尊敬的各位同学、毕业生们: 你们好。 此情此景让我想起 20 年前我的大学毕业:武汉,盛夏 7 月,骄阳如火。武昌,破旧的火车站,同样一首歌曲“踏上月台,从此一个人走,祝你一路顺风。。。。。”,我送走了我的同窗同学,而今天我又要送走我自己的学生!“年年岁岁花相似,岁岁年年人不同”! 接受这个任务我很忐忑,也很紧张,不知道讲些什么?我想明天的毕业典礼可能校长要讲人生大哲理,而生存大智慧院长谈了。 首先,我要祝贺你们,祝贺你们顺利毕业。四年前一次刻苦铭心的考试,不论春风得意,还是遭遇坎坷,命运之神带你来到大连,一座浪漫的城市;大连海事,一座校园尚算美丽的大学。也许你的内心很不愿意接受,但它将是你心中永远的烙印。事实上大概同龄人的前 10% 才能享受这份带“荣耀”。四年光阴,或充实或虚度,至少获得了步入社会的“敲门砖”。 “海阔凭鱼跃 天高任鸟飞”,这是多么幸福和令人憧憬的事情!我只希望你们永远记住:海事大学的学生曾经是前 10% ! 其次,我要感谢你们,感谢你们这四年的配合。大概从七岁开始,你们就被叫“老师”的这种人,象唐僧一样喋喋不休,你们整整忍受了一十六年,这是怎样耐性啊。在坐的有我教过的土木的学生,也有我没教过的,感谢你们视而不见我教学中的错误;感谢你们挑灯夜战完成我的补考;感谢你们默默忍受我偶尔发怒时的讽刺挖苦。人生而平等,以互相尊重为先,我只希望你们能够做的:向尊重你的人和你尊重的人道声感谢! 最后,我要祝福你们,我很坚信“ When they grow up , they go their way ”,当他们长大时,就会走自己独立的路。祝福你们一帆风顺,前程似锦!
It was quite impressive of the confidence that British people show to the public. I am trying to find the source of the conference from a historical perspective and make an explaination of their behavior. As all know, ever before, the first and second industrial revolution boosted the economic development of United Kindom and rendered it to be the most prosperious and powerful country all around the world. Like today's America, UK at that period held the wild ambition to dominate the whole world on the solid basis of the powerful internal strength in reality. It went smooth that British military conquered a lot of countries in different continent due to the big difference in the military force. Eventually, UK became a superior empire which no one can compete with it. It was remarkable for a long period of time that British turned into an empire on which the sun never set. Actually, there are still a lot of proof in London which manifests the glorious moment that UK ever had in the history, such as British museum, British gallary. That is one of important factors which makes London as the most attractive tourist city since they collected a plenty of various antiques from different country and different time. So proud of this that generation and generation people left for today's UK. Apart from the reason above, no one would like to ignore the factor of the advanced step UK had in the scientic and technological development. Basically, also no one denied the effect of industrial revolution on the acceleration of creativity and innovation people were inspired since then. Amoung them, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, James Clerk Maxwell all made a landmark exploration in their field, respectively; Stephen Hawking , Henry Cavendish , Francis Crick also made a significant contribution to put a big step forward to the human's civilization. Nowadays, Univ. of Oxford and Univ. of Cambridge was taken as best universities in the top list of high school ranking ‘cause of the high academic level and outstanding teaching level. Even though the economy in the present UK is facing a reduced prospect of growth, it is still a hot place to attact people all around the world to receive the good education. So proud of this. Another one which should be taken into consideration is attributed to the language--English. It is unlikely to a native English speaker to misunderstand each other in the conversation using English. By contast, people like me had to spend much time to practice the language and even by doing this still are confronted of some failure in the compulsury English exams. How to build conference in a talk with a native speaker is a big challenge for the majority. To be honest, a little bit nervous in my previous presentation especially in the part of QA. Sometimes very struggling in a group talk as they speak very fast and some Idioms and slang pop out occasionlly. Consciously or unconsciously, we have lost our confidence speaking English in front of them. They are so proud of this. It should be noted that people here, from the beginning of a child, started to wear formal clothes, such as suits for male and silk stocking for female. The habit is quite beneficial for the growth and confidence-building since they keep the behavior consistantly over the life-period. Except the formal dressing, individual student in class is put at the centre of concentration and thinking of problem-solving solution independently. Most of time, teachers serve as auxiliaries which are responsible for the inspiration and encouragement of their action. Most probably this is why students here have no heavy burden on the shoulder but the best performace in public and education. Should be a reflection of their confidence.
