流星——nice comet！

有趣而又很强大的Watercone: A Simple, Effective Solar Still

2009-03-15T19:49:00.003+08:00

在世界的很多地方，喝水并不是一件易事，特被是在一些缺水比较严重的地方，比如说沙漠干旱地区。而且现在水污染这么严重，喝到纯净可口的水更是难上加难啦。联合国儿童基金会估计每天大约有五千多名儿童死于引用不卫生的水导致的疟疾。呵呵，很恐怖吧。不过有了这种新时代水锥就什么都不怕啦。水锥（watercone），好像直译就是这个样子吧。原理简单，但超实用，如果你们那里缺水，可以自己尝试着DIY一个吧～

In many parts of the world, lack of access to clean, potable water is a major issue. Water may be found nearby, but only in a brackish or polluted state. Areas close to the ocean may see miles of water, but not a drop to drink. UNICEF estimates that every day 5000 children die as a result of diarrhea caused by drinking unsafe water. The Watercone could change all of that.

The Watercone, invented by Stephan Augustin, is a conical solar still made from recyclable polycarbonate, with a screw cap spout on the top and a collecting trough in the base which catches the condensation for use as drinking water. The design is ingenious. It’s simple, cheap, and effective. The units even nest together to reduce the transportation costs.

The Watercone concept is easily understood by almost anybody within seconds, and there’s no need for technical jargon or complex directions. There are no parts to replace or maintain, and the cone and base are made from Bayer Makrolon, an ultra-tough and recyclable UV resistant polycarbonate. The base is made from recycled polycarbonate.

Simply place the cone over a pan of salty water (or any damp ground, even floating on a pool of water), leave it in the sun to evaporate, you flip it over at the end of the day, take off the cap and drink or store the water.

The Watercone site claims that one cone can produce one liter of water per-day (on average). The life expectancy is 3 to 5 years, and even when the polycarbonate gets cloudy and reduces the effectiveness of the distiller, the cone can still be used to collect rainwater.

神奇的6174

2009-02-19T19:00:00.002+08:00

6174 初看一点也不起眼，也许你会问它有什么神秘的呢？

我们先进行一番计算，选择一个4位数，每位上的数都不能相同（也就是不能是1111，2222，3333，4444..），

例如选择2009（今年年份），先对这个数上的每位数字重新洗一下，得到最大的数是9200，最小的数是0029，两者相减，对结果再按照上述规则继续下去

9200— 0029=9171

9711—1179= 8532

8532—2358= 6174

7641—1467= 6174

.........
现在我们再随机选一个数：比如1234，那么

4321—1234 =3087

8730—0378= 8352

后面就不用再算了。6174这个数就是印度数学家Dattaraya Ramchandra Kaprekar发现的Kaprekar常数——任何4位数，你都可以在7步内计算得到6174（如果没得到，肯定算错了；-)）。

其它位数有的也有相应的Kaprekar常数

2（位数）无
3 495
4 6174
5 无
6 549945, 631764
7 无
8 63317664, 97508421
9 554999445, 864197532
10 6333176664, 9753086421, 9975084201

Kaprekar还发现过很多奇异的Kaprekar数（平方后，按位数相加得到原数），如下：

9^2 = 81 ... 8+1 = 9

45^2 = 2025 ... 20+25 = 45

55^2 = 3025 ... 30+25 = 55

99^2 = 9801 ... 98+01 = 99

703^2 = 494209 ... 494+209 = 703

999^2 = 998001 ... 998+001 = 999

2728^2 = 7441984 ... 744+1984 = 2728

4950^2 = 24502500 ... 2450+2500 = 4950

5050^2 = 25502500 ... 2550+2500 = 5050

7272^2 = 52881984 ... 5288+1984 = 7272

7777^2 = 60481729 ... 6048+1729 = 7777

9999^2 = 99980001 ... 9998+0001 = 9999

17344^2 = 300814336 ... 3008+14336 = 17344

22222^2 = 493817284 ... 4938+17284 = 22222

77778^2 = 6049417284 ... 60494+17284 = 77778

82656^2 = 6832014336 ... 68320+14336 = 82656

95121^2 = 9048004641 ... 90480+04641 = 95121

99999^2 = 9999800001 ... 99998+00001 = 99999

187110^2 = 35010152100 ... 35010+152100 = 187110

318682^2 = 101558217124 ... 101558+217124 = 318682

329967^2 = 108878221089 ... 108878+221089 = 329967

351352^2 = 123448227904 ... 123448+227904 = 351352

356643^2 = 127194229449 ... 127194+229449 = 356643

390313^2 = 152344237969 ... 152344+237969 = 390313

461539^2 = 213018248521 ... 213018+248521 = 461539

466830^2 = 217930248900 ... 217930+248900 = 466830

499500^2 = 249500250000 ... 249500+250000 = 499500

500500^2 = 250500250000 ... 250500+250000 = 500500

533170^2 = 284270248900 ... 284270+248900 = 533170

538461^2 = 289940248521 ... 289940+248521 = 538461

609687^2 = 371718237969 ... 371718+237969 = 609687

643357^2 = 413908229449 ... 413908+229449 = 643357

648648^2 = 420744227904 ... 420744+227904 = 648648

670033^2 = 448944221089 ... 448944+221089 = 670033

681318^2 = 464194217124 ... 464194+217124 = 681318

791505^2 = 626480165025 ... 626480+165025 = 791505

812890^2 = 660790152100 ... 660790+152100 = 812890

818181^2 = 669420148761 ... 669420+148761 = 818181

851851^2 = 725650126201 ... 725650+126201 = 851851

857143^2 = 734694122449 ... 734694+122449 = 857143

961038^2 = 923594037444 ... 923594+037444 = 961038

994708^2 = 989444005264 ... 989444+005264 = 994708

999999^2 = 999998000001 ... 999998+000001 = 999999

摘自格致

“超强静音”下的超强碰撞

2009-02-18T18:20:00.002+08:00

英法两艘载有核导弹的核潜艇相撞事件披露后,两国国内要求展开全面调查的呼声高涨。相互视为“盟军”、各自配备先进声呐系统的两艘核潜艇,为何在茫茫大西洋中,将“几百万分之一”的相撞几率化为现实?英法等国军事专家从技术和安全体系角度给出了部分解释。
美国福克斯电视台援引军事专家约翰·派克的话报道,声呐系统有“主动声呐”和“被动声呐”之分。“主动声呐”相当于“黑暗中的闪光灯”,通过自身发出的光波探测海底物体,“被动声呐”则在自身不发出任何信号的情况下探测。由于“主动声呐”容易暴露目标,需要长时间自我隐藏的核潜艇往往使用“被动声呐”。不过,这又带来了新安全隐患,即在潜艇与前方物体处于近距离时,“被动声呐”的探测准确性将打折扣。
英国核潜艇问题专家约翰·拉奇认为,核潜艇执行海底巡逻任务过程中,需要尽可能隐藏自己,因此可能通过关闭艇上尽可能多的设备而减少运行产生噪音,其中就包括关闭声呐。
“他们关闭能够关掉的所有设备,以橡胶外罩覆盖艇身,以吸收噪声,”拉奇说,“但可能面临的危险是,‘如果他们听不见你,你也听不见他们’。”
这一分析似乎可以解释相撞事件披露前的一段小插曲。《泰晤士报》报道,2月6日,即事件发生几天后,法国海军证实核潜艇在返航时“可能与海底集装箱”发生相撞。直到数天后与英国海军交流信息时,法方才得知撞上了核潜艇。
英国《卫报》甚至调侃道:“(相撞事件)传递出的好消息是,它证明英国核潜艇确实难以探测;坏消息是‘前卫’号太难以探测了,以至于在大西洋和法国潜艇撞上。”
相撞事件发生后,英法两国军方在声明中以“非常低速”、“接触”等措词予以描述,试图淡化事件可能带来的严重后果。不过,两国国内要求展开调查的呼声高涨。
英国《独立报》报道,英国“前卫”号与法国“凯旋”号核潜艇相撞时各携带16枚洲际弹道导弹,爆炸威力可达广岛原子弹的1248倍。虽然军方称核导弹安全没有受到影响,但相撞事件还是让外界感到后怕。
争取核裁军运动主席凯特·赫德森认为,英法核潜艇相撞是“最高级别的核噩梦”,也是冷战结束以来的第一次核潜艇相撞事件。
“两艘均载有核武器的潜艇相撞,(理论上)可能释放出巨量放射物质,将数十个核弹头散落在海底,”赫德森说。
此外,两艘潜艇体长接近两个足球场、高度相当于3层楼。英国核潜艇问题专家拉奇说,这种体型的潜艇即使以“非常低速”发生碰撞,那也属于“大冲撞”。
《泰晤士报》报道,两艘核潜艇的修理费用预计高达5000万英镑(约合7150万美元)。

美军装备的变迁

2009-02-15T12:46:00.008+08:00

今天，逛digg时，偶见一则美军单兵防护装备的开支变迁图，真是感慨米我差距之大啊！！

二战时期，美军单兵开支仅有170刀，而到图中所说的current时已经增长到17,500刀（但根据新华社2006年的报道，单兵开支已经达到2.6万刀）。我们先看看未来美军近六万刀的装备吧：
老美手中所持的air burst weapon，应该称为空爆武器。经过近10年的研发，老美已经开始了对型号为XM25空爆武器的测试。XM25空爆武器是美国陆军理想单兵战斗武器(Objective Individual Combat Weapon，OICW)项目的组成部分。OICW的代号为XM29，其结构是在配装有计算机化目标捕获系统的20毫米空爆武器下方安装5.56毫米卡宾枪。XM29配装有18发弹丸，由于它在作战中具有重量超标、体积庞大等缺点，因此武器官员决定对每个部分分开进行研制，等各部分发展成熟之后再将其组合成一个完整的系统。

它的基本功能是空爆武器，可以对空爆弹轨迹进行设定，能精确引爆16-600米范围内目标附近的空气。这种特别的攻击方式命中率相比现有武器系统能提高5倍，射程也大大提高。XM25 的主要技术关键在于它精密的控制系统。子弹速度那么快，如果不能准确地在指定位置爆炸搞不好会误伤自己人的。其火力控制系统通过激光测距仪将信息发给弹仓中的25毫米子弹，发射后子弹能精确测定自己的前进距离并在恰当的时间和位置引爆。相当于小型的手持导弹。
如果所有试验顺利开展，美国陆军将于2013年开始装备25,000支XM25空爆武器系统。单个计算机化目标捕获系统的价值将达到15,000刀，而用于XM25空爆武器系统时再另加2,000～3,000刀。整个单兵XM25空爆武器系统装备下来需要近25,000刀.设计原理如下图所示：

目前，所用子弹有高爆弹和训练弹，未来还将开发非致命弹、钢矛霰弹等。

与之对比，目前美军主战枪支为M4卡宾枪,其详细资料可在维基百科中看看啦。
按照current整套装束，应该是“陆地勇士”。

不多谈了，详细信息可见：
1.陆地勇士
2.XM29 OICW
3.模块化集成通信头盔（MICH）

键盘再利用——小草的温床

2009-02-03T12:35:00.002+08:00

结束了漫长的寒假，发现有什么不同了吗？
哈哈，赶快检查你的键盘吧！！

2008-02-04T20:46:00.000+08:00

今天听五月天的歌
再一次的听到了orz这个词,
小生是不知的了,于是就问了一下百度啊

百度知道_____________________________________________________________________________
Orz叫做失意体前躯，用法也很多，你把下面这个帖子看完就基本知道怎么用Orz这个词了。 ^_^

＝Orz＝Orz＝Orz＝Orz＝Orz＝Orz＝Orz＝Orz＝Orz＝Orz＝Orz＝Orz＝Orz＝

这个符号叫失意体前屈

失意体前屈，原本指的是网路上流行的表情符号：＿|￣|○
看起来像是一个人跪倒在地上，低着头，一副「天啊，你为何这样对我」的动作，虽然简单却很传神
在初期的时候，并没有人对这个符号起个名字，失意体前屈也是后来才出现的，
据说是某个餐厅的座垫上绣着这五个字，至於再之前又是谁想到的，就不可考了。

后来，又有人发现，用简单的三个英文字也可以表现这个动作，於是 orz 就开始流行了，
后来，更有 orz 的日志软体、日志网站！
orz 真是魅力无法档啊 ... orz

各种失意体前屈的表示法
全形：
＿|￣|○ ← 右向

○|￣|＿ ← 左向

○|＿|￣ ← 逆天

半形：
STO ← 右向
OTZ ← 左向
OLS ← 左向逆天
ZJO ← 右向逆天

半形小写：
sto ← 右向
orz ← 左向
ots ← 左向逆天
z_/o ← 右向逆天

迷你形：
no ← 右向
on ← 左向
ou ← 左向逆天
uo ← 右向逆天

其他
orz 这是小孩...
OTZ 这是大人...
or2 这是屁股特别翘的...
Or2 这是头大身体小的翘屁股...
orZ 这是下半身肥大...
OTz 这是举重选手吧...
○rz 这是大头... （=。=）
●rz 这是黑人头先生...
Xrz 这是刚被爆头完...
6rz 这是魔人普乌...
On 这是婴儿... crz 这是机车骑士...
囧rz 这是念ㄐㄩㄥˇ...
崮rz 这是囧国国王...
莔rz 这是囧国皇后...
商rz 这是戴斗笠的囧...
st冏楼上的他老婆吗...
sto 换一边跪... 曾rz ←假面超人...
★rz ←武藤游戏....
口rz ← 豆腐先生.
__Drz ← 爆脑浆...

