Below is a guest post I wrote on the blog Backreaction. With the permition of the host of Backreaction, I now post is here. You are certainly welcome to read it from its original location.
Why did I become a physicist? This, as normally a question for successful people, appears to be really ...
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I decided recently to start writing science articles for general public. However, I expect the readers are those who have some basic knowledge in physics/math and in probably something else. I have always thought that a true public science article may not only mislead those who do not know the basics but also cause some negative side-effects on science itself, although it may bring people dreams and ideals, which are in most of the time unrealistic and over crazy. Therefore, I will use appropriate terminologies, symbols and equations wherever I feel it is necessary to do so.
My difficulty is to choose the language, in which I will write. Obviously, if I used only English, in which I can write about science more easily, I would lose most of the potential Chinese readers. However, if I wrote merely in Chinese, which certainly will beautify every sentence of mine, English speakers would simply keep away from them. It then seems that I am in a kind of dilemma. Yes, I can write every public science article bilingually, but that'll cost much more energy from me. What shall I do? Am I really that gung-ho to attract many readers, or to take the “glorious” responsibility to transmit science into the general public? Come on, I am by far still a student. I write the blog mostly for personal record and for sharing opinions with others. So, why not just let my mood and time make the choice? Maybe in the near future, I will be able to decide which language I should write in more often according to the number of readers of each language. Nevertheless, this is possible provided that I will persist in writing and that I will have a certain amount of readers.
I added a new category: Publics Science, to collect all public science articles regardless of the language. For the sake of the readers' convenience, such an article in English will also appear in the category: Pure English Posts, while one in Chinese will show up in the category: Pure Chinese Posts as well. Similar rule applies to bilingual articles.
aristotle: the space is the objects and their relations. Newton: the space is itself the entity, where the objects evolve Einstein: the space is both the entity and the objects. Since the objects are quantum, the space need to be quantized. I think his formulation of graviton propagation is interesting. If possible, you could do some related work on this basis. For example: generize his result to the case of coupling matter such as scalar and even Yang Mills fields.
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abao: 从牛顿时代开始,中国似乎已经没有多少时空方面的独立思考了。如果有的话,那就是我孤陋寡闻了。与亚里士多德同时代,中国还是有些这方面的思考的。比如老子,比亚里士多德还早两百年吧,就说过“四方上下谓之宇,古往今来谓之宙”。(这个定义好像最先是出现在《庄子》里的,但我记得是老子说的。)在我国古代哲人的思想中,时与空并不是分立的概念,而是可以相互转化的。这点还可以从其它一些当时的著作中看到。比如《管子》《宙合》篇就阐述了宇宙互化这样一种思想。可惜的是,似乎中国古代智者却并未进行很多这方面的实际探索。庄子在其《天运》一连提出了许多问题:“天其运乎?地其处乎?日月其争于所乎?孰主张是?孰维纲是?孰居无事推而行是?意者其有机缄而不得已邪?意者其运转而不能自止邪?.…..”还有像屈子《天问》开篇提出的那些宏大问题。但是后人却没有深入的钻研下去。
Dongping:
谢谢你的建议,非常好!你这段话都能作为一篇独立的博文了,言简意赅。你真应该有自己的博客。
说实话,对于潜在的读者,我心里并没有一个明确的分类。我也不倾向于以少年读者为主,因为激发他们对于这个世界的好奇心不是一件容易的事情,更遑论兼顾传统语文教育,我自认没有能力做到其中任何一点。我原是想尝试以一种非学术的方式记述我所知道一些专业知识,便于和更多的人分享交流。而我又不愿意写得太过简单通俗,因为这样一来必然会失去太多的精确性,使事物偏离它的本来面目。正因如此,我才希望读者能够具备一些物理和数学知识,让我不至于花费过多的时间和篇幅去解释一些基本概念,而得以将重点放在某篇布局上。这样一个读者群应该是不受年龄限制的。当然,在这个基础上,我会尽量把文章写得流畅易懂。更何况,随着科普写作的真正开始,随着写作的逐步深入,也随着诸位提出进一步的意见和建议,我现在的很多设想会不会产生重大改变亦未可知。
义顿,写科普文章当然有意义,不过写科普文章应该是一个长线投资的过程,当然作者可能不寄希望于短期见效或者惠及自己。如果按读者年龄来分的话,我想科普文章大致可以分为三类。第一类读者群当为少年,相应的科普文章的文风应该简洁流畅——如果作者还想附带一些传统语文教育的话,这也是一块十分适宜的园地。当然文风的简洁并不影响内容的广阔,大可以上下五千年纵横几万里。另外,这一类科普文章并不拘泥于让孩童机械地记忆一些公式或术语,关键是激发他们对于这个世界的好奇心,或者相当于在他们的心灵中埋下一颗种子,在以后的日子里可以发芽开花结果。从这个角度看,这正是科普文章的意义所在。第二类读者群为青年。虽然青年人思维活跃,可塑性也很强,科普文章似乎在他们中间很难普及,尤其是现在科技文化渠道空前繁杂,他们更热心于与自身情趣相适配的知识,而不是泛泛的或者有些抽象的科普文章。如果某个青年就是感兴趣于某一领域,举例说,他可以从无所不包的网络资源中找到很专业的知识,而不是一般科普文章所能满足的。第三类科普文章的读者就是老年人了。老年人在经历了对这个世界的认知之后,闲暇时间阅读一些科普文章也是对自己所历经世界的欣赏和把玩——原来这个世界还很奇妙。简言之,我觉得写科普文章更应倾力于适于少年读者朋友。
Especially, this theory has no divergent difficulty. we can calculate the relic influence from big bang.
aristotle: the space is the objects and their relations.
Newton: the space is itself the entity, where the objects evolve
Einstein: the space is both the entity and the objects.
Since the objects are quantum, the space need to be quantized.
I think his formulation of graviton propagation is interesting.
If possible, you could do some related work on this basis.
For example: generize his result to the case of coupling matter such as scalar and even Yang Mills fields.
Abao: 你能否先在你的博客上写写Rovelli讲的西方人对空间的认识?呵呵。
今天rovelli谈了西方人对空间的认识, 如果有时间, 你可以写点中国人对空间的认识, 也许能引起物理学的革命. 哈哈.
to 尹璋琦:方便告知e-mail么?sciblogger<at>gmail.com
To 义顿兄:谢谢
To 尹璋琦:wordpress是不是也被封了,只能用代理才能访问?这里能人云集阿,开阔见识!也希望你能加入中国赛客联盟~~
期待见到你的大作!
biiboo: 谢谢你的支持!我会尽力写得好些。 :-) 另外,恭喜你!祝你和你夫人“幸福美满、白头偕老”!本来应该在你的博客上说的,但是我比较懒,看到要注册才能留言就退缩了,望见谅!
Abao: 你说了一句我想说却没有说的话。
谢谢!但是,我的水平可能提高不了中文科普水平。
我个人认为中文的更有价值. 因为中文的科普有待提高, 而外文的已经达到了比较高的阶段了. 哈哈.
偶将一篇一篇读下去,期待ing~~