按:这篇文章是我在2011年五一节假期翻译的,当时何毓琦院士刚刚贴上此文,刚读第一条就觉得特别适合我的胃口又很有启发,自己又喜爱翻译,一时兴起便把它翻译了出来。译完贴在自己的新浪博客上,访问量不多就没怎么管它。直到今年7月份和科学网上和蔼的建兰阿姨聊天,她提醒我可以把此文放在科学网上和大家分享,才又花了一个上午再次修改了一下,在修改的过程中自己也得到了不少启发。 《纽约时报星期日版》 (NYT,7/4/2011)的商业版上有一篇用上面标题的头条文章(NYT采访了100多位大公司的CEO们。下面描述的5条品质是这些CEO们一致同意的观点)。因为我没有也不想成为一家大的商业公司或机构的总裁,下面就让我以一名在学术界算得上成功的普通学者的个人经历出发,来为那些也有志于做学术的年轻学者诠释一下这5条品质吧。 强烈的求知欲 这点在我看来是最重要的品质。我的妻子曾经开玩笑说过我墓碑上的墓志铭应该是“他想知道”,因为她经常被我不停地对每件事问“为什么”和“怎么样”搞得很烦恼。在我人生的这个阶段,即使已经没有任何经济或职业上的必要去学习和发现新的知识,但我依然出于求知欲和对知识的总的兴趣去参加数不清的研讨会和讲座。这些会议在哥伦比亚大学、麻省理工、哈佛里非常多。就在上周,我花了五个工作日中的三天参加了一个计算机科学的年会和一个保密/安全的会议。这些议题都超出了我主要的专业兴趣和专长。对,我可能不会因我所学到的去做些什么,或许在几个月后我就忘掉了里面的大多数内容。但是仅仅是因为我现在退休了有时间,并且我发现参与其中很有意思而且很受启发。在我看来,一个没有这种强烈的求知欲的人不可能成为一个成功的学者。 思维的简洁性 我曾经不止一次说过所有有价值的想法或发现在它们被人们彻底搞懂后都是简洁的。一个人必须尽力尝试从最简洁的层次去解释事情但不可以把问题过分简单化。我对学生最多的忠告是“你应该能够在从你的读者角度看来合适的任意时间内解释任何事情”。我所有的试题都是开卷的并且不会包含复杂的计算或一个复杂公式的推导。因为一个人想概念上严谨清晰并不需要知道高深的数学理论。尝试着去简化思想可以加深他对这些思想的理解程度。如果没有简化和统一,人类的知识经过一个个世纪的积累后,迟早会变成一项不可承担的重负。 团队精神 尽管一些科学研究是一个人承担的。但是没有人可以孤军奋战。现代的科学研究常常是一个团队的项目。以一个人的水平,(在从事这些科学研究时)你必须学会和你的研究生和博士后一起工作。更深一步讲,在分享荣誉方面要表现得慷慨些,不去无缘无故地攫取别人的劳动成果可以让你生活更放松还可以在日后避免一些冲突和尴尬。 自信 不同的人在他们人生的不同阶段对他们的决定有不同的自信度。即使有些自信不太合理,但是一个人如果没有它是不可能坚持下去一件事的。在我早期的“扰动分析”思想的研究中,我受到了各种各样的批评和攻击( http://bbs.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=spaceuid=1565do=blogid=29014page=2 ),然而我和其他信徒坚持了下去,最后我们赢得了肯定。科学界还有许多其他有相似经历的科学发现有名的例子。 无畏 这是上面提到的“自信”品质的另一方面。我把它解释为不害怕去尝试新的想法和知识的新领域。虽然在已经搭好框架的领域工作会很舒服,然而在一个新领域工作的回报会大得多。第一个涉足,你就可以轻松地摘到那些低处的果实,而后来者则需要费特别大的力气才能摘到那些悬在高出的却和你的一样的果实。 NYT的文章指出上面的5个品质都不是与生俱来的,都是可以通过后天的训练和勤奋习得的,而这无疑是个好消息。 原文: The Sunday NY Times (4/17/2011) has a lead article in her business section with the above title (NYT interviewed over 100 CEOs of major corporations. The five qualities described below are the unanimous opinion of all of the CEOs.). While I have no experience as nor do I aspire to be the president of a major business or institution, let me interpret these qualities from my own experience as a average reasonably successful academic for young scholars aspiring to be the same. Passionate Curiosity This above is in my opinion the most important quality. My wife jokingly have said that the epitaph on tombstone should be “he wants to know” since she sometimes gets frustrated by my incessant questioning of the “why” and “how” of everything. Even though at this stage in my life there are no financial or career incentive of any kind to learn or discover new knowledge, I still go to the numerous seminars and lectures which are abundant in the Cambridge/MIT/Harvard environ just out of curiosity and general interest. Just last week I spend three of the five weekdays attending a computer science symposium and a privacy/security conference. These subjects are outside of my main professional interest and expertise. True, I may not do anything with what I learned nor will probably