Michael Baker may run on the cross country team and have many friendships with the other runners, but he leaves himself out of their general conversations which usually concern dating and relationships. Baker more often engages himself in simple, casual chats about quantum physics or the science of space.

“Some of the things I care about, other people don’t want to talk about,” Baker said. “I can appreciate things like music and football, but it’s not something I can get into. Things like quantum physics may never matter directly to me, but it’s real. You might not be able to see it, but it’s there. Hundreds of years ago, people studied spectral observations based on assumptions. That’s the same kind of thing I’m interested in, except now it’s called science.”

Baker has however found multiple friends who willingly and happily talk of these subjects.  Clarke Rahrig knew Baker before high school, but he says the two became closer when Rahrig joined into Baker’s “high level of conversation.”

“I enjoy every conversation I have with Michael,” Rahrig said. “And if you don’t understand something he’s talking about, he’ll explain it to you until you can have a conversation about it.”

Aaron St. John, another cross country runner, also likes talking with Baker.  St. John sees Baker’s words, which relate science to real life with Baker’s sarcastic touch, as both enlightening and hilarious.

“Michael is full of knowledge,” St. John said, “and it’s glorious. He goes off into rants, and he’s possibly the funniest man alive.”

According to friends, one of Baker’s interesting “rants” arises when he speaks of importance.  Baker feels he can choose to engage in conversations and thoughts of situational and circumstantial subject matter, or he can engage himself in important facts that go deeper than the surface of regular casual talking.

“There’s no way to imagine the immensity of the universe,” Baker said, “but it doesn’t make me feel insignificant. Everything’s relative to me, but I still like to think about things like the sun that are so much bigger than me. It seems pointless, but maybe I’m just trying to figure out why it’s important to me.”

In everything, Baker tries to stay “brutally honest” with himself and keep a watch for signs of him acting cynical, hypocritical or even lazy. He puts an effort to use his knowledge of studies like astrophysics toward the things that matter, like in his faith.

“Knowing what I know about the universe, there’s no way humans are here without the hands of God,” Baker said. “My faith is based on facts.”

In spite of being surrounded by people who work differently than him, in spite of being raised by parents with “different views of reality,” and in spite of being engulfed by surface-level conversations and thinking, Michael Baker has no intentions of changing his interests or his way of life. He, along with the friends who have joined in Baker’s adventurous thoughts, finds complete contentment in the way things stand.

“Throughout all the years I’ve known him,” senior Richard Nelson said, “Baker has remained Baker. He doesn’t follow trends or let other people influence him. He is who he is.”