Faith

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When I was a child, I was attracted by the world beyond our planet. I did not have the opportunity to see a really starry night, for the I did not often live in the country side. But I could still imagine. I bought I lot of books which introduced efforts humans had made on exploring the outer world. I also watch cartoons related to this topic. My yearning for the vast world first led me to science.

Years have passed. Now I’ve been concentrating on mathematics. But the deep spaces still play an important role in my life. I am not fond of money, honor, reputation or something else, for I believe that there is something far greater. Money, honor or reputation only works in human society and the duplicity, deception and disguise intended for these things are simply nothing but abjection in front of the universe. Continue reading “Faith”

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An Animation and the Middle Age

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This weekend I came across the anime Spice and Wolf. The character Horo is so cute, but this is not what I want to mention most.

It was in the Middle Age, Lawrence, the main character is a travelling merchant. Therefore trading activities and religious organizations(sorry I can’t find an equivalent word) are often mentioned in the story. That inspired me to the imagination of the Middle Age.

It was a dark age that religious power controlled the society, and however, an age of merchants. There were villages, towns, cities, ports and kingdoms. There were missionaries, knights, mercenaries and kings. It was hard to transmit information. It was hard to transport substances. It was a solid age. And it was merchants, who traveled everywhere for more benefits, that liquefied the age. Continue reading “An Animation and the Middle Age”

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Diary (Sep 4, 2010)

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The book From Calculus to Cohomology by Madsen looks a nice book. Well, it’s the first time I saw an introduction to topology from CALCULUS so I believe it amazing. Maybe I am too ignorant in mathematics.

I’m studying Commutative Algebra and Topology recently. As far as I’m concerned, categories are fundamental in mathematics so I’m particularly fond of algebra in favor of the concept of category. I saw some one says geometry and topology structures are much more interesting than algebra structures. I don’t understand it very much. Maybe in my mind all structures are algebraic. Well, maybe when we adopt measures and Cauchy sequences we are entering the field of Analysis, Geometry and Topology? Actually in my heart it is still algebraic. I think continuity doesn’t mean non-algebra. Continue reading “Diary (Sep 4, 2010)”

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How do we think?

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When I say “apple” ,an apple will appear in your mind. You can understand it. People may explain it as some correspondence between images and specific signs. And the signs themselves are images so actually we associate the images with sounds and then sounds with signs. Humans have evolved so much that today they can understand written language in silence, not needing to read them out.

The understand of concrete things may be as easy as the above. But what about that of abstract things, concepts and statements? That should be hard to explain because explanation itself is an abstract statement, which I must use my understanding system of abstract things to understand.

I used to guess, the approach to solve this problem is up to science. That is, to study the brain. But there is still a critical obstacle that we still have to think using our brain.

Is that the unreachable acme of human cognition? Do humans have to continue evolving to answer it? Or never?

2010-09-04

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A Testing Post

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Human and Natural Disasters

Human activities are largely involved in the formation of some natural disasters, while not involved in the formation of some others.

As we all know, it is obvious that humans have nothing to do with the formation of volcano eruptions or earthquakes. But some other disasters, for instance, sandstorms, are related to human activities. Overgrazing and overcutting ruin vegetation, in turn causing desertification. When sands meet a windstorm, a sandstorm comes into being. Another instance is acid rain. Waste gas produced in industry activities, mostly in thermal powering, goes up to the clouds. It then blends with the water vapors. As a result, the rain from the clouds becomes acid, doing a lot of harm to humans, animals, plants, etc. Continue reading “A Testing Post”

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On Zhang Yuzhe and Beyond

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When I was in grade 1, I was reading a book, whose name I have forgotten, on the universe, stars, astronomy and so. There was a counterpart on earth. I just liked such books so much at that time, that I bought them sets by sets. One day I was reading a passage on the lunar and solar eclipses, which was saying that even though the solar eclipses happen more often that the lunar ones, most people would only have the chance to see lunar eclipses but not solar eclipses throughout their life. Why? Because each solar eclipse is only visible to a small region on the earth since the moon is small compared to the earth, while lunar eclipses are visible to half the earth (the half on the dark side). Moreover, solar eclipses are very short and susceptible to weather changes. Here comes an example on the book, that in some year (around 1970?)  there was a solar eclipse in China. Mr. Zhang Yuzhe who was already over 70 then hurried there for it. Unfortunately the eclipse was shadowed by the raining cloud. There was a portrait for Mr. Zhang Yuzhe on the page, who appears to be a thin, long-faced exotic-looking elderly. That aroused my interest for Mr. Zhang, but back then information communication was shabby. I was a little kid in a small town, without the Internet. How was I going to gather the related knowledge? But such curiosity wander in my mind, never disappearing. P.S. I was actually focus more on the “古稀” (over 70 years old) thing, firstly for I was almost illiterate and feeling fresh about this fancy word, secondly for it was emphasized somewhere else addressing life of human in the very book, that 70 years is equal to only about 20000 days, and that is “人生七十古來稀” (people hardly live up to 70 since the old days). I always felt pathetic about this, because books were mentioning that it would take over 200 years for Pluto to trip around the sun, and even for Halley’s comet it would take over 70 years.

There wasn’t Internet until many years later, when I entered the junior high. But I was then addicted to computer games (records of this period are in my Qzone. You can dive into it if your are interested.), and then to English, to mathematics, to politics, to digital devices. And I got oblivious to the astronomy things. Continue reading “On Zhang Yuzhe and Beyond”

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