标签：Einstein

Reading: A Bridge to the Future

Culture & Public Commentary2025.04.23
Reading: A Bridge to the Future
Commissioned piece for China Science Daily China Science Daily (2025-03-23, p. 4, General) — I am posting the original draft here The theme of World Book Day 2025 is “Reading: A Bridge to the Future” (Reading: A Bridge to the Future). Come to think of it, this formulation seems a bit strange, because the future will always arrive; no matter what we do, time will always pass, and we will always move toward the future. Reading, by contrast, is always touching “the past,” and what becomes a book always originates in the past and settles there. Perhaps the point of the metaphor is the “bridge” — we will always enter…
culture Plato AI future
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2025年4月23日
A General History of Science 16: The Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics

History of Science & Technology2015.06.18
A General History of Science 16: The Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics
Today is the final class, and we are talking about twentieth-century science. By “the twentieth century,” our main focus is on the scientific revolution in physics in the early twentieth century—that is, the rise of relativity and quantum mechanics. As for the scientific frontiers of the second half of the twentieth century and even the twenty-first century, we will not be dealing with them in this course. History can never be exhausted; any narrative strategy is, in the phrase, “to miss much while touching on little” (挂一漏万). The issue is not how to avoid omissions, but rather what manner of omission one adopts. The choices I have made in this…
course causality Einstein quantum mechanics
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2015年6月18日
[Archive] Einstein on Parades

Culture & Public Commentary2009.08.08
[Archive] Einstein on Parades
Excerpted from [U.S.]Walter•Isaacson: Einstein: His Life and Universe, translated by Zhang Butian In Munich, although the penetration of Bavarian spirit into everyday life had not yet gone quite so deep, that Prussian-style glorification of the army was already running rampant. Many children liked to play at being soldiers. When the army passed by to the sound of flutes and drums, children would pour into the street, join the procession, and march along step by step. Einstein was not like that. The first time he saw such a spectacle, he burst into tears. “I certainly didn’t want to grow up to become such a pitiful fellow,” he told his parents. As…
commentary emotion children Einstein
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2009年8月8日
Reading an Einstein Biography

History of Science & Scholarship2009.05.09
Reading an Einstein Biography
[U.S.] Walter Isaacson: Einstein: Life and the Universe, translated by Zhang Butian I had originally promised to write a review for Senior Brother Butian, but I have kept putting it off again and again. It seems I really just cannot squeeze one out; at least, not before the end of this term. So let me just write a few random lines here as an explanation… There are several reasons for this procrastination: First, this spring I unfortunately developed allergic rhinitis. Since I had never had allergies before, I never got the right treatment at the beginning, and it took me more than half a month of fussing around before I…
book reading history of science notes historiography
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2009年5月9日
Yu Zemin: “Seeing Europe in Cafés,” Shandong Pictorial Publishing House, 2007

Culture & Public Commentary2009.02.21
Yu Zemin: “Seeing Europe in Cafés,” Shandong Pictorial Publishing House, 2007
Page 34 In the small cafés of English towns, there is still a custom in which one customer “pays for” another. If one traces it to its source, one finds that the English picked up the habit from the Turks. In Turkey, when you walk into a café and have just ordered your coffee, you may suddenly hear someone in the room shout, “It’s on me!” The proprietor will then put your bill on the account of the customer who called out. Perhaps he is your friend, perhaps he wants to get acquainted with you… At that point, you not only have to walk over and thank her, but also greet…
book reading notes Newton Einstein
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2009年2月21日
Classroom Presentation Script on Realism and Anti-Realism

History of Science & Scholarship2008.12.28
Classroom Presentation Script on Realism and Anti-Realism
Realism can be said to be one of the major questions in the history of science and a problem that reaches far back and ramifies widely. It can at least be traced to the dispute between Plato and Aristotle, and it was also one of the main topics of medieval scholastic philosophy. In contemporary philosophy of science, as well as in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, and so on, realism is also an inescapable theme. The definition of realism and anti-realism is likewise highly uncertain. What counts as realism from one angle may count as anti-realism from another. The treatment of realism in this material is rather…
science philosophy of science Aristotle truth
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2008年12月28日
On the Principle of Sufficient Reason

Philosophy & Thought2007.09.19
On the Principle of Sufficient Reason
Today in Schopenhauer class, at the very end, the discussion turned to the principle of sufficient reason. I couldn’t help interjecting a question; in fact, I haven’t even started reading Schopenhauer’s book yet, so I was really rather embarrassed~ Jingang said that Schopenhauer’s argument for the principle of sufficient reason is quite dogmatic, and I agree with that. As for the teacher, he more or less said that the principle of sufficient reason is a prerequisite for questioning and reasoning, and on that point I disagree. At the time I brought up quantum mechanics. I raised it as an example, not because I wanted to drag the cutting edge of…
philosophy causality Einstein quantum mechanics
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2007年9月19日
[U.S.] Steve Silverman: “Einstein’s Refrigerator—A Different Kind of Story Collection”

History of Science & Scholarship2007.03.13
[U.S.] Steve Silverman: “Einstein’s Refrigerator—A Different Kind of Story Collection”
[U.S.] Steve Silberman: *Einstein’s Refrigerator—An Alternative Collection of Stories*, translated by Yang Rongxin, Nanhai Publishing Company, March 2003 I recently discovered that the special-price books sold by Welan are pretty good. Many worthwhile academic books—the ones that sell at a 25% discount at places like Boyatang, and so on—are marked down to 35% off; even more books that are normally sold at 50–60% off in ordinary discount bookstores (for example, books from Jiangsu People’s Publishing House) are sold at 70% off. Well worth picking up a batch~~ Among them there is one very interesting book, and as soon as it arrived I read it at once: *Einstein’s Refrigerator*. In fact,…
book reading notes Einstein invention
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2007年3月13日
Modern Science and Religion (Research Plan)

History of Science & Scholarship2006.04.16
Modern Science and Religion (Research Plan)
No matter what view one takes of the relation between science and religion, examining that relation is unquestionably an important topic in the history of science and in the study of religion. In today’s age of “big science,” and under the demand for dialogue between science and the humanities, discussing the relation between science and religion has a particularly special significance. It must be pointed out that the conflict and harmony between science and religion are not, first of all, something scholars have gone to great lengths to manufacture. Whether conflict or harmony, they are both real-world issues. Even as a purely objective inquiry, one cannot deny that there do…
philosophy science history of science God
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2006年4月16日
Science—Seen from a Religious Perspective

History of Science & Scholarship2006.04.03
Science—Seen from a Religious Perspective
Human beings are descended from animals; one could even say that human beings are a kind of animal. Of course, human beings are not only animals. Human beings have their own distinctive strengths; their power to understand the world and transform the world is incomparable with that of animals, and rational thought and judgment are the special hallmarks of humanity. To regard human beings merely as a kind of animal is indeed one-sided. But to view human beings from the standpoint from which we view animals, and to examine the commonalities and similarities between human beings and animals, is obviously also highly meaningful. It helps us examine human nature from…
philosophy science philosophy of science faith
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2006年4月3日