今天宝贝对偶说如果偶们能够在一起的话,世界上就少了两个寂寞的人啦!!!

虽然偶们之间一直在那张白纸两边兜圈子,但还是蛮不错哦!!

总感觉我们现在有点像网恋, 不过还是很想对她说:“I love you !”

害怕爱情

2008-02-02T15:03:00.000+08:00

每次想写一些关于自己对于爱情感受时，
内心中总会有一个声音在对自己说，
“那不是属于你的，它不会长久！”
我内心中的那个他是不是真的已经害怕爱情了吗?
真的，好想说服他，“我们不会受到伤害的！！”

昨天，和宝贝儿发短信时，不知不觉的睡着了。
或许是心里还有压抑中的话语没有表达，朦朦中又醒了过来，
“我想你了！”——在短信息中敲下||
该不该发给她？
她看后会怎样回答？
好多好多的问题，再一次的把我心中的那个他惊醒，
我、我们在争论，再犹豫，在抉择...
小小的一句话，突然在心中变得好大好大！

不知过了多久，我在再次闭上眼睛之际，按下发射键，默默等待那段无尽的时距。

在《我的名字叫做红》中，一棵树说过，“我不想成为树本身，而想成为它的意义”，而我在等待小小的一句话是否具有那样的深意......

写给今天过节的军人们!

2007-08-01T16:10:00.000+08:00

一腔热血铁为身,
共与朝阳赴星辰.
我辈立志兴华夏,
共赴军营献此心!

wifi的天线

2007-08-01T16:01:00.000+08:00

我是一名学习天线设计的学生。曾经有人对我说：“天线不就是假设在高塔上的一个金属棒嘛，还需要你专门设计？”提出这个问题的是我的母亲，当然她对电磁原理并没有接触过。按照我的理解一副好的天线应该是——以最小的功率，传输最远的距离的信息发送接受器件。

最近委内瑞拉一位名叫Ermanno Pietrosemoli的强人重新打造了一副WiFi 天线，并从委内瑞拉强安地斯两座山脉间传递，远达 382 公里。

而因特尔公司则通过修改wifi协议+提高天线增益来实现，但估计售价不会太低啊，看来最好的办法就是向Ermanno Pietrosemoli老兄一样 DIY！！！

This Is Your Life (and How You Tell It)

2007-05-27T18:33:00.000+08:00

一个世纪以前，科学家开始试图找到某些原料解释人性格，亲切而又神经质使得安娜更加“安娜”化，拖沓而又敏感使得安德鲁更像安德鲁了。科学家常常忽视当事人的解释——即通过他们自身的解释来获知他们是谁，为什么会是这样。

故事毕竟就是故事，不同的人听到的版本也会大有不同。一个在机场吧台的异乡客听到一个版本，而假释官听到的却是另外一个，而P.T.A. 的董事得到的可能就已经大相径庭了。讲故事的语气，得到的教训，甚至是甚至这些故事本身都会随着人的感情的变化而发生变化，使得大众评价变成小众的观点，深的变成了浅的。

然而经过过去几十年的研究，一些心理学家认为每个人叙事的差异归应于每个人不同的三维性格图式。For more than a century, researchers have been trying to work out the raw ingredients that account for personality, the sweetness and neuroses that make Anna Anna, the sluggishness and sensitivity that make Andrew Andrew. They have largely ignored the first-person explanation — the life story that people themselves tell about who they are, and why.

Stories are stories, after all. The attractive stranger at the airport bar hears one version, the parole officer another, and the P.T.A. board gets something entirely different. Moreover, the tone, the lessons, even the facts in a life story can all shift in the changing light of a person’s mood, its major notes turning minor, its depths appearing shallow.

Yet in the past decade or so a handful of psychologists have argued that the quicksilver elements of personal narrative belong in any three-dimensional picture of personality. And a burst of new findings are now helping them make the case. Generous, civic-minded adults from diverse backgrounds tell life stories with very similar and telling features, studies find; so likewise do people who have overcome mental distress through psychotherapy.

Every American may be working on a screenplay, but we are also continually updating a treatment of our own life — and the way in which we visualize each scene not only shapes how we think about ourselves, but how we behave, new studies find. By better understanding how life stories are built, this work suggests, people may be able to alter their own narrative, in small ways and perhaps large ones.

“When we first started studying life stories, people thought it was just idle curiosity — stories, isn’t that cool?” said Dan P. McAdams, a professor of psychology at Northwestern and author of the 2006 book, “The Redemptive Self.” “Well, we find that these narratives guide behavior in every moment, and frame not only how we see the past but how we see ourselves in the future.”

Researchers have found that the human brain has a natural affinity for narrative construction. People tend to remember facts more accurately if they encounter them in a story rather than in a list, studies find; and they rate legal arguments as more convincing when built into narrative tales rather than on legal precedent.

YouTube routines notwithstanding, most people do not begin to see themselves in the midst of a tale with a beginning, middle and eventual end until they are teenagers. “Younger kids see themselves in terms of broad, stable traits: ‘I like baseball but not soccer,’ ” said Kate McLean, a psychologist at the University of Toronto in Mississauga. “This meaning-making capability — to talk about growth, to explain what something says about who I am — develops across adolescence.”

Psychologists know what life stories look like when they are fully hatched, at least for some Americans. Over the years, Dr. McAdams and others have interviewed hundreds of men and women, most in their 30s and older.

During a standard life-story interview, people describe phases of their lives as if they were outlining chapters, from the sandlot years through adolescence and middle age. They also describe several crucial scenes in detail, including high points (the graduation speech, complete with verbal drum roll); low points (the college nervous breakdown, complete with the list of witnesses); and turning points. The entire two-hour session is recorded and transcribed.

In analyzing the texts, the researchers found strong correlations between the content of people’s current lives and the stories they tell. Those with mood problems have many good memories, but these scenes are usually tainted by some dark detail. The pride of college graduation is spoiled when a friend makes a cutting remark. The wedding party was wonderful until the best man collapsed from drink. A note of disappointment seems to close each narrative phrase.

By contrast, so-called generative adults — those who score highly on tests measuring civic-mindedness, and who are likely to be energetic and involved — tend to see many of the events in their life in the reverse order, as linked by themes of redemption. They flunked sixth grade but met a wonderful counselor and made honor roll in seventh. They were laid low by divorce, only to meet a wonderful new partner. Often, too, they say they felt singled out from very early in life — protected, even as others nearby suffered.

In broad outline, the researchers report, such tales express distinctly American cultural narratives, of emancipation or atonement, of Horatio Alger advancement, of epiphany and second chances. Depending on the person, the story itself might be nuanced or simplistic, powerfully dramatic or cloyingly pious. But the point is that the narrative themes are, as much as any other trait, driving factors in people’s behavior, the researchers say.

“We find that when it comes to the big choices people make — should I marry this person? should I take this job? should I move across the country? — they draw on these stories implicitly, whether they know they are working from them or not,” Dr. McAdams said.

Any life story is by definition a retrospective reconstruction, at least in part an outgrowth of native temperament. Yet the research so far suggests that people’s life stories are neither rigid nor wildly variable, but rather change gradually over time, in close tandem with meaningful life events.

Jonathan Adler, a researcher at Northwestern, has found that people’s accounts of their experiences in psychotherapy provide clues about the nature of their recovery. In a recent study presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in January, Mr. Adler reported on 180 adults from the Chicago area who had recently completed a course of talk therapy. They sought treatment for things like depression, anxiety, marital problems and fear of flying, and spent months to years in therapy.

At some level, talk therapy has always been an exercise in replaying and reinterpreting each person’s unique life story. Yet Mr. Adler found that in fact those former patients who scored highest on measures of well-being — who had recovered, by standard measures — told very similar tales about their experiences.

They described their problem, whether depression or an eating disorder, as coming on suddenly, as if out of nowhere. They characterized their difficulty as if it were an outside enemy, often giving it a name (the black dog, the walk of shame). And eventually they conquered it.

“The story is one of victorious battle: ‘I ended therapy because I could overcome this on my own,’ ” Mr. Adler said. Those in the study who scored lower on measures of psychological well-being were more likely to see their moods and behavior problems as a part of their own character, rather than as a villain to be defeated. To them, therapy was part of a continuing adaptation, not a decisive battle.

The findings suggest that psychotherapy, when it is effective, gives people who are feeling helpless a sense of their own power, in effect altering their life story even as they work to disarm their own demons, Mr. Adler said.

Mental resilience relies in part on exactly this kind of autobiographical storytelling, moment to moment, when navigating life’s stings and sorrows. To better understand how stories are built in real time, researchers have recently studied how people recall vivid scenes from recent memory. They find that one important factor is the perspective people take when they revisit the scene — whether in the first person, or in the third person, as if they were watching themselves in a movie.

In a 2005 study reported in the journal Psychological Science, researchers at Columbia University measured how student participants reacted to a bad memory, whether an argument or failed exam, when it was recalled in the third person. They tested levels of conscious and unconscious hostility after the recollections, using both standard questionnaires and students’ essays. The investigators found that the third-person scenes were significantly less upsetting, compared with bad memories recalled in the first person.

“What our experiment showed is that this shift in perspective, having this distance from yourself, allows you to relive the experience and focus on why you’re feeling upset,” instead of being immersed in it, said Ethan Kross, the study’s lead author. The emotional content of the memory is still felt, he said, but its sting is blunted as the brain frames its meaning, as it builds the story.

Taken together, these findings suggest a kind of give and take between life stories and individual memories, between the larger screenplay and the individual scenes. The way people replay and recast memories, day by day, deepens and reshapes their larger life story. And as it evolves, that larger story in turn colors the interpretation of the scenes.

Nic Weststrate, 23, a student living in Toronto, said he was able to reinterpret many of his most painful memories with more compassion after having come out as a gay man. He was very hard on himself, for instance, when at age 20 he misjudged a relationship with a friend who turned out to be straight.

He now sees the end of that relationship as both a painful lesson and part of a larger narrative. “I really had no meaningful story for my life then,” he said, “and I think if I had been open about being gay I might not have put myself in that position, and he probably wouldn’t have either.”

After coming out, he said: “I saw that there were other possibilities. I would be presenting myself openly to a gay audience, and just having a coherent story about who I am made a big difference. It affects how you see the past, but it also really affects your future.”

Psychologists have shown just how interpretations of memories can alter future behavior. In an experiment published in 2005, researchers had college students who described themselves as socially awkward in high school recall one of their most embarrassing moments. Half of the students reimagined the humiliation in the first person, and the other half pictured it in the third person.

Two clear differences emerged. Those who replayed the scene in the third person rated themselves as having changed significantly since high school — much more so than the first-person group did. The third-person perspective allowed people to reflect on the meaning of their social miscues, the authors suggest, and thus to perceive more psychological growth.

And their behavior changed, too. After completing the psychological questionnaires, each study participant spent time in a waiting room with another student, someone the research subject thought was taking part in the study. In fact the person was working for the research team, and secretly recorded the conversation between the pair, if any. This double agent had no idea which study participants had just relived a high school horror, and which had viewed theirs as a movie scene.

The recordings showed that members of the third-person group were much more sociable than the others. “They were more likely to initiate a conversation, after having perceived themselves as more changed,” said Lisa Libby, the lead author and a psychologist at Ohio State University. She added, “We think that feeling you have changed frees you up to behave as if you have; you think, ‘Wow, I’ve really made some progress’ and it gives you some real momentum.”

Dr. Libby and others have found that projecting future actions in the third person may also affect what people later do, as well. In another study, students who pictured themselves voting for president in the 2004 election, from a third-person perspective, were more likely to actually go to the polls than those imagining themselves casting votes in the first person.

The implications of these results for self-improvement, whether sticking to a diet or finishing a degree or a novel, are still unknown. Likewise, experts say, it is unclear whether such scene-making is more functional for some people, and some memories, than for others. And no one yet knows how fundamental personality factors, like neuroticism or extraversion, shape the content of life stories or their component scenes.

But the new research is giving narrative psychologists something they did not have before: a coherent story to tell. Seeing oneself as acting in a movie or a play is not merely fantasy or indulgence; it is fundamental to how people work out who it is they are, and may become.

“The idea that whoever appeared onstage would play not me but a character was central to imagining how to make the narrative: I would need to see myself from outside,” the writer Joan Didion has said of “The Year of Magical Thinking,” her autobiographical play about mourning the death of her husband and her daughter. “I would need to locate the dissonance between the person I thought I was and the person other people saw.”

