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”