I remember watching a TV special (probably National geographic) on Louis Leakey’s expeditions to Olduvai Gorge and the discovery of fossils of early humans. If biology didn’t require dissecting frogs, I might have gone in that direction. As it turns out, dissecting circuits and vacuum systems are more my thing. But that’s one instance I remember science grabbing me and pulling me in that direction.
The moment of science that hooked me into physics has to be constructing a version of the monkey-and-hunter experiment in my neighbor’s basement. (The target drops as soon as you fire the gun, so where do you aim?). I thought that was so cool. That was when I knew I was going to study physics.
Mythbusters 2009 #12 (in season), #125 (in series), #139 (overall) “If one bullet is fired horizontally and the other is dropped vertically, simultaneously from the same height, which will hit the ground first?” Add the curvature of the Earth(‘s geoid) and its golden. Engineering is like math, only louder.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/10/mythbusters-bringing-on-the-physics-bullet-drop/