一只兔子如何吃掉狼的！

2007-05-25T20:57:00.000+08:00

文章写的好不好还是要看老板的！！！！
我是我还是不会写文章啊！！！

一天，一只兔子在山洞前写文章，
一只狼走了过来，问：“兔子啊，你在干什么？”
答曰：“写文章。”问：“什么题目？”答曰：“《浅谈兔子是怎样吃掉狼的》。”
狼哈哈大笑，表示不信，于是兔子把狼领进山洞。
过了一会，兔子独自走出山洞，继续写文章。
一只野猪走了过来，问：“兔子你在写什么？”答：“文章。”问：“题目是什么？”
答：“《浅谈兔子是如何把野猪吃掉的》。”野猪不信，于是同样的事情发生。
最后，在山洞里，一只狮子在一堆白骨之间，满意的剔着牙读着兔子交给它的文章，
题目：“《一只动物，能力大小关键要看你的老板是谁》。”

这只兔子有次不小心告诉了他的一个兔子朋友，这消息逐渐在森林中传播；
狮子知道后非常生气，他告诉兔子：“如果这个星期没有食物进洞，我就吃你。”
于是兔子继续在洞口写文章
一只小鹿走过来，“兔子，你在干什么啊？”
“写文章”“什么题目”““《浅谈兔子是怎样吃掉狼的》”
“哈哈，这个事情全森林都知道啊，你别胡弄我了，我是不会进洞的”
“我马上要退休了，狮子说要找个人顶替我，难道你不想这篇文章的兔子变成小鹿么”
小鹿想了想，终于忍不住诱惑，跟随兔子走进洞里。
过了一会，兔子独自走出山洞，继续写文章
一只小马走过来，同样是事情发生了。
最后，在山洞里，一只狮子在一堆白骨之间，满意的剔着牙读着兔子交给它的文章
题目是：《如何发展下线动物为老板提供食物》
随着时间的推移，狮子越长越大，兔子的食物已远远不能填饱肚子。
一日，他告诉兔子：“我的食物量要加倍，例如：原来4天一只小鹿，现在要2天一只，如果一周之内改变不了局面
我就吃你。
于是，兔子离开洞口，跑进森林深处，他见到一只狼
“你相信兔子能轻松吃掉狼吗”
狼哈哈大笑，表示不信，于是兔子把狼领进山洞。
过了一会，兔子独自走出山洞，继续进入森林深处
这回他碰到一只野猪----“你相信兔子能轻松吃掉野猪吗”
野猪不信，于是同样的事情发生了。
原来森林深处的动物并不知道兔子和狮子的故事
最后，在山洞里，一只狮子在一堆白骨之间，满意的剔着牙读着兔子交给它的文章
题目是：《如何实现由坐商到行商的转型为老板提供更多的食物》

时间飞快，转眼之间，兔子在森林里的名气越来越大
因为大家都知道它有一个很历害的老板
这只小兔开始横行霸道，欺上欺下，没有动物敢惹
它时时想起和乌龟赛跑的羞辱
它找到乌龟说：“三天之内，见我老板！”扬长而去
乌龟难过的哭了
这时却碰到了一位猎人
乌龟把这事告诉了他
猎人哈哈大笑
于是森林里发生了一件重大事情
猎人披着狮子皮和乌龟一起在吃兔子火锅
地下丢了半张纸片歪歪扭扭的写着：山外青山楼外楼，强中还有强中手啊！！

在很长一段时间里森林里恢复了往日的宁静，兔子吃狼的故事似乎快要被大家忘记了
不过一只年轻的老虎在听说了这个故事后，被激发了灵感
于是他抓住了一只羚羊，对羚羊说，如果你可以象以前的兔子那样为我带来食物那我就不吃你。
于是，羚羊无奈的答应了老虎，而老虎也悠然自得的进了山洞。
可是三天过去了，也没有见羚羊领一只动物进洞。他实在憋不住了，想出来看看情况。
羚羊早已不在了，他异常愤怒。正在他暴跳如雷的时候突然发现了羚羊写的一篇文章
题目是：《想要做好老板先要懂得怎样留住员工》

烧饼与股市

2007-05-18T23:33:00.000+08:00

现在股市里人人都在赚钱！！到底谁在亏钱？我讲一个故事来告诉大家谁亏钱了

假设一个市场，有两个人在卖烧饼，有且只有两个人，姑且称他们为烧饼甲、烧饼乙。
　　
　　假设他们的烧饼价格没有物价局监管。
　　
　　假设他们每个烧饼卖一元钱就可以保本（包括他们的劳动力价值）
　　
　　假设他们的烧饼数量一样多。
　　
　　——经济模型都这样，假设需要很多。
　　
　　再假设他们生意很不好，一个买烧饼的人都没有。这样他们很无聊地站了半天。
　　
　　甲说好无聊。
　　
　　乙说好无聊。
　　
　　看故事的你们说：好无聊。
　　
　　这个时候的市场叫做很不活跃！
　　
　　为了让大家不无聊，甲对乙说：要不我们玩个游戏？乙赞成。
　　
　　于是，故事开始了。。。。。。
　　
　　甲花一元钱买乙一个烧饼，乙也花一元钱买甲一个烧饼，现金交付。
　　
　　甲再花两元钱买乙一个烧饼，乙也花两元钱买甲一个烧饼，现金交付。
　　
　　甲再花三元钱买乙一个烧饼，乙也花三元钱买甲一个烧饼，现金交付。
　　
　　。。。。。。
　　
　　于是在整个市场的人看来（包括看故事的你）烧饼的价格飞涨，不一会儿就涨到了每个烧饼60元。但只要甲和乙手上的烧饼数一样，那么谁都没有赚钱，谁也没有亏钱，但是他们重估以后的资产“增值”了！甲乙拥有高出过去很多倍的“财富”，他们身价提高了很多，“市值”增加了很多。
　　
　　这个时候有路人丙，一个小时前路过的时候知道烧饼是一元一个，现在发现是60元一个，他很惊讶。
　　
　　一个小时以后，路人丙发现烧饼已经是100元一个，他更惊讶了。
　　
　　又一个小时以后，路人丙发现烧饼已经是120元一个了，他毫不犹豫地买了一个，因为他是个投资兼投机家，他确信烧饼价格还会涨，价格上还有上升空间，并且有人给出了超过200元的“目标价”（在股票市场，他叫股民，给出目标价的人叫研究员）。
　　
　　在烧饼甲、烧饼乙“赚钱”的示范效应下，甚至路人丙赚钱的示范效应下，接下来的买烧饼的路人越来越多，参与买卖的人也越来越多，烧饼价格节节攀升，所有的人都非常高兴，因为很奇怪：所有人都没有亏钱。。。。。。
　　
　　这个时候，你可以想见，甲和乙谁手上的烧饼少，即谁的资产少，谁就真正的赚钱了。参与购买的人，谁手上没烧饼了，谁就真正赚钱了！而且卖了的人都很后悔——因为烧饼价格还在飞快地涨。。。。。。
　　
　　那谁亏了钱呢？
　　
　　答案是：谁也没有亏钱，因为很多出高价购买烧饼的人手上持有大家公认的优质等值资产——烧饼！而烧饼显然比现金好！现金存银行能有多少一点利息啊？哪比得上价格飞涨的烧饼啊？甚至大家一致认为市场烧饼供不应求，可不可以买烧饼期货啊？于是出现了认购权证。。。。。。
　　
　　有人问了：买烧饼永远不会亏钱吗？看样子是的。但这个世界就那么奇怪，突然市场上来了一个叫李子的，李子曰：有亏钱的时候！那哪一天大家会亏钱呢？
　　
　　假设一：市场上来了个物价部门，他认为烧饼的定价应该是每个一元。（监管）
　　
　　假设二：市场出现了很多做烧饼的，而且价格就是每个一元。（同样题材）
　　
　　假设三：市场出现了很多可供玩这种游戏的商品。（发行）
　　
　　假设四：大家突然发现这不过是个烧饼！（价值发现）
　　
　　假设五：没有人再愿意玩互相买卖的游戏了！（真相大白）
　　
　　如果有一天，任何一个假设出现了，那么这一天，有烧饼的人就亏钱了！那谁赚了钱？就是最少占有资产——烧饼的人！
　　
　　这个卖烧饼的故事非常简单，人人都觉得高价买烧饼的人是傻瓜，但我们再回首看看我们所在的证券市场的人们吧。这个市场的有些所谓的资产重估、资产注入何尝不是这样？在ROE高企，资产有高溢价下的资产注入，和卖烧饼的原理其实一样，谁最少地占有资产，谁就是赚钱的人，谁就是获得高收益的人！
　　
　　所以作为一个投资人，要理性地看待资产重估和资产注入，忽悠别人不要忽悠自己，尤其不要忽悠自己的钱！
　　
　　在高ROE下的资产注入，尤其是券商借壳上市、增发购买大股东的资产、增发类的房地产等等资产注入，一定要把眼睛擦亮再擦亮，慎重再慎重！
　　
　　因为，你很可能成为一个持有高价烧饼的路人！

十种保持记忆力超群的方法

2007-05-17T21:43:00.000+08:00

年纪轻轻的，我的记忆力就已经如此的差了，上周出去玩儿时，刚刚把手机交给同学，自己就开始忙着找手机，晕出一身冷汗，唉！！！（by the way, 下面的中文翻译来自www.jiandan.net,通不错的网站呵）
A good memory is one of the most powerful and valuable assets you can own. Recent studies have found that older adults who spent more time in leisure activities that required more mental effort had reduced chance of developing Alzheimer's disease. There are plenty of ways to fight forgetfulness and keep your brainpower going strong.

Just like you can’t expect to get a six-pack stomach by sitting on the couch all day, don’t expect your memory to stay at the top of its game without a proper workout. Your brain needs to pump mental iron consistently to boost up its memory muscle. Remember, it’s up to you to never forget that you are worth remembering.

Check out the top 10 ways to keep your brain waves active and your memory strong.

1. Brain food: Don’t let yourself run on empty. A balanced diet will help keep your mind running strong all day long. Make sure to include plenty of fruits and leafy green vegetables. They are loaded with essential antioxidants and nutrients to boost your brain power. Some of the best foods for thought include: blueberries, blackberries, fish and fish oils, eggs, spinach, strawberries and almonds.

2. Exercise: Get your body moving and your memory will soon follow. Exercise improves the heart’s blood flow. This, in turn, helps the brain function better and stay sharper. Studies have also found that cardiovascular exercises done over a long period of time help reduce the amount of brain tissue you lose as you age.

3. Brain Games: Unscramble your memory with Scrabble. Intellectually stimulating activities and games such as Scrabble, crossword puzzles and trivia games are great for boosting your memory. Have fun and challenge your brain with these fun memory games.

4. Pick Up a Book: The key to keeping your memory sharp is to continue to challenge it. Try to always have a book in hand. After you’re done reading a chapter or two, question and review the material you’ve read. Try to imagine what you’re reading. Discuss what you’ve read, and talk about it with friends or join a book club.

5. Take a Sip Down Memory Lane: Coffee is good for more than just getting you out of bed in the morning. Researches have found the stimulant affect of caffeine can help boost memory. Studies have also found that key enzymes found in green and black teas help improve memory functions.

6. Cultivate interest: We tend to remember the things that we enjoy. Find ways to make a boring subject fun by associating it to something you already know. If you have to remember a list, try to make a fun sentence out of the first letters of each item or try categorizing things into a group. You can also use your imagination and create a fun story behind a subject to help make it easier to remember.

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7. Catch some those Zzzz’s: Sleep plays a critical role in your physiological function and is vital for your intellectual development. Memory failure is a common occurrence for many sleep-deprived individuals. A study conducted at the University of Luebeck found that creativity and problem solving appear to be directly linked to adequate sleep.

8. Repeat After Me: When learning new information, the more you repeat it, the more likely you will be able to recall that information. Practice is the key to lasting memory. Practice is the key to lasting memory. Practice is the key to lasting memory.

9. Give It a Beat: Music not only helps trigger memories of past events, but also stimulates learning skills. Music has also been shown to help retain information and provide multiple modes of information retrieval.

10. Pick Your Own Brain and Share it with Others: Don’t keep your knowledge stored up. Teaching others is another great way to boost memory skills. You should also become your own teacher. Don’t be afraid of taking on new challenges. You might not be in school anymore but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t test yourself. After you learn something, it’s important to put the new information to use.

