preface

Part 1.
Until the Earth revolves around the sun

1.
Domestication: Inbreeding destroys the species.
2.
Freedom to Fail: How Poetry Was a Godsend in Life
3.
The Academic Ethics Within Me: The Dream of Overcoming Ability
4.
Be prepared to pay the price: there is no royal road, just trying.
5.
Where should I go? : If I am interested, I will eventually make a family.

Part 2.
You have to embrace chaos to give birth to stars.

6.
Think carefully: Break it down into small pieces and then solve it.
7.
The Inner Heart of Nuclear Physics: Exploring the Deepest Recesses of Nature
8.
Encountering Nucleons: Awakening to Physics
9.
Research Together: The Mind of Tabarishi
10.
Catching the passing wind: Opportunity is like fog under the sunlight.

Part 3.
The truly enormous universe of humans

11.
The Beginning of Pain: New Teachers, New Learning
12.
Be a counterexample: something that everyone said couldn't be done
13.
Attitudes toward Science: The Relationship Between Klaus and Maxim
14.
When Ordinary Meets Genius: We Can Do What We Can

Part 4.
Among so many stars, where and what do they become?

15.
The Star of Discipleship: What Kind of Professor Will You Be?
16.
Two Promises: What Kind of Colleague Will You Be?
17.
Deep-Rooted Tree: The First Disciple's Prepared Transformation
18.
The Fifth Quark: The Failure and Joy of Teaching
19.
Let's assume the cow is round: overestimation and underestimation
20.
Failure Never Betrays: A Physicist's Greatest Tool

Part 5.
Evolution is the result of repeated failures.

21.
Raising people: teaching and learning
22.
What are you studying for? : Physics is a critical thinking attitude.
23.
People Don't Change? : The Moment Your Potential Unleashes Its Wings
24.
Summa cum laude: All change starts with one person.
25.
Until the pearl is born: The important thing is not to give up.

Acknowledgements

Even if it's a path only I can see, I must ultimately walk my own path.
How to resist the 'taming' of the world

Taming happens without you even knowing it.
Just because everyone takes it for granted doesn't mean it's right... ... When the world tries to tame me, I can live by conforming to it, but my life is a waste to live like that.
Even if the world doesn't change, I can change.
The choice is entirely mine.
-Pages 25 and 26, “Taming”

Finding your own path and walking that path is not easy.
The path is not only difficult to see, but even if you try hard to find it, the world does not readily acknowledge it.
When the path we have found is denied, we try to fit our lives into the path the world has created.
The author describes this process as 'taming'.

How to Live at the Center of the Universe begins by rejecting this 'taming'.
The world that tries to tame me and narrow my horizons may be my academic background for some, my parents for others, or, crucially, myself.
The 'prepared rails' presented by society, such as academic background and occupation, are oppressive.
Society defines going off the rails as a 'failure' and demands that individuals who are on their own path correct their course.
But your own path is not something that a third party can find for you or walk for you.
The author encourages individuals to find something they can immerse themselves in and immerse themselves in it, and urges society to refrain from casting an oppressive gaze on individuals.

What kind of society would it be if individuals didn't suppress their own paths? The author suggests that while there might be no failure or frustration, there would be diversity.
The most useful criterion for determining whether an ecosystem is healthy is diversity.
The main idea of ​​this book is to restore diversity and restore the ecosystem of life.
This is also expressed through various shining shapes on the cover and title page.

One of the answers the author found to block out external distractions and resist the world's 'taming' is 'immersion'.
The author has devoted his body and mind to making choices that faithfully listen to his inner voice at every important moment in his life.
During my school days, I dreamed of becoming a poet and devoted myself to poetry. After entering the physics department at university, I devoted myself to studying, and after becoming a professor, I devoted myself to teaching and research.
Attempts to tame the world have become increasingly powerful, but the experience of being immersed has always been a great strength for the next step in life.

Only those who embrace chaos can give birth to dancing stars.
How to embrace failure

A second solution to resisting the taming of the world is to embrace failure.
In the book, the author honestly shares stories of himself and his students at various points in their lives, showing that everything that makes him feel like he has "failed" is actually a process of finding his own path.
Failure is not a period, but a comma; it is not a dead end, but a new turning point.
The author quotes Nietzsche's words, "Only those who embrace chaos can give birth to dancing stars," and argues that by granting each person infinite freedom in their failures, we can turn our individual lives into "dancing stars," and on a larger scale, we can restore colorful possibilities to our society.

Every time I saw freshmen who were discouraged from entering prestigious universities, I felt sorry for them because they seemed unable to fully develop their potential.
If only they were given the opportunity to spread their wings, they too could fly.
… … While teaching graduate students at Pusan ​​National University and Inha University, I observed that when their hidden potential was revealed, they conducted research as well as anyone else.
How can a person's abilities be measured solely by grades?
Page 192, "Let's assume the cow is round."

The author, who teaches physics at a university, interviewed his students and incorporated their experiences into the book.
Even among the relatively small range of people who graduate from college and live a life studying physics, such as a student who left academia to pursue his dream of becoming a YouTuber, a student who thought he had studied physics enough and got a job at a company, and a student who succeeded in changing fields after years of effort, this shows that there are such a variety of paths, proving that 'one's own path' is infinite.

This book is not a science book, but it was written by a scientist.
A heartwarming thought experiment about discovering your N-dimensional self.

How to Live at the Center of the Universe is not a science book that explains theoretical physics.
However, this book is deeply imbued with the author's identity as a scientist to the core.
Stories from scientists throughout history pop up here and there, or jokes like "A theoretical physicist's greatest tool is a trash can" are used to illustrate the value of trial and error.
These characteristics not only demonstrate the author's knowledge as a theoretical physicist, but also reveal the author's attitude toward life as a scientist.
The author draws on the logic of theoretical physicist Howard Jorjai, who argues that “there are an enormous number of ways to become a great physicist, and there are still many ways to become a great physicist that we haven’t yet seen.”
The world looks at us through a 'one-dimensional lens'.
But there are so many things that cannot be seen properly with a one-dimensional perspective.
Therefore, we must illuminate the numerous paths that each person can take with an ‘N-dimensional perspective.’
We have a duty to continue a kind of thought experiment of discovering our N-dimensional selves.

During the past 27 years of teaching at the university, seeing my former students transform their lives and move forward has been an inspiration to me.
If anyone decides to change, there is no reason why they shouldn't change.
Above all, the world will not change unless one person changes.
It's the same with Gestalt in sociology and emergence in physics.
… … This book was written to encourage young people to live their lives according to their own will, no matter what the world says about them.
-Author's SNS

Living as the 'center of the universe' might be a kind of warm thought experiment, one that continually thinks about a life in which one can affirm oneself and others in their own way.
I hope that this warmth will be passed on to many people and that new perspectives will continue to emerge.