remember most of them several months later. But just because I now have the time in retirement, I find participating in them enjoyable and stimulating. Without this curiosity, one cannot be a successful scholar in my opinion. Simplicity in thought I have repeatedly said that all worthwhile ideas and discovery are simple once they are thoroughly understood. One must strive to explain things at the simplest level possible but not to the point of being simplistic.My favoriteurging tostudents is "you should be able to explain anything to anybody in any amount of time at thelevel appropriate for the reader". All my examination questions are open book and involve no complex calculations or derivation of complicated formula. One does not need advanced mathematics to be conceptually rigorous. Trying to simplify ideas deepens one’s own understanding of them. Without simplification and unification, the accumulation of human knowledge through the centuries will soon become an impossible burden Team Spirit Although some scientific endeavors are truly a solitary undertaking. But no man is an island. Modern research often is a team project. On a human level, one must learn to work with your research students and postdoctoral fellows. Furthermore, in being generous with credit sharing and not undeservedly taking credit from others’ work makes life much more relaxed and avoids conflicts and embarrassments later. Confidence in oneself. Different people learn to have confidence in their own decisions at different stages in their lives. Even though sometimes this may be misplaced confidence, without this one cannot persist in an endeavor. In the early days of my research in the idea of “perturbation analysis”, I was subject to all kinds of criticism and attack ( http://bbs.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=spaceuid=1565do=blogid=29014page=2 ) , yet I and other believers persisted and finally won acknowledgement. There are many well known examples of scientific discovery that share the same experience Fearlessness This is another aspect of the” confidence” quality mentioned above. I interpret this as not afraid to try out new ideas and new fields of knowledge. While it is very comfortable to work within a well established framework, the payoff is much greater in a new topic. Being there first, you get to pick the low hanging fruits easily while the late comer must exert much more effort to get the same on thehigher branches ( http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=spaceuid=1565do=blogid=2224 ) . The NYT article concludes with the good news that all five qualities above are not genetic or inborn and can be learned through discipline and diligence. 原文链接: http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=spaceuid=1565do=blogid=434766cid=2035355 感谢何毓琦老先生的美文与支持!