好的记忆力是你所能拥有的最宝贵、最有用的财富之一。但是，正像你不能指望每天坐在电脑前面还能减肥10公斤一样，你也不能指望不付出努力就能保持一个好的记忆力，下面是十种保持记忆力的方法：

1. 吃有益于大脑的食品：尤其是绿色蔬菜和水果。

2. 锻炼身体：保持一个健康的、供血充足的身体，记忆力也会跟上的。

3. 玩智力游戏可以有效的刺激脑细胞：多玩玩棋类、字谜或是数字游戏都不错。

4. 多读书：经常拿起书本，阅读上一两章，然后试着回忆你阅读的内容，这也许是最有效的记忆训练方式。

5. 试着喝一些咖啡：不只能够提神，研究也表明咖啡因含有能够提高记忆力的成分，同样绿茶和红茶也有助于记忆力增长。

6. 培养自己的兴趣爱好：我们总是能记住我们所喜欢的东西。

7. 保持充足的睡眠：睡眠在大脑的保养中扮演着极其重要的角色，记忆力衰退的最大原因就是缺乏足够的睡眠。

8. 多多重复：当学到新的信息时，多多的重复它。

9. 听听音乐：音乐不只能帮助唤起过去的回忆，还能刺激你的大脑活动。

10. 与别人分享你的知识：在分享的过程中你的记忆会得到进一步的巩固，何况分享带给你的乐趣可不只这些哟。

A Giant Takes On Physics’ Biggest Questions

2007-05-15T18:42:00.000+08:00

A Giant Takes On Physics’ Biggest Questions

——天才挑战物理之极

At Cern, the Large Hadron Collider could recreate conditions that last prevailed when the universe was less than a trillionth of a second old. Above is one of the collider's massive particle detectors, called the Compact Muon Solenoid.
Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York Times

300 FEET BELOW MEYRIN, Switzerland — The first thing that gets you is the noise.

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/science/20070514_CERN_GRAPHIC.html

Physics, after all, is supposed to be a cerebral pursuit. But this cavern almost measureless to the eye, stuffed as it is with an Eiffel Tower’s worth of metal, eight-story wheels of gold fan-shape boxes, thousands of miles of wire and fat ductlike coils, echoes with the shriek of power tools, the whine of pumps and cranes, beeps and clanks from wrenches, hammers, screwdrivers and the occasional falling bolt. It seems no place for the studious.

The physicists, wearing hardhats, kneepads and safety harnesses, are scrambling like Spiderman over this assembly, appropriately named Atlas, ducking under waterfalls of cables and tubes and crawling into hidden room-size cavities stuffed with electronics.

They are getting ready to see the universe born again.

Again and again and again — 30 million times a second, in fact.

Starting sometime next summer if all goes to plan, subatomic particles will begin shooting around a 17-mile underground ring stretching from the European Center for Nuclear Research, or Cern, near Geneva, into France and back again — luckily without having to submit to customs inspections.

Crashing together in the bowels of Atlas and similar contraptions spaced around the ring, the particles will produce tiny fireballs of primordial energy, recreating conditions that last prevailed when the universe was less than a trillionth of a second old.

Whatever forms of matter and whatever laws and forces held sway Back Then — relics not seen in this part of space since the universe cooled 14 billion years ago — will spring fleetingly to life, over and over again in all their possible variations, as if the universe were enacting its own version of the “Groundhog Day” movie. If all goes well, they will leave their footprints in mountains of hardware and computer memory.

“We are now on the endgame,” said Lyn Evans, of Cern, who has been in charge of the Large Hadron Collider, as it is called, since its inception. Call it the Hubble Telescope of Inner Space. Everything about the collider sounds, well, large — from the 14 trillion electron volts of energy with which it will smash together protons, its cast of thousands and the $8 billion it cost to build, to the 128 tons of liquid helium needed to cool the superconducting magnets that keep the particles whizzing around their track and the three million DVDs worth of data it will spew forth every year.

The day it turns on will be a moment of truth for Cern, which has spent 13 years building the collider, and for the world’s physicists, who have staked their credibility and their careers, not to mention all those billions of dollars, on the conviction that they are within touching distance of fundamental discoveries about the universe. If they fail to see something new, experts agree, it could be a long time, if ever, before giant particle accelerators are built on Earth again, ringing down the curtain on at least one aspect of the age-old quest to understand what the world is made of and how it works.

“If you see nothing,” said a Cern physicist, John Ellis, “in some sense then, we theorists have been talking rubbish for the last 35 years.”

Fabiola Gianotti, a Cern physicist and the deputy spokeswoman for the team that built the Atlas, said, “Something must happen.”

The accelerator, Dr. Gianotti explained, would take physics into a realm of energy and time where the current reigning theories simply do not apply, corresponding to an era when cosmologists think that the universe was still differentiating itself, evolving from a primordial blandness and endless potential into the forces and particles that constitute modern reality.

She listed possible discoveries like a mysterious particle called the Higgs that is thought to endow other particles with mass, new forms of matter that explain the mysterious dark matter waddling the cosmos and even new dimensions of spacetime.

“For me,” Dr. Gianotti said, “it would be a dream if, finally, in a couple of years in a laboratory we are going to produce the particle responsible for 25 percent of the universe.”

Halfway around the ring stood her rival of sorts, Jim Virdee from Imperial College London, wearing a hardhat at the bottom of another huge cavern. Dr. Virdee is the spokesman, which is physics-speak for leader, of another team, some 2,500 strong, with another giant detector, the poetically named Compact Muon Detector, which was looming over his shoulder like a giant cannon.

The prospect of discovery, Dr. Virdee said, is what sustained him and his colleagues over the 16 years it took to develop their machine. Without such detectors, he said, “this field which began with Newton just stops.”

“When we started, we did not know how to do this experiment and did not know if it would work,” he said. “Twenty-five hundred scientists can work together. Our judge is not God or governments, but nature. If we make a mistake, nature will not hesitate to punish us.”

Game of Cosmic Leapfrog

The advent of the Cern collider also cements a shift in the balance of physics power away from American dominance that began in 1993, when Congress canceled the Superconducting Supercollider, a monster machine under construction in Waxahachie, Tex. The supercollider, the most powerful ever envisioned, would have sped protons around a 54-mile racetrack before slamming them together with 40 trillion electron volts.

For decades before that, physicists in the United States and Europe had leapfrogged one another with bigger, more expensive and, inevitably, fewer of these machines, which get their magic from Einstein’s equation of mass and energy. The more energy that these machines can pack into their little fireballs, the farther back in time they can go, closer and closer to the Big Bang, the smaller and smaller things they can see.Recalling those times, Dr. Evans said: “There was a nice equilibrium across the Atlantic. People used to come and go.”

Now, Dr. Evans said, “The center of gravity has moved to Cern.”

The most powerful accelerator now operating is the trillion-electron volt Tevatron, colliding protons and their antimatter opposites, antiprotons, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill. But it is scheduled to shut down by 2010,

Cern was born amid vineyards and farmland in the countryside outside Geneva in 1954 out of the rubble of postwar Europe. It had a twofold mission of rebuilding European science and of having European countries work together.

Today, it has 20 countries as members. Yearly contributions are determined according to members’ domestic economies, and a result is a stable annual budget of about a billion Swiss francs. The vineyards and cows are still there, but so are strip malls and shopping centers.

It was here that the World Wide Web was born in the early 1990s, but the director-general of Cern, Robert Aymar, joked that the lab’s greatest fame was as a locus of conspiracy in the novel “Angels and Demons,” by the author of “The DaVinci Code,” Dan Brown. The lab came into its own scientifically in the early ’80s, when Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer won the Nobel Prize by colliding protons and antiprotons there to produce the particles known as the W and Z bosons, which are responsible for the so-called weak nuclear force that causes some radioactive decays.

Bosons are bits of energy, or quanta, that, according to the weird house rules of the subatomic world, transmit forces as they are tossed back and forth in a sort of game of catch between matter particles. The W’s and Z’s are closely related to photons, which transmit electromagnetic forces, or light.

The lab followed up that triumph by building a 17-mile-long ring, the Large Electron-Positron collider, or Lep, to manufacture W and Z particles for further study. Meanwhile, the United States abandoned plans for an accelerator named Isabelle to leapfrog to the giant supercollider in Texas.

Even before that supercollider was canceled, in 1993, however, Cern physicists had been mulling building their own giant proton collider in the Lep tunnel.

In 1994, after the supercollider collapse gave its own collider a clear field, the Cern governing council gave its approval. The United States eventually agreed to chip in $531 million for the project. Cernalso arranged to borrow about $400 million from the European Investment Bank. Even so, there was a crisis in 2001 when the project was found to be 18 percent over budget, necessitating cutting other programs at the lab. The collider’s name comes from the word hadron, which denotes subatomic particles like protons and neutrons that feel the “strong” nuclear force that binds atomic nuclei.

Whether the Europeans would have gone ahead if the United States had still been in the game depends on whom you ask. Dr. Aymar, who was not there in the ’90s, said there was no guarantee then that the United States would succeed even if it did proceed.

“Certainly in Europe the situation of Cern is such that we appreciate competition,” he said. “But we assume we are the leader and we have all intention to remain the leader. And we’ll do everything which is needed to remain the leader.”

To match the American machine, however, the Europeans, with a much smaller tunnel — 17 miles instead of 54 —had to adopt a riskier design, in particular by doubling the strength of their magnets.

“In this business, society is prepared to support particle physics at a certain level,” Dr. Evans saids. “If you want society to accept this work which is not cheap, you have to be really innovative.”

Cocktail Party Physics

The payoff for this investment, physicists say, could be a new understanding of one of the most fundamental of aspects of reality, namely the nature of mass.

This is where the shadowy particle known as the Higgs boson, a k a the God particle, comes in.

In the Standard Model, a suite of equations describing all the forces but gravity, which has held sway as the law of the cosmos for the last 35 years, elementary particles are born in the Big Bang without mass, sort of like Adam and Eve being born without sin.

Some of them (the particles, that is) acquire their heft, so the story goes, by wading through a sort of molasses that pervades all of space. The Higgs process, named after Peter Higgs, a Scottish physicist who first showed how this could work in 1964, has been compared to a cocktail party where particles gather their masses by interaction. The more they interact, the more mass they gain.

The Higgs idea is crucial to a theory that electromagnetism and the weak force are separate manifestations of a single so-called electroweak force. It shows how the massless bits of light called photons could be long-lost brothers to the heavy W and Z bosons, which would gain large masses from such cocktail party interactions as the universe cooled.

The confirmation of the theory by the Nobel-winning work at Cern 20 years ago ignited hopes among physicists that they could eventually unite the rest of the forces of nature.

Moreover, Higgs-like fields have been proposed as the source of an enormous burst of expansion, known as inflation, early in the universe, and, possibly, as the secret of the dark energy that now seems to be speeding up the expansion of the universe. So it is important to know whether the theory works and, if not, to find out what does endow the universe with mass.

But nobody has ever seen a Higgs boson, the particle that personifies this molasses. It should be producible in particle accelerators, but nature has given confusing clues about where to look for it. Measurements of other exotic particles suggest that the Higgs’s mass should be around 90 billion electron volts, the unit of choice in particle physics. But other results, from the Lep collider here before it shut down in 2000, indicate that the Higgs must weigh more than 114 billion electron volts. By comparison, an electron is half a million electron volts, and a proton is about 2,000 times heavier.

“We’ve nearly ruled out the Standard Model, if you want to say it that way,” said John Conway, a Fermilab physicist. The new collider was specifically designed to hunt for the Higgs particle, which is key both to the Standard Model and to any greater theory that would supersede it.

Theorists say the Higgs or something like it has to show up simply because the Standard Model breaks down and goes kerflooey at energies exceeding one trillion electron volts. If you try to predict what happens when two particles collide, it gives nonsense, explained Dr. Ellis of Cern, a senior theorist with the long white hair and a bushy beard to prove it.

“There is either a violation of probability or some new physics,” Dr. Ellis said.

Nima Arkani-Hamed of Harvard said he would bet a year’s salary on the Higgs.

“If the Higgs or something like it doesn’t exist,” Dr. Arkani-Hamed said, “then some very basic things like quantum mechanics are wrong.”

A result, Dr. Gianotti said, is “either we find the Higgs boson, or some stranger phenomenon must happen.”

Nightmares

If the Cern experimenters find the Higgs, Nobel Prizes will flow like water. But just finding the elusive particle will not be enough to satisfy the theorists, who profess to be haunted by a much deeper problem, namely why the putative particle is not millions of times heavier than it appears to be.

When they try to calculate the mass of the Higgs particle using the Standard Model and quantum mechanics, they get what Dr. Ellis called “a very infinite answer.”

Rather than a trillion electron volts or so, quantum effects push the mass all the way up to 10 quadrillion trillion electron volts, known as the Planck energy, where gravity and the other particle forces are equal.

The culprit is quantum weirdness, one principle of which is that anything that is not forbidden will happen. That means the Higgs calculation must include the effects of its interactions with all other known particles, including so-called virtual particles that can wink in and out of existence, which shift its mass off the scale.

As a result, if the Standard Model is valid for all energies, said Joe Lykken, a Fermilab theorist, “then you are in deep doodoo trying to explain why the Higgs mass isn’t a quadrillion times bigger than it needs to be.”

Another way to put it is to ask why gravity is so much weaker than the other forces — the theory wants them all to be equal.

Theorists can rig their calculations to have the numbers come out right, but it feels like cheating. “What we have to do to equations is crazy,” Dr. Arkani-Hamed said.

One solution that has been proposed is a new principle of nature called supersymmetry that, if true, would be a bonanza for the Cern collider.

It posits a relation between the particles of matter like electrons and quarks and particles that transmit forces like photons and the W boson. For each particle in one category, there is an as-yet-undiscovered superpartner in the other category.

“Supersymmetry doubles the world,” Dr. Arkani-Hamed said.

These superpartners cancel out all the quantum effects that make the Higgs mass skyrocket. “Supersymmetry is the only known way to manage this,” Dr. Lykken said.

