than ever, the world needs you and your work!
Thank you for reading!
Bokkyu Kim at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Mike Hays has worked hard from a young age to be a well-rounded individual. A well-rounded, equal-opportunity sports enthusiast, that is. If they keep a score, he’ll either watch it, play it, or coach it. A molecular microbiologist by day, middle-grade author, sports coach, and general good citizen by night, he blogs about sports/life/training-related topics at www.coachhays.com and writer stuff at www.mikehaysbooks.com. Two of his science essays, The Science of Jurassic Park and Zombie Microbiology 101, are included in the Putting the Science in Fiction collection from Writer’s Digest Books. He can be found roaming Bluesky under the guise of @mikehays64.bsky.social and @MikeHays64 on Instagram.
The O.O.L.F Files
This month on the Out Of Left Field (O.O.L.F.) Files focus on the human body from the perspective of Newton’s Three Laws of Motion.
What Are Newton’s Laws of Motion? Newton’s First, Second and Third Laws of Motion? (via ThoughtCo.com)
Mapping an entire (fly) brain: A step toward understanding diseases of the human brain (Princeton News)
Physiopedia: Introduction to Human Biomechanics – External Forces
The basics of how the human body moves with a correlation to Newton’s 3 Laws of Motion.
It’s a pretty cool site to explore twelve major anatomy systems.
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