标签：history of science

In what sense is “basic science” the cause of “bottlenecking”?

AI & the Future of Technology2020.10.03
In what sense is “basic science” the cause of “bottlenecking”?
In that earlier interview transcript, what I posted as the “original draft” was in fact not the original draft either; the part about “basic theoretical research” was added only at the reporter’s prompting. As for the proposition that “the reason for the bottleneck is weak basic research,” I myself actually have reservations about it. Of course, I am willing to partly support this view, first because the official wording that “encourages free exploration and full exchange and debate” is indeed rare and valuable. Second, in a certain sense, this formulation is correct. But we have seen many completely wrong tendencies. For example, some people think that in order to break…
technology China history of science commentary
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2020年10月3日
Course Summary for General History of Technology (Spring 2020)

Teaching & Courses2020.08.06
Course Summary for General History of Technology (Spring 2020)
The History of Technology survey course has now run through its third round. The course summaries for the first year and second year were both quite detailed, so students who want an overview of the course can refer to those earlier installments. This year’s summary will be written a bit more briefly. This year, because of the pandemic, the spring semester was taught entirely online. Since it was my first time doing an online format, I didn’t add any new material; instead I just reheated yesterday’s leftovers, selecting relatively mature parts from the previous two years and teaching them again. With the teaching plan adjusted for next semester, I will…
history of science course Introduction to Philosophy of Technology Scientific Revolution
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2020年8月6日
Should We Defy Gaia? — A Review of The Medea Hypothesis

History of Science & Scholarship2020.04.16
Should We Defy Gaia? — A Review of The Medea Hypothesis
Published in Chinese Science Bulletin (2020-04-16, Book Review, p. 7). The title was mine, but now I’m tempted to change it again and call it: “Will Gaia Die?” The “Gaia hypothesis” was proposed by the British atmospheric scientist James Lovelock in the 1970s, and, together with the biologist Lynn Margulis, it exerted a huge influence both in science and in the environmental movement; it has remained a matter of controversy to this day. The inspiration for the Gaia hypothesis came from Lovelock’s participation in the 1965 Mars life-detection project. Lovelock held that the existence of life would be a planetary phenomenon: life would transform an entire planet’s environment, especially its…
book reading science history of science book review
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2020年4月16日
Elevating the Enemy, or a Narrative Bigger Than the Grand

Culture & Public Commentary2020.02.17
Elevating the Enemy, or a Narrative Bigger Than the Grand
Forcibly rushing to exonerate Nurse Liu Fan has stirred anger. The so-called rumor enraged some people; they furiously denounced how terrifying rumors can be, and then produced the so-called refutation. Yet this “forceful, well-grounded” refutation seemed instead to confirm that she was indeed a nurse, that she was indeed fighting the epidemic, that she indeed died of the disease, and that her whole family indeed fell ill as well… So what exactly was wrong? The rumor-refuters emphasized that protective suits were not in short supply. The implication was that she had ample protective conditions, and was not infected because resources were tight; she could only have been infected because she…
philosophy history of science history Aristotle
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2020年2月17日
Why Has “From One to Infinity” Remained Popular for 70 Years?

History of Science & Scholarship2020.01.18
Why Has “From One to Infinity” Remained Popular for 70 Years?
Published in China Science Daily (2020-01-02, Section 7, Book Review) Its Decades-Long Bestseller Status Was No Accident From One to Infinity is the famous popular-science classic by the renowned physicist Gamow. Published in 1947 and revised and republished in 1961, it was translated into Chinese in 1978 by Mr. Bao Yongning, and has already been wildly popular at home and abroad for decades. Gamow died in 1968, more than 50 years ago now, so this classic work has become a “public-domain book.” As a result, many new translations suddenly appeared on the market. In addition to the repeatedly reprinted Bao Yongning translation from Science Press, I have already found at…
book reading science history of science book review
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2020年1月18日
Was There Confucianism in the Ancient West?

Culture & Public Commentary2019.08.25
Was There Confucianism in the Ancient West?
The recent atmosphere has me a little like a startled bird, so I’m continuing to use encrypted mode. This article really isn’t worth encrypting; in a couple of days I may quietly decrypt it. A teacher has recently been disciplined over remarks about the Four Great Inventions, and that is truly shocking. I don’t want to reopen here the warning against a culture of informing on others; I only want to talk about the academic question. What makes this incident even more frightening than before is that the remarks that led to the punishment were not a political issue, but an academic one. Even the official media could not stomach…
technology China culture science
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2019年8月25日
Visiting for an Exchange at Jiangsu Province Qinghe Middle School (What Kind of “General Technology” Do Middle School Students Need?)

AI & the Future of Technology2019.08.23
Visiting for an Exchange at Jiangsu Province Qinghe Middle School (What Kind of “General Technology” Do Middle School Students Need?)
Giving a Lecture to Middle School Teachers and Students On August 17 and 18, I was invited to Jiangsu Province Qinghe High School to take part in an exchange. They had an experimental project in educational reform, aiming to add elements of the history of technology to the teaching of the high school course “General Technology.” Jiangsu Province Qinghe High School is in Huai’an; it is not some famous school, but I was still very interested in this topic. Of course, it was also quite rare for the teachers there to think of inviting me, so I was more than happy to go. At the time, the incoming freshmen were…
technology history of science education history of technology
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2019年8月23日
Course Summary for “A General History of Technology” (Second Year)

Teaching & Courses2019.07.13
Course Summary for “A General History of Technology” (Second Year)
The course “A General History of Technology” was already taught once last year, and I had already written a detailed course summary at the time (see here). This semester the second run has just ended, and one could say that the course has gradually entered the right track. At the end of the first year, 29 students had enrolled; this year, after withdrawals were deducted, there were 69 students. It has finally grown somewhat larger. I hope the students will tell ten people, ten people will tell a hundred, and that next year the number of enrollments will rise again~ Final Exam Let me begin with the final exam….
history of science scholarship course General History of Technology
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2019年7月13日
Upgrading One’s Worldview Is Not So Easy—A Review of Worldview

History of Science & Scholarship2019.03.05
Upgrading One’s Worldview Is Not So Easy—A Review of Worldview
This is a commissioned book review, published in China Science Daily (2019-03-01, Section 7, Book Review) The original title was: Before “Cognitive Upgrading,” It Is Even More Important to Understand the Foundations of Cognition When it was published, the title was changed (for the better), section headings were added, and some omissions were made. For example, the rather severe criticism I originally made of the translation was toned down quite a bit; I was informed in advance by the editor that I agreed to that. In addition, the embedded “advertisement” (for the Department of History of Science at Tsinghua) was removed, and the short final passage on Greek pseudo-history was…
book reading history of science philosophy of science Aristotle
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2019年3月5日
The Abdication of Royal Power and the Reform of the International System of Units

History of Science & Scholarship2018.12.07
The Abdication of Royal Power and the Reform of the International System of Units
Published in the *Chang’e* supplement of *Science and Technology Daily*; it has now also been turned into a WeChat public account article, with only minor changes made at publication. In fact, the piece had been commissioned back then, but I caught a cold and it was delayed for a while; only now have I remembered to make it up. On November 13, the 26th General Conference on Weights and Measures, held in Versailles, France, passed a resolution revising the International System of Units and redefined four units, including the kilogram, in terms of physical constants. With that, all seven base units of the International System of Units will have been…
science history of science history decentralization
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2018年12月7日