Because Higgs bosons are expected to be produced very rarely, it could take at least a year or more for physicists to confirm their discovery at the collider. But some supersymmetric particles, if they exist, should be produced abundantly and could thus pop out of the data much sooner. “Suppose a gluino exists at 300 billion electron volts,” Dr. Arkani-Hamed said, referring to a putative superpartner. “We could know the first day if they exist.”

For several years, supersymmetry has been a sort of best bet to be the next step beyond the Standard Model, which is undefeated in experiments but has enormous gaps. The Standard Model does not include gravity or explain why, for example, the universe is matter instead of antimatter or even why particles have the masses they do.

In the end, Michelangelo Mangano, a theorist at Cern, said, “The standard model prediction can’t be the end of the story.”

Supersymmetry also fixes a glitch in the age-old dream of explaining all the forces of nature as manifestations of one primordial force. It predicts that at a high enough energy, all the forces — electromagnetic, strong and weak — have identical strengths.

“If supersymmetry is right, unification works,” Dr. Ellis said.

But there is no direct evidence for any of the thousands of versions of supersymmetry that have been proposed. Indeed, many theorists are troubled that its effects have not already shown up in precision measurements at accelerators.

“It doesn’t smell good,” Dr. Arkani-Hamed said. Physicists say the best indirect evidence for supersymmetry comes from the skies, where the galaxies have been found to be swaddled by clouds of invisible dark matter, presumably unknown particles left over from the Big Bang. “Dark matter is a very physical argument.” Dr. Ellis said. “If you take astrophysics seriously, there has to be some unseen stuff out there.”

On the menu of discoveries, there is always None of the Above. As Dr. Gianotti put it: “Nature has chosen another solution. This will be great.”

There are indeed other potential solutions that go by the name of Technicolor or the Little Higgs. But what if the collider sees nothing?

That, Dr. Ellis said, would be interesting for the theorists, who would have to retool and try to think even deeper thoughts about quantum mechanics and relativity, but bad for the experimentalists. Without any results, they would be unlikely to obtain financing for the next big machine planned, the $7 billion International Linear Collider.

A worse nightmare, several theorists said, would be seeing just the Higgs, but nothing else. That would leave them where they are, stuck in the Standard Model, with no answer to their embarrassing fine-tuning problem, no dark matter and no clue to a better theory.

To add to the confusion, according to the Standard Model, the Higgs can have only a limited range of masses without severe damage to the universe. If it is too light, the universe will decay. If it is too heavy, the universe would have blown up already. According to Dr. Ellis, there is a magic value between 160 billion and 180 billion electron volts that would ensure a stable universe and require no new physics at all.

But that would leave theorists with nothing more to do and a world in which basic questions would remain forever unanswered.

Dr. Ellis said, “ I can’t believe God would push the button on a theory like that.”

But, he conceded, “For the I.L.C., a boring Higgs is better than nothing.”

Sunken Cathedrals

There was more than birds singing and trees blooming outside the main Cern cafeteria in March to suggest that springtime for physics was approaching.

Some 300 feet beneath the warming grass, the magnets that are the guts of the collider, thick as tree trunks, long as boxcars, weighing in at 35 tons apiece, were strung together like an endless train stretching away into the dim lamplight and around a gentle curve.

A technician on his way to a far sector of the collider ring bicycled past.

“When you fold in the technology combined with the scale,” said Peter Limon, a Fermilab physicist on duty here, “I don’t think anything on Earth or in space that we know about beats it.”

Running through the core of this train, surrounded by magnets and cold, were two vacuum pipes, one for protons going clockwise, the other counterclockwise. Traveling in tight bunches along the twin beams, the protons will cross each other at four points around the ring, 30 million times a second. During each of these violent crossings, physicists expect that about 20 protons, or the parts thereof — quarks or gluons — will actually collide and spit fire. It is in vast caverns at those intersection points that the knee-padded and hardhatted physicists are assembling their detector, or “sunken cathedrals” in the words of a Cern theorist, Alvaro de Rujula, to capture the holy fire.Two of the detectors are specialized. One, called Alice and led by Jurgen Schukraft of Cern, is designed to study a sort of primordial fluid, called a quark-gluon plasma, that is created when the collider smashes together lead nuclei.

The other, LHCb, is led by Tatsuya Nakada of Cern and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. It is designed to hunt for subtle differences in matter and antimatter that could help explain how the universe, which was presumably born with equal amounts of both, came to be dominated by matter.

The other two, the aforementioned Atlas and Compact Muon Solenoid, or C.M.S. for short, are the designated rival workhorses of the collider, designed expressly to capture and measure every last spray of particle and spark of energy from the proton collisions.

The rivals represent complementary strategies for hunting the Higgs particle, which is expected to disintegrate into a spray of lesser particles. Exactly which particles depends on how massive the Higgs really is.

One telltale signature of the Higgs and other subatomic cataclysms is a negatively charged particle known as a muon, a sort of heavy electron that comes flying out at nearly the speed of light. Physicists measure muon momentum by seeing how much their paths bend in a magnetic field.

It is the need to have magnets strong enough and large enough to produce measurable bending, physicists say, that determines the gigantic size of the detectors.

The Compact Muon Solenoid, built by Dr. Virdee’s group, weighs 12,000 tons, the heaviest instrument ever made. It takes its name from a massive superconducting electromagnet that produces a powerful field running along the path of the protons.

Conversely, the magnetic field on Atlas wraps like tape around the proton beam. The Atlas collaboration has been led from its start by Peter Jenni of Cern. At150 feet long and 80 feet high, Atlas is bigger than its rival, but it is much lighter, about 7,000 pounds, about as much as the Eiffel Tower. The physicists like to joke that if you threw it in the ocean in a plastic bag it would float.

The two detectors have much in common, including “onion layers” of instruments to measure different particles and the ability to cope with harsh radiation and vast amounts of data. Dr. Virdee compared the central C.M.S. detector, made of strips of silicon that record the passage of charged particles, to a 60-megapixel digital camera taking 40 million pictures a second. “We have to time everything to the nanosecond,” he said

To manage this onslaught the teams’ computers have to perform triage, and winnow those events to a couple hundred per second. That is dangerous, Dr. Gianotti said, “because we are looking for something rare.” The Higgs occurs once in every trillion events, she said.

Contending Armies

The competition between Atlas and the C.M.S. is in keeping with a long tradition of having rival teams and rival detectors at big experiments to keep each other honest and to cover all the bets. As Dr. Mangano put it, “If you screw it up, others are here to crucify you.”

At the Fermilab Tevatron, the teams, several hundred strong, are called CDF and D0. In the glory years 20 years ago at Cern, they were called UA1 and UA2. Over the years, as the machines have grown, so have the groups that built them, from teams to armies, 1,800 people from 34 countries for Atlas and 2,520 from 37 countries for the C.M.S. The other two experiments — Alice with 1000 scientists, and LHCb with 663 — are only slightly smaller.

Robert Cousins of U.C.L.A. and C.M.S. joked that he was old enough so that after 25 years in the business “half my friends are on Atlas, the others on C.M.S.” Dr. Jenni said all 1,800 Atlas scientists would have their names on the first papers out of the collider, adding: “The people who work in the pit make as important a physics contribution as those who end up in front of the computers. This is a big step in energy. It’s new territory, and that’s in the end why everyone is excited.”

At the end of the day, Dr. Mangano said, unless there is a major problem both machines will perform. “It will come down to sociology,” he said. “How quickly can they analyze the date? How do you manipulate and analyze the data? The process of understanding is long.”

There could be new phenomena, he added, new particles that theorists have not thought of.

Dr. Mangano pointed out that it had been a long time since high-energy physicists had made a fundamental discovery. And back then, when Dr. Rubbia was doing his Nobel work, there were well-defined theories of what would be found. Now, everything will be new.

“There are many students who have never seen data,” Dr. Mangano said. “I don’t know how much longer we can keep going like that.”

What comes out of the Large Hadron Collider, he said, “will determine the future of the field.”

Dr. Arkani-Hamed said the tension was keeping him awake at night. “Nobody knows how this is going to go,” he said. “That’s what makes it so cool. The experiment itself is so spectacular.”

Sipping an espresso in his office, Dr. Mangano refused to consider the possibility of failure. “It’s like saying suppose you drive into a tree on the way home,” he said. “Let’s hope we get home safely and we see something.”

Tools For Thought

2007-04-28T12:24:00.000+08:00

Tools for Thought is an exercise in retrospective futurism; that is, I wrote it in the early 1980s, attempting to look at what the mid 1990s would be like. My odyssey started when I discovered Xerox PARC and Doug Engelbart and realized that all the journalists who had descended upon Silicon Valley were missing the real story. Yes, the tales of teenagers inventing new industries in their garages were good stories. But the idea of the personal computer did not spring full-blown from the mind of Steve Jobs. Indeed, the idea that people could use computers to amplify thought and communication, as tools for intellectual work and social activity, was not an invention of the mainstream computer industry nor orthodox computer science, nor even homebrew computerists. If it wasn't for people like J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Bob Taylor, Alan Kay, it wouldn't have happened. But their work was rooted in older, equally eccentric, equally visionary, work, so I went back to piece together how Boole and Babbage and Turing and von Neumann -- especially von Neumann - created the foundations that the later toolbuilders stood upon to create the future we live in today. You can't understand where mind-amplifying technology is going unless you understand where it came from.

Chapter One: The Computer Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet
Chapter Two: The First Programmer Was a Lady
Chapter Three: The First Hacker and his Imaginary Machine
Chapter Four: Johnny Builds Bombs and Johnny Builds Brains
Chapter Five: Ex-Prodigies and Antiaircraft Guns
Chapter Six: Inside Information
Chapter Seven: Machines to Think With
Chapter Eight: Witness to History: The Mascot of Project Mac
Chapter Nine: The Loneliness of a Long-Distance Thinker
Chapter Ten: The New Old Boys from the ARPAnet
Chapter Eleven: The Birth of the Fantasy Amplifier
Chapter Twelve: Brenda and the Future Squad
Chapter Thirteen: Knowledge Engineers and Epistemological Entrepreneurs
Chapter Fourteen: Xanadu, Network Culture, and Beyond
Footnotes

Albert Einstein on: Religion and Science

2007-03-28T19:05:00.000+08:00

Albert Einstein on: Religion and Science

说实在的，爱因斯坦对于科学与宗教有很多的阐述，其中也不乏名言，如：science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.当然爱教授所指的宗教可不是我们想的那么简单啊！不信，就看看爱教授的观点吧！

This section is from Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium, published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941.

下面是英文原版：
It would not be difficult to come to an agreement as to what we understand by science. Science is the century-old endeavor to bring together by means of systematic thought the perceptible phenomena of this world into as thoroughgoing an association as possible. To put it boldly, it is the attempt at the posterior reconstruction of existence by the process of conceptualization. But when asking myself what religion is I cannot think of the answer so easily. And even after finding an answer which may satisfy me at this particular moment, I still remain convinced that I can never under any circumstances bring together, even to a slight extent, the thoughts of all those who have given this question serious consideration.

At first, then, instead of asking what religion is I should prefer to ask what characterizes the aspirations of a person who gives me the impression of being religious: a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings, and aspirations to which he clings because of their superpersonalvalue. It seems to me that what is important is the force of this superpersonal content and the depth of the conviction concerning its overpowering meaningfulness, regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly, a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance and loftiness of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation. They exist with the same necessity and matter-of-factness as he himself. In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If one conceives of religion and science according to these definitions then a conflict between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary. Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human thought and action: it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between facts. According to this interpretation the well-known conflicts between religion and science in the past must all be ascribed to a misapprehension of the situation which has been described.

For example, a conflict arises when a religious community insists on the absolute truthfulness of all statements recorded in the Bible. This means an intervention on the part of religion into the sphere of science; this is where the struggle of the Church against the doctrines of Galileo and Darwin belongs. On the other hand, representatives of science have often made an attempt to arrive at fundamental judgments with respect to values and ends on the basis of scientific method, and in this way have set themselves in opposition to religion. These conflicts have all sprung from fatal errors.

Now, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Though I have asserted above that in truth a legitimate conflict between religion and science cannot exist, I must nevertheless qualify this assertion once again on an essential point, with reference to the actual content of historical religions. This qualification has to do with the concept of God. During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image, who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate to influence, the phenomenal world. Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favor by means of magic and prayer. The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old concept of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes.

Nobody, certainly, will deny that the idea of the existence of an omnipotent, just, and omnibeneficent personal God is able to accord man solace, help, and guidance; also, by virtue of its simplicity it is accessible to the most undeveloped mind. But, on the other hand, there are decisive weaknesses attached to this idea in itself, which have been painfully felt since the beginning of history. That is, if this being is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment and rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him?

