The science of understanding

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I have always found it amazing that our most important tool in life is something that we don't completely understand. A lump of about 1.4 kilograms of gray-white matter, stationed at the top seat of our body, capable of creating the most amazing thoughts and ideas. Having studied physics for two and a half years at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU for short) I think that the most amazing part about nature and the world we live in is that our understanding of physics, from gigantic stars thousands of light-years away, to extremely small sub-particles, are due to physical properties happening between billions of tiny nerve cells in our brain.

In the last year of my bachelors degree in physics I am specializing in biophysics and [the forces working between different kind of cells: how cells transfer data between different organs, how most of our body is driven by gradient fields and the different properties of single particles in our body.] nanotechnology. My goal is to study different processes and properties of our body to eventually understand what happens when the important features that makes our brain work correctly, stop working as they are suppose to. Even though our brain can help us create a better understanding of the world, damage and illnesse in this organ can also destroy the most amazing and brilliant minds. Working as a nursing assistance at an elderly home in my home town in the summer holidays I have personally experience what Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases can do to a healthy and intelligent person.
In my masters degree I want to continue to study the physics that drives the brain to help understand diseases that cause these mal...

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...it all happen and it often helps me look at the problem I am working on from a different angle, comparing it to the different things I see and think about while running.
To enjoy the world more fully by understanding physics was my main reason for starting to study physics. As I start learning and understand more physics it is inevitable for me, as a student of science, to not ask the question of how I am capable of figuring out all these wonderful things. What kind of physics makes humans capable of understanding the world and all its complications and how can I, by understanding neuroscience, prevent the brain from being less functional from different diseases and damages? I believe that as a student at UC Berkeley I will be able to come much closer to answering this question and I would be honored to attend UC Berkeley as part of my master's degree in science.

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