骑车摔倒了,周围有人,指定会热心问你:Are you OK? Are you sure (OK)? 听着很温暖,围观者、关心者不用担心某法官。 别人觉得挡你路了,甚至有可能由于你的失误,对方也会说:Sorry!不必因为小事吵得面红耳赤。 没有红灯的路段,机动车总会给行人、自行车让路。 不可否认,中华民族历史长河有很多“仁义礼智信温良恭谦让”的楷模,就像一座座的灯塔,有时候被立得很高很高。但终归能量是有限的,照射的范围更有限,只有特定的少数人可能被照亮。但一个民族、社会更需要太阳这样的恒星,持久、永放光芒! 也许,勇于说出对不起、仁义礼智信温良恭谦让是素质、自信、社会保障完善与法制健全的体现。
我相信我能飞翔 I used to think that I could not go on 我原以为我无法坚持下去 And life was nothing but an awful song 生命只不过是首忧郁的歌 But now I know the meaning of true love 但现在我明白了真爱的含义 I'm leaning on the everlasting arms找到了可以永久依靠的臂膀 If I can see it, then I can do it 只要我能看见希望,我就能成功 If I just believe it, there's nothing to it 我相信我能行,那就没有什么不可以 I believe I can fly 我相信我能飞翔 I believe I can touch the sky 我相信我能触摸到天空 I think about it every night and day 日日夜夜,我想象这一幕 Spread my wings and fly away 展翅高飞 I believe I can soar 我相信我能高飞 I see me running through that open door 我看见我穿过那敞开的生命之门 I believe I can fly 我相信我能飞翔 I believe I can fly 我相信我能飞翔 I believe I can fly 我相信我能飞翔 See I was on the verge of breaking down 看,我在崩溃堕落的边缘 Sometimes silence, it can seem so loud 有时沉默也能震耳欲聋 There are miracles in life I must achieve 生命中很多奇迹等我去实现 But first I know it starts inside of me 但我知道要实现奇迹,就必须先从我做起 If I can see it, then I can do it 只要我能看见希望,我就能成功 If I just believe it, there's nothing to it 我相信我能行,那就没有什么不可以 I believe I can fly 我相信我能飞翔 I believe I can touch the sky 我相信我能触摸到天空 I think about it every night and day 日日夜夜,我想象这一幕 Spread my wings and fly away 展翅高飞 I believe I can soar 我相信我能高飞 I see me running through that open door 我看见我穿过那敞开的生命之门 I believe I can fly 我相信我能飞翔 I believe I can fly 我相信我能飞翔 I believe I can fly 我相信我能飞翔 Could I believe in it? 我该相信它吗? If I can see it, then I can do it 只要我能看见希望,我就能成功 If I just believe it, there's nothing to it 我相信我能行,那就没有什么不可以 I believe I can fly 我相信我能飞翔 I believe I can touch the sky 我相信我能触摸到天空 I think about it every night and day 日日夜夜,我想象这一幕 Spread my wings and fly away 展翅高飞 I believe I can soar 我相信我能高飞 I see me running through that open door 我看见我穿过那敞开的生命之门 I believe I can fly 我相信我能飞翔 I believe I can fly 我相信我能飞翔 I believe I can fly 我相信我能飞翔 I can fly~~~我能飞翔~~~ 相信自己,梦想就可以插上翅膀。 自信的人有梦才是理想 自卑的人有梦那是妄想
今天UNCG化学系的一个同事从Greensboro到我们NCRC做实验,用这里的950 MHz 的核磁测样品。因为是本校来的同事,我特地去实验室问问进展,顺便跟同事的两个学生聊了几句,得知其中一个叫Karen的学生是麻省(麻萨诸塞州)人,却是我们NCRC附近的Davidson College毕业的,便多问了两句。我问她当初为什么没有在家乡附近选个学校,如MIT什么的,而跑到我们这个in the middle of nowhere的小地方来上学?她用很平常的口气说她喜欢这个校园,这里气候好,学生和老师都很友好,大家对校园很有荣誉感,还能看到宿舍的同学直接把手提电脑留在屋后露台上就去上课的情景。这一种气氛,让我感到很舒服,她说她作决定前看了录取她的十几个校园,其中有哈佛等名校,但第一印象最好的是Davidson。我跟她说她应该为自己拥有这一份自由度和独立思想感到自豪,要是出生在中国的话,最有可能的结局是她的父母会送她去哈佛。Karen觉得不可思议,为什么要这样?我们Davidson的人可不把哈佛当回事,我们有一件T恤衫上印了这么一句话,Harvard, Davidson of the North (哈佛,北部的Davidson College )。 我听了大笑,很多人会把一所较好的学校如Davidson褒奖成南部的哈佛或耶鲁,但Davidson人牛气冲天地把话反过来说,是一种多么可爱的自大!联想起我以前的一个学生(现在掌管DHMRI液质平台)曾在考上海交大的博士落榜时叹惜地说,唉,看来我只能哪天回来直接当交大的校长了。那一刻还能说出这样的话,我大为欣赏!学生们多一份思想上的独立和自由,多一点可爱的自命不凡,我们的教育就算有希望了!