The main source of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion and of science lies in this concept of a personal God. It is the aim of science to establish general rules which determine the reciprocal connection of objects and events in time and space. For these rules, or laws of nature, absolutely general validity is required--not proven. It is mainly a program, and faith in the possibility of its accomplishment in principle is only founded on partial successes. But hardly anyone could be found who would deny these partial successes and ascribe them to human self-deception. The fact that on the basis of such laws we are able to predict the temporal behavior of phenomena in certain domains with great precision and certainty is deeply embedded in the consciousness of the modern man, even though he may have grasped very little of the contents of those laws. He need only consider that planetary courses within the solar system may be calculated in advance with great exactitude on the basis of a limited number of simple laws. In a similar way, though not with the same precision, it is possible to calculate in advance the mode of operation of an electric motor, a transmission system, or of a wireless apparatus, even when dealing with a novel development.

To be sure, when the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large, scientific method in most cases fails us. One need only think of the weather, in which case prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible. Nevertheless no one doubts that we are confronted with a causal connection whose causal components are in the main known to us. Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature.

We have penetrated far less deeply into the regularities obtaining within the realm of living things, but deeply enough nevertheless to sense at least the rule of fixed necessity. One need only think of the systematic order in heredity, and in the effect of poisons, as for instance alcohol, on the behavior of organic beings. What is still lacking here is a grasp of connections of profound generality, but not a knowledge of order in itself.

The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.

But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task. (This thought is convincingly presented in Herbert Samuel's book, Belief and Action.) After religious teachers accomplish the refining process indicated they will surely recognize with joy that true religion has been ennobled and made more profound by scientific knowledge.

If it is one of the goals of religion to liberate mankind as far as possible from the bondage of egocentric cravings, desires, and fears, scientific reasoning can aid religion in yet another sense. Although it is true that it is the goal of science to discover rules which permit the association and foretelling of facts, this is not its only aim. It also seeks to reduce the connections discovered to the smallest possible number of mutually independent conceptual elements. It is in this striving after the rational unification of the manifold that it encounters its greatest successes, even though it is precisely this attempt which causes it to run the greatest risk of falling a prey to illusions. But whoever has undergone the intense experience of successful advances made in this domain is moved by profound reverence for the rationality made manifest in existence. By way of the understanding he achieves a far-reaching emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes and desires, and thereby attains that humble attitude of mind toward the grandeur of reason incarnate in existence, and which, in its profoundest depths, is inaccessible to man. This attitude, however, appears to me to be religious, in the highest sense of the word. And so it seems to me that science not only purifies the religious impulse of the dross of its anthropomorphism but also contributes to a religious spiritualization of our understanding of life.

The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. In this sense I believe that the priest must become a teacher if he wishes to do justice to his lofty educational mission.

中文翻译就讲究看吧，翻译的一般：

要我们对什么是科学得出一致的理解，实际上并不困难。科学就是一种历史悠久的努力，力图用系统的思维，把这个世界中可感知的现象尽可能彻底地联系起来。说得大胆点，它是这样一种企图：要通过构思过程，后验地来重建存在。但我要是问自已，宗教是什么，我可就不能那么容易回答了。即使我找到了一个可能在这个特殊时刻使我满意的答案，可是我仍然相信，我决不可能在任何情况下都会使所有对这个问题作过认真考虑的人哪怕在很小程度上表示同意。

因此，我想先不去问宗教是什么，而宁愿问，一个我认为是信仰宗教的人，他的志向有哪些特征：在我看来，一个人受了宗教感化，他就是已经尽他的最大可能从自私欲望的镣铐中解放了出来，而全神贯注在那些因其超越个人的价值而为他所坚持的思想、感情和志向。我认为重要的在于这种超越个人的内涵的力量，在于对它超过一切的深远意义的信念的深度，而不在于是否曾经企图把这种内涵同神联系起来，因为要不然，佛陀和斯宾诺莎就不能算是宗教人物了。所以，说一个信仰宗教的人是虔诚的，意思是说，他并不怀疑那些超越个人的目的和目标的庄严和崇高；而这些目的和目标是既不需要也不可能有理性基础的。但是它们的存在同他自已的存在是同样必然的，是同样实实在在的。在这个意义上，宗教是人类长期的事业，它要使人类清醒地、全面地意识到这些价值和目标，并且不断地加强和扩大它们的影响。如果人们根据这些定义来理解宗教和科学，那末它们之间就显得不可能朦胧什么冲突了。因为科学只能断言"是什么"，而不能断言"应当是什么"，可是在它的范围之外，一切种类的价值判断仍是必要的。而与此相反，宗教只涉及对人类思想和行动的评价：它不能够有根据地谈到各种事实以及它们之间的关系。依照这种解释，过去宗教同科学之间人所共知的冲突则应当完全归咎于对上述情况的误解。

比如，当宗教团体坚持《圣经》上所记载的一切话都是绝对真理的时候，就引起了冲突。这意味着宗教方面对科学领域的干涉；教会反对伽利略和达尔文学说的斗争就是属于这一类。另一方面，科学的代表人物也常常根据科学方法试图对价值和目的作出根本性的判断，这样，他们就把自已置于同宗教对立的地位。这些冲突全都来源于可悲的错误。

然而，尽管宗教的和科学的领域本身彼此是界线分明的，可是两者之间还是存在着牢固的相互关系和依存性。虽然宗教可以决定目标，但它还是从最广义的科学学到了用什么样的手段可以达到自已所建立起来的目标。可是科学只能由那些全心全意追求真理和向往理解事物的人来创造。然而这种感情的源泉却来自宗教的领域。同样属于这个源泉的是这样一种信仰：相信那对于现存世界有效的规律能够是合乎理性的，也就是说可以由理性来理解的。我不能设想一位真正科学家会没有这样深挚的信仰。这情况可以用这样一个形象来比喻：科学没有宗教就象瘸子，宗教没有科学就象瞎子。

虽然我在上面曾经断言宗教同科学之间实在不可能存在什么正当的冲突，但我还是必须在一个重要地方再一次对这个断言作一点保留，那就是关于历史上宗教的实际内容。这种保留必然同上帝的概念有关。在人类精神进化的幼年时期，人的幻想按照人自已的样子创造出了各种神来，而这些神则被认为通过它们意志的作用在决定着，或者无论如何在影响着这个现象世界。人们企求借助于巫术和祈祷来改变这些神的意向，使其有利于他们自已。现在宗教教义中的上帝观念是古老的神的概念的一种升华。比如，人们用各种祈祷来恳求所信奉的神明的援助，以求得满足他们的愿望，这一类事实就说明了这种上帝观念的拟人论的特征。

肯定不会有人否认，这个认为有一个全能、公正和大慈大悲的人格化了的上帝存在的观念，能给人以安慰、帮助和引导；因为这个观念比较简单，它也容易被最不开化的心灵所接受。但是另一方面，这种观念本身有它致命的弱点，这是有史以来就被苦痛地感觉到了的。这就是说，如果这个神是全能的，那末每一件事，包括每一个人的行动，每一个人的思想，以及每一个人的感情和志向也都应当是神的作品；怎么可能设想在这样全能的神面前，还以为人们要对自已的行动和思想负责呢？在作出赏罚时，神会在一定程度上对它自已作出评判。怎么能够把这样的事同神所具有的仁慈和公正结合起来呢？

今天宗教领域同科学领域之间的冲突的主要来源在于人格化了的上帝这个概念。科学的目的是建立那些能决定物体和事件在时间和空间上相互关系的普遍规律。对于自然界的这些规律或者定律，要求--而不是要证明--它们具有绝对的普遍有效性。这主要是一种纲领，而对于这种纲领在原则上是可以完成的信仰，只是建立在部分成功的基础上的。但是大概不会有谁能否认这些部分的成功，而把它们归之于人类的自我斯骗。至于我们能够根据这些定律很精密和很确定地预测一定范围内的现象在时间上的变化情况，这个情况已经深深地扎根于现代人的意识之中，即使他对这些定律的内容也许还了解得很少。他只要考虑一下这样的例子就行了：太阳系中行星的运动可以根据少数几条简单的定律，事先非常准确地计算出来。同样，尽管精确程度有所不同，但还是可能事先算出电动机、输电系统、或者无线电装置的运转方式，甚至在处理比这些还要新的事物时也是这样。

显然，当一个复杂现象中起作用的因子数目太大时，科学方法在大多数情况下就无能为力了。人们只要想起天气就可知道，对于天气，甚至要作几天的预测也不可能。但没有谁会怀疑，我们这里所碰到的是这样一个因果联系，它的起因成分大体上我们是知道的。这个领域里的现象之所以在精度预测的范围之外，是因为起作用的因素的庞杂，而不是自然界中没有什么秩序可言。

关于生物领域里的规律性，我们所洞察到的还很不深刻，但至少也已足以使人感觉到它是受着确定的必然性的支配的。人们只要想一想遗传中有规律的秩序，以及毒物（比如酒精）对生物行为的影响就可明白。这里所缺少的仍然是对那些具有广泛普遍性的联系的了解，而不是秩序知识的本身。

一个人愈是深刻感受到一切事件都有安排好的规律性，他就愈是坚定地深信：除了这种安排好的规律性，再没有余地可让那些本性不同的原因存在。对他来说，不论是人的支配还是神的支配，都不能作为自然界事件的一个独立原因而存在着。固然，主张有一个能干涉自然界事件的人格化的上帝这种教义，决不会被科学真正驳倒，因为这种教义总是能够躲进科学知识尚未插足的一些领域里去的。

但我确信：宗教代表人物的这种行为，不仅是不足取的，而且也是可悲的。因为一种不能在光天化日之下而只能在黑暗中站得住脚的教义，由于它对人类进步有着数不清的害处，必然会失去它对人类的影响。在为美德而斗争中，宗教导师们应当有魄力放弃那个人格化的上帝的教义，也就是放弃过去曾把那么大的权力交给教士手里的那个恐惧和希望的源泉。在他们的劳动中，他们应当利用那些能够在人类自已的身上培养出来的善、真和美的力量。不错，这是一个比较困难的任务，然而却是一个价值无比的任务。在宗教导师们完成了上述的净化过程以后，他们必定会高兴地认识到：真正的宗教已被科学知识提高了境界，而且意义也更加深远了。

如果要使人类尽可能从自私自利的要求、欲望和恐惧的奴役中解放出来是宗教的目标之一，那末科学推理还能够从另一角度来帮助宗教。固然科学的目标是在发现规律，使人们能用以把各种事实联系起来，并且能预测这些事实，但这不是它唯一的目的。它还试图把所发现联系归结为数目尽可能少的几个彼此独立的概念元素。正是在这种把各种和样东西合理地统一起来的努力中，它取得了最伟大的成就，尽管也正是这种企图使它冒着会成为妄想的牺牲品的最大危险。但凡是曾经在这个领域里胜利前进中有过深切经验的人，对存在中所显示出来的合理性，都会感到深挚的崇敬。通过理解，他从个人的愿望和欲望的枷锁里完全解放出来，从而对体现于存在之中的理性的庄严抱着谦恭的态度，而这种庄严的理性由于其极度的深奥，对人来说，是可望而不可即的。但是从宗教这个词的最高意义来说，我认为这种态度就是宗教的态度。因此我以为科学不仅替宗教的冲动清洗了它的拟人论的渣滓，而且也帮助我们对生活的理解能达到宗教的精神境界。

在我看来，人类精神愈是向前进化，就愈可以肯定地说，通向真正宗教感情的道路，不是对生和死的恐惧，也不是盲目信仰，而是对理性知识的追求。从这个意义上来说，我相信，一个教士如果愿意公正地对待他的崇高的教育使命，他就必须成为一个导师。

History of Warcraft

2007-03-15T21:35:00.000+08:00

许多队孩子喜欢魔兽，但又有几个知道魔兽的历史呢，还是在游戏之前好好研读一番把！

Top 5 Things That Should Be Taught In Every School

2007-03-14T23:04:00.000+08:00

说起教育来，这真是一件复杂的事情，学校应该教给我们什么呢？还是先看看Brian Kim 的观点吧！

Top 5 Things That Should Be Taught In Every School

By: Brian Kim - March 13, 2007

I can’t speak for schools outside the United States, but for those readers who went to school in America, I think you’ll agree that the American education system is in sore need of an upgrade. The world is changing at such a rapid pace and it’s my strong opinion that there should be more classes dedicated to helping students prepare and cope with the real world once they graduate.

If you look at this generation of students, you’ll find that most are “shell shocked” once they graduate because they had little or no preparation for what was to come.

High school mostly teaches you to memorize information and to regurgitate it back to your teacher, only to completely erase the information from your mind the moment you walk out after taking the test.

When you go on to college, you do a bit of the same things, but you also learn to think analytically, critically, and to broaden your mind so to speak, but even people who graduate from college will learn lessons from the real world the hard way as well. The sad part is all of this could’ve been prevented with some proper education beforehand.

Below are five things that I firmly believe should be taught in every school in America so that students don’t get railroaded when they enter the real world. If you’re still in school and reading this, consider it your lucky day as mastering these five skills will give you a great head start and help separate you from the rest of the pack as well.

#1. Personal Finance

Every week or so, there always seems to be a new article in CNN, USA Today, or Yahoo about young adults struggling with debt, whether it be from credit cards or loans in general. High interest rates, hidden fees, not consolidating debt – these terms and concepts are mostly unknown to young adults and because of that ignorance, they tend to make big errors in judgment. A prime example is thinking that they just have to pay the minimum on their balance and not realizing that by doing so, they pay 2-3 times as much in the long run.

Alongside that, most young adults don’t have a clue on how to invest their money. They don’t know what a Roth IRA account is, or a 401k, or the magic of compound interest, the tax benefits associated with investing in these types of vehicles, etc. There’s a lot of specialized knowledge out there that young adults are not aware of on when it comes to how they can invest their money and as a result, they frivolously spend it away.

Credit score is another big thing. A lot of young adults don’t bother to check up on it to make sure there are no errors with it. Your credit score is your report card in the real world and it comes into play when you’re buying a car, renting your first apartment, and even when you’re getting a job (most employers are now checking credit scores to determine how responsible the candidate is). Protect that at all costs. Learn what drives your credit score down. Learn what drives your credit score up. Check up on it every now and then to ensure nothing is wrong with it.

Even something as basic as creating a simple budget is beyond the grasp of some young adults and it simply amazes me that a lot of people don’t do this and some don’t even know how (you’d be surprised). Figure out your income after taxes, pay yourself FIRST (this is a big one – most people pay the bills and frivolously spend the leftovers until next payday), see what you can cut out if things are tight, look to see where you can bring in more income if you need to do so, etc.

Another important subset regarding personal finance are those “intangible” things, such as learning to differentiate between need and want, delaying the gratification, and having an inner sense of value. These concepts can’t be taught in the classroom but only taught through oneself via self discipline.

We live in a materialistic society where unfortunately, many young people grow up with the “have” then “be” mentality.

If I have _______, then I’ll be ____________.

Blame it on the media, advertising, or the impressionable minds of young people, but you’ll frequently see that a lot of people get stuck in this mentality and as a result, needlessly pile themselves in a mountain of debt.

One thing that I want to point out to students is that you’ll find as you get older, that a lot of people “fake” success. Not all, but a pretty big chunk. The neighbor or co-worker you see with the fancy car and nice clothes are most likely knee deep in debt while you’ll find the people with the average car and clothes have little or no debt and a nice big cushion of savings to that as well.

And the ironic and sad part is that most people don’t really care about other people because they’re so busy with themselves, so all that effort to impress others is really all in vain. The inherent danger in trying to accumulate expensive things to feel good about yourself is that you’re telling yourself that you need something outside of yourself to validate you, when everything you need to validate yourself is already within you. Stop looking for anything outside of you because there will always be something new and better to purchase. It’s like a dog chasing its tail. You’ll never catch it. Learn to simplify your life and to be content and grateful for the things you have. Don’t get caught up in the materialistic chase because once you do, it’s hard to get out.

#2. Communicating Effectively

By this, I’m not necessarily talking about giving speeches and presentations, although that certainly falls in this category. I ‘m mainly talking about being able to clearly take what’s in your head and to put it into words so the other person clearly understands what you’re saying the first time.

I know that sounds simple, but I’m sure you’ve met people in the workplace who don’t take the time to prepare when they speak with you and as a result, waste your time talking in circles when all you want to say to them is: “Can you take some time to think through what you want to say and come back to me later with that?”

Communicating effectively is one of the most underrated, yet most powerful skills you can develop.

The biggest part in communicating effectively is preparing what you want to say beforehand. Keep it simple. What’s my point? Why? Prepare a good example.

Your best friend in communicating effectively are these two words: “For example”. Whenever you see a confused look on people’s faces, your best response is leading with those two words: For example. When you do that AND follow up with a relevant example, it allows the other person to “frame” what you’re talking about to get a better idea of what it is.

Communicating effectively is one of THE MOST underrated and MOST valuable skills a person can have. And let me tell you on a personal level, there’s nothing more refreshing than dealing with people who take the time to prepare what they have to say and back it up with clear examples. It’s a very rare skill nowadays.

#3. Social Skills

Closely related to communicating effectively are social skills in general. After you graduate, you’re not going to be dealing with your high school or frat buddies anymore.

You’ll be dealing with many people from different backgrounds, countries, and more importantly different age groups, so it would be wise to learn how to socialize outside your own group.

Cut the slang. Learn to respect customs from other countries. Learn how to listen – few people do. Learn when to speak and when NOT to (hint – you have two ears and one mouth. There’s a reason for that).

Build rapport. Learn the art of networking – that’s key. Networking is a big skill that’s not taught enough in schools. Learn to compliment. Mingle. Make small talk.

Learn to approach people – that’s another big skill. Most people don’t have the guts to take the first initiative and introduce themselves. Be the big man. Take the first step. Learn to make the other person feel good and important. Dale Carnegie is your best friend in this area (Google his name if you don’t know what I’m talking about)

#4. Sales

Obviously I’m not advocating people becoming a salesman after school, but learning the art of selling is what I’m advocating. If you think about it, we all sell everyday. We sell ideas to our boss. We sell to our friends when we pitch ideas on what to do this weekend. We sell ourselves in job interviews.

You could say that sales is a great combination of social skills and communicating effectively, but with some other components you should pick up that will be useful.

Listen. Really listen.
Actively listen.
Learn how to be convincing.
Be persuasive.
Think of objections and counter them ahead of time.
Stress benefits instead of features.
Listen to the other person. (yes I know it’s a repeat, but it’s for emphasis)
Develop empathy.
Think in terms of how you can help serve the other person.

Selling is one of the few skills that can be utilized in any job or career. It’s one of the most important cross marketable skills you will ever develop.

#5: Time Management

Speaking of other skills that can be utilized in any job and career is time management. The majority of students never really learn to value their time and mange it while in school. Procrastination is all too rampant (studying right before class, doing homework and essays the day it’s due, partying the night before the exam). This lack of time management often carries over into adulthood, which becomes a major liability.

Learn to make a to do list. Learn to prioritize. Learn to break things down into 30 minute blocks of time. Learn about actionable items. David Allen’s GTD system is your best friend here along with Dan Kennedy’s No B.S Time Management. Again if you’re unfamiliar with these people, Google is your best friend, but I’m sure the majority of readers will know what I’m talking about.

+1. Health

It’s not enough to make students run a mile and play sports. Education is needed now more than ever. Education on the dangers of consuming too much fast food. Education on what diets in high sugar and fat can do to the body. Education on proper nutrition. Education on the importance of exercising regularly as well.

I think if schools start teaching these kinds of things, we could nip so many problems in the bud because most teenagers will not research this material on their own. The few that do have a head start in life but if we can’t teach them, schools should at the very least raise some sort of awareness and have an introductory class that talks about them – Real World 101.

If you have any friends or family who are still in school, please forward them this article. Think of it as a cheat sheet for the real world. You’ll be doing them a great service and they will most definitely thank you after they graduate. I guarantee it.

gallery: a "real" man

2007-03-12T12:26:00.000+08:00

下面展出的可不是什么照片啊，而是一个artist自画像，人家可是用了Maya, mental ray, Photoshop, ZBrush四种作图工具来画成的，真的很不容易，当然图片也是相当帅呆了！

电影：我们俩——you and me

2007-03-11T23:15:00.000+08:00

Director: Ma Liwen

Producers: Han Sanping, Jiang Tao, Lu Hongshi.

Executive Producer: Wang Daqing

Co-Producers: Zhao Haicheng, Wu Yakang.

Screenwriter: Ma Liwen

Editor: Zhan Haihong

Music: Dou Wei

Cinematographer: Wu Di, Wu Wai

Art Director: Liu Kedong

Sound: Zhang Jinyan

Cast: Jin Yaqin, Gong Zhe

Running time: 83 MIN.

Release in China: 2005.
Jason’s Rating: B+ (Very Good)

With two features dealing with the aged women and their troubled relations to either their siblings or strangers, woman director Ma Liwen, a graduate from Beijing-based Central Academy of Theater Arts, gains solid ground on a profession that is disproportionately dominated by BFA-educated (Beijing Film Academy) filmmakers. Gone is the One Who Held Me the Dearest (2002), Ma’s directorial debut, is adapted from a novella by a famed Chinese writer. This time, however, Ma scripted her own film, and the result of which is a story with literary refinement and psychological depth that looks as if it was adapted from a literary work.

You and Me is punctuated by four seasons, a structure that is increasingly favored by directors of art film. Picture starts with an impressive wide shot of the snow-covered barren landscape of Beijing, in which Xiao Ma, a newly arrived college freshman, is introduced. Looking for a cheap yet well-located place to live, she knocks on doors in cold weather and ends up with no choice but renting a cramped room in a siheyuan (a four-walled compound surrounding a central courtyard) owned by a seemingly stingy old woman in her 80s. From the first day Xiao Ma moves in, the unlikely couple finds each other intolerable and stubbornly selfish. While the old woman insists on unreasonable charges for phone, gas, and electricity, Xiao Ma fights her way to get it even. As the two feisty women spit out insults on each other, they also develop a strange closeness when the spring sunshine gradually melts away the cold winter. The old woman finds Xiao Ma a delightful remedy to her lonely life, while Xiao Ma discovers a warm and caring old lady behind the “mask” of stubbornness and eccentricity. The picture ends with Xiao Ma becoming an intimate friend to the old lady in her last days.

From the very beginning, the picture is dominated by a suffocating bluish look, which perfectly matches the spatial confinement resulted from extreme close-ups and monotonous life in the shabby siheyuan. The director skillfully explores the space and color, which almost turn into a third character besides the old lady and Xiao Ma. Jin Yaqin’s performance, for which she was crowned Best Actress at the Tokyo International Film Festival and the Golden Rooster Film Festival of China, is unforgettably superb and mesmerizing. Gong Zhe, on the other hand, brightens the film with her convincing portrayal of a college student in Beijing.

Ma’s script is not without flaws, however. In the scene where Xiao Ma comes home with a video camera to interview the old lady, for example, Ma could have used the rare opportunity to let the old lady reminisce her past so as to add depth and likeability to the character. The closeness between the old lady and Xiao Ma could have been exclamatorily reinforced by adding a scene in which the old lady hands the painting, although almost a part of her life, to Xiao Ma when she moves out of the siheyuan. It is true that film is the art of regrets, as the old saying proclaims, but these script flaws could be easily fixed before the camera starts to crank.

http://sinoflicker.com/blog/2006/11/23/review-of-you-and-me/

In general, the movie leaves me with the impression that the director is so ambitious in creating a dramatically entertaining conflict between the two main characters that there are too many traits symbolizing such conflict in the set, the props, even the color tones of the scenes - which, from certain prospective, appears to be a little pretentious. For example, the tenant, who seems to be an art major college student in her twenties, is mostly labeled with bright colors - the red jumper inside the old army coat, the bright and vivid decoration of her small room, even the blush from coldness on her young, innocent face. In the mean time, the tinges representing the old landlady are always dull – mainly gray. Conceivably, along with the bettering up of the relationship between the two characters, these representative colors gradually merge into the world of each other, just as we can see from a scene (which turns out to be the very first significant turning point of the whole plot) where the young girl was decorating the little yard with colorful paper lanterns, smiling gaily at the old landlady sitting leisurely outside the door of her room.The director apparently develops so much affection for the capital city of China that she, to some extent, seems to be endeavoring to create on the big screen an ideal Beijing in her head. The story begins on a clear sunny day after a heavy snow in a freezing winter in a quiet old szu-ho-yuan, a sort of compound with traditional Chinese houses of greybricks and tiles built around a courtyard. Used to be the most conspicuous symbols of Beijing, however, such old courtyard and high clear sky are actually more and more unlikely to be seen today largely due to the prosperous urban planning and reconstruction almost everywhere in this city as well as the heavy pollution of the air and the greenhouse effect. Besides their exotic appeal to the foreign audiences who are not so familiar with the "good old Beijing", these highly personalized features also added some reminiscent flavor into the movie, which reminds me of Amelie, in which the director even cleared for the hide-and-seek scene the Saint Coeur Church, where was always crowded with tons of tourists in Paris.Despite these sedulous strokes, the film is still, at least in general, a quite agreeable cameo. This is largely due to the way the director is telling the story – for most of the time, the plot is smoothly developed despite sort of avoidable triteness in the cinematography and some of the dialogues. Although such lack of genius can commonly be seen in the debut works of new directors, Ma's genuine and sincere endeavors, especially when comparing with those too tactical techniques played by some of the famous movie makers, still manage to demonstrate her ability to produce an generally entertaining and touching film.The performance of the two main heroines is also a remarkable feature of this film. Jin Yaqin, the 84-year-old actress in Beijing People's Art Theatre which is the most premier and high-level national drama art theater in China, won the award of best actress in Tokyo Film Festival; while Gong Zhe, who herself was a art major college student then and had never had any acting experience before, also made her debut in the film a quite memorable one by her natural and fresh performance – although the highly frequent scene of her pushing the old big bicycle in exactly the same way do make audience feel hilariously bored. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0757376/usercomments

把文件藏进图片里

2007-03-11T13:21:00.000+08:00

记得有一个师兄在搞水印的研究，把一些机密的东东加载到普通的图片上进行传输，真是神不知鬼不觉啊。

不过，刚刚从煎蛋上面看到了一种新式的方法——就当是“虚拟水印”吧！

1：准备一张图片，比如 jian.jpg。准备目标文件，比如dan.txt。我们要实现把dan.txt隐藏在图片里面。
　　2：打开命令行提示符：点击“开始→运行”，输入“cmd”。
　　3：把要隐藏的文件 dan.txt 用 WinRAR 压缩。生成 dan.rar 压缩包
　　4：我们假设中两个文件都存放在“ D:/jandan ”下。输入命令：copy /b D:/jandan/jian.jpg + D:/jandan/dan.rar D:/jandan/jiandan.jpg
　　5：ok，试试打开生成的图片 jiandan.jpg，没错吧，的的确确是原来的图片。
　　6：怎样打开那个 txt 文件？打开 WinRAR ，点击“文件→打开（快捷键 Ctrl + O ）”，然后选择文件类型为“所有文件”，找到 jiandan.jpg ，选择打开看看，是不是有个 txt 文件？

What Happens to your Body if you Stop Smoking Right Now ?

2007-03-11T12:02:00.000+08:00

总的来说，吸烟的人真的不少啊。从周围的同学到家中的老爸，都信仰着“吸烟——成仙”的理由，但每个人都能深刻地认识到——吸烟有害健康！真是一个悖论啊！
好了，还是先看看What Happens to your Body if you Stop Smoking Right Now ?这篇文章吧！看完可爱的烟友们就不会再说“戒烟的效果不会立杆见影”了！

What Happens to your Body if you Stop Smoking Right Now ?

I think one of the main reasons it’s so hard to quit smoking is because all the benefits of quitting and all the dangers of continuing seem very far away. Well, here’s a little timeline about some of the more immediate effects of quitting smoking and how that will affect your body RIGHT NOW.
In 20 minutes your blood pressure will drop back down to normal.
In 8 hours the carbon monoxide (a toxic gas一氧化碳) levels in your blood stream will drop by half, and oxygen levels will return to normal.
In 48 hours your chance of having a heart attack will have decreased. All nicotine will have left your body. Your sense of taste and smell will return to a normal level.
In 72 hours your bronchial tubes（支气管） will relax, and your energy levels will increase.
In 2 weeks your circulation will increase, and it will continue to improve for the next 10 weeks.
In three to nine months coughs, wheezing and breathing problems will dissipate as your lung capacity improves by 10%.
In 1 year your risk of having a heart attack will have dropped by half.
In 5 years your risk of having a stroke returns to that of a non-smoker.
In 10 years your risk of lung cancer will have returned to that of a non-smoker.
In 15 years your risk of heart attack will have returned to that of a non-smoker.

So, you have more immediate things to look forward to if you quit now besides just freaking out about not being able to smoke.

"Come in" or "Go away"

2007-03-10T23:25:00.000+08:00

在www.suck.uk.com有一款door-knob hanger别具特色，不信可以看一下啦！
当然还是会有其它的设计方式的，不信就看看这一款门垫吧，它放在门口不光是为清除鞋底的污秽而且还让你看到一句亲切的‘Come in’，当你出门时它的文体正好反过来就变成了‘Go away’。的确是一件小有创意的设计，在普通的角落也让你想尽生活中的幽默与不经意的趣味。

什么时候nicecomet也可以设计成这样子，就ok了，嘻嘻！

FREE online photgraphy course（免费在线摄影课程）

2007-03-10T22:36:00.000+08:00

Jodie Coston is a freelance photographer who lives in northwestern Montana. She has exhibited her work in gallery exhibitions around the world and has won numerous international awards for her images.

第一课图片解读 ——Composition And Impact - It's A Beautiful Photograph, But Do You Know WHY It's Beautiful?
第二课光圈与快门的配合 ——Aperture And Shutter Speed - How They Work Together？
第三课焦距 ——The lens - choosing camera optics.
第四课 ISO，颗粒度，透明以及反转片，专业胶片 ——ISO, Grain, Transparency vs. Negative, Specialty Films
第五课滤镜、柔焦等花样 ——Fun Effects - Camera Filters, Soft Focus, Zooming And Panning
第六课景观、自然和旅行摄影 ——Landscape, Nature and Travel Photography
第七课人像和室内灯光 ——Portraits And Studio Lighting
第八课室内灯光 ——Studio Lighting - Still Life and Product Photography
第九课尝试所有技术 ——Tying It All Together
第十课特别要求 ——Special Requests
第十一课复合摄影 ——Meaning in Composition
第十二课如何拍摄运动的车辆 ——Photographing moving vehicles

Scientist: Four golden lessons

2007-03-10T22:02:00.000+08:00

Nature 426, 389 (27 November 2003); doi:10.1038/426389a 　
　
Scientist: Four golden lessons 　
　　
STEVEN WEINBERG 　　　　

Steven Weinberg is in the Department of Physics, the University of Texas at Austin, Texas 78712, USA. This essay is based on a commencement talk given by the author at the Science Convocation at McGill University in June 2003.　　　　　　

When I received my undergraduate degree — about a hundred years ago — the physics literature seemed to me a vast, unexplored ocean, every part of which I had to chart before beginning any research of my own. How could I do anything without knowing everything that had already been done? Fortunately, in my first year of graduate school, I had the good luck to fall into the hands of senior physicists who insisted, over my anxious objections, that I must start doing research, and pick up what I needed to know as I went along. It was sink or swim. To my surprise, I found that this works. I managed to get a quick PhD — though when I got it I knew almost nothing about physics. But I did learn one big thing: that no one knows everything, and you don‘t have to.　　　　

Another lesson to be learned, to continue using my oceanographic metaphor, is that while you are swimming and not sinking you should aim for rough water. When I was teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the late 1960s, a student told me that he wanted to go into general relativity rather than the area I was working on, elementary particle physics, because the principles of the former were well known, while the latter seemed like a mess to him. It struck me that he had just given a perfectly good reason for doing the opposite. Particle physics was an area where creative work could still be done. It really was a mess in the 1960s, but since that time the work of many theoretical and experimental physicists has been able to sort it out, and put everything (well, almost everything) together in a beautiful theory known as the standard model. My advice is to go for the messes — that‘s where the action is.　

My third piece of advice is probably the hardest to take. It is to forgive yourself for wasting time. Students are only asked to solve problems that their professors (unless unusually cruel) know to be solvable. In addition, it doesn‘t matter if the problems are scientifically important — they have to be solved to pass the course. But in the real world, it‘s very hard to know which problems are important, and you never know whether at a given moment in history a problem is solvable. At the beginning of the twentieth century, several leading physicists, including Lorentz and Abraham, were trying to work out a theory of the electron. This was partly in order to understand why all attempts to detect effects of Earth‘s motion through the ether had failed. We now know that they were working on the wrong problem. At that time, no one could have developed a successful theory of the electron, because quantum mechanics had not yet been discovered. It took the genius of Albert Einstein in 1905 to realize that the right problem on which to work was the effect of motion on measurements of space and time. This led him to the special theory of relativity. As you will never be sure which are the right problems to work on, most of the time that you spend in the laboratory or at your desk will be wasted. If you want to be creative, then you will have to get used to spending most of your time not being creative, to being becalmed on the ocean of scientific knowledge.　　
　　
Finally, learn something about the history of science, or at a minimum the history of your own branch of science. The least important reason for this is that the history may actually be of some use to you in your own scientific work. For instance, now and then scientists are hampered by believing one of the over-simplified models of science that have been proposed by philosophers from Francis Bacon to Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper. The best antidote to the philosophy of science is a knowledge of the history of science.　　　　

More importantly, the history of science can make your work seem more worthwhile to you. As a scientist, you‘re probably not going to get rich. Your friends and relatives probably won‘t understand what you‘re doing. And if you work in a field like elementary particle physics, you won‘t even have the satisfaction of doing something that is immediately useful. But you can get great satisfaction by recognizing that your work in science is a part of history.　
　　　
Look back 100 years, to 1903. How important is it now who was Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1903, or President of the United States? What stands out as really important is that at McGill University, Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy were working out the nature of radioactivity. This work (of course!) had practical applications, but much more important were its cultural implications. The understanding of radioactivity allowed physicists to explain how the Sun and Earth‘s cores could still be hot after millions of years. In this way, it removed the last scientific objection to what many geologists and paleontologists thought was the great age of the Earth and the Sun. After this, Christians and Jews either had to give up belief in the literal truth of the Bible or resign themselves to intellectual irrelevance. This was just one step in a sequence of steps from Galileo through Newton and Darwin to the present that, time after time, has weakened the hold of religious dogmatism. Reading any newspaper nowadays is enough to show you that this work is not yet complete. But it is civilizing work, of which scientists are able to feel proud.　　

科学家：四条黄金忠告【梳枝/译】　　
　
Steven Weinberg　　　　

Steven Weinberg 现在得克萨斯大学物理系。本文以他 2003年6月在麦克基尔大学科学大会上的讲话为基础。　　　　　　

当我得到大学学位的时候－那是百八十年前的事了－物理文献在我眼里就象一个未经探索的汪洋大海，我必须在勘测了它的每一个部分之后才能开始自己的研究。做任何事情之前怎么能不先了解所有已经做过了的工作呢？万幸的是，在我做研究生的第一年，我碰到了一些资深的物理学家，他们不顾我忧心忡忡的反对坚持我应该开始进行研究，而在研究的过程中学习所需的东西。这可是生死悠关的事。我惊讶地发现他们的意见是可行的。我设法很快就拿到了一个博士学位－虽然我拿到博士学位时对物理学还几乎是一无所知。不过，我的确得到了一个很大的教益：没有人了解所有的知识，你也不必。　
　　　
另一个忠告就是，如果继续用我的海洋学的比喻的话，当你在大海中搏击而不是沉没时，应该到波涛汹涌的地方去。19世纪60年代末，我在麻省理工大学教书时，一个学生找我说，他想去做广义相对论领域的研究，而不愿意做我所在的领域－基本粒子物理学－方向的研究，原因是前者的原理已经很清楚，而后者在他看来则是一团乱麻。而在我看来这正是做相反决定的绝好理由。粒子物理学是一个还可以做创造性工作的领域。它在那个时候的确是乱麻一团，但是，从那时起，许多理论物理学家、试验物理学家的工作把这团乱麻梳理出来，将所有的（嗯，几乎所有的）知识纳入一个叫做标准模型的美丽的理论之中。我的忠告是：到混乱的地方去，那里才是行动所在的地方。　　　　

我的第三个忠告可能是最难被接受的。这就是要原谅自己虚掷时光。要求学生们解决的问题都是教授们知道可以得到解决的问题（除非教授非常地残酷）。而且，这些问题在科学上是否重要是无关紧要的，－必须解决他们以通过考试。但是在现实生活中，知道哪些问题重要是非常困难的，而且在历史某一特定时刻你根本无从知道某个问题是否有解。二十世纪初，几个重要的物理学家，包括 Lorentz 和 Abraham, 想创立一种电子理论。部分原因是为了理解为什么探测地球相对以太运动的所有尝试都失败了。我们现在知道，他们研究的问题不对。在当时，没有人能够创立一个成功的电子理论，因为量子力学尚未发现。需要到1905年，天才的爱因斯坦认识到正确的问题是运动在时间空间测量上的效应。沿着这条路线，他创立了相对论。因为你总也不能肯定哪个才是要研究的正确问题，你在实验室里，在书桌前的大部分时间是会虚掷的。如果你想要有创制性，你就必须习惯于大量时间不是创造性的，习惯于在科学知识的海洋上停滞不前。　

最后，学一点科学史，起码你所研究的学科的历史。至少学习科学史可能在你自己的科学研究中有点用。比如，科学家会不时因相信从培根到库恩、玻普这些哲学家所提出的过分简化的科学模型而受到桎梏。科学史的知识是科学哲学的最好解毒剂。　
　　　
更重要的是，科学史的知识可以使你觉得自己的工作更有意义。作为一个科学家，你很可能不会太富裕，你的朋友和亲人可能也不理解你正在做的事情。而如果你研究的是象基本粒子物理学这样的领域，你甚至没有是在从事一种马上就有用的工作所带来的满足。但是，认识到你进行的科学工作是历史的一部分则可以给你带来极大的满足。　　　　

看看100年前，1903年。谁是1903年大英帝国的首相、谁是1903年美利坚合众国的总统在现在看来有多重要呢？真正凸现出重要性的是1903年Ernest Rutherford 和Frederick Soddy 在McGill 大学揭示了放射性的本质。这一工作（当然！）有实际的应用，但更加重要的是其文化含义。对放射性的理解使物理学家能够解释为什么几百万年以后太阳和地心仍是滚烫的。这样，就清除了许多地质学家和古生物学家认为地球和太阳存在了很长年代的最后一个科学上的障碍。从此以后，基督教徒和犹太教徒就不得不或者放弃圣经的直接真理性或者把它当成与理智无关的东西。这只是从加利略到牛顿、达尔文，直到现在削弱宗教教条主义桎梏的一系列步伐中的一步。只要读读今天的任何一张报纸，你都会知道这一工作还没有完成。但是，这是一个文明化的工作，对这一工作科学家是可以感到骄傲的。