昨天 周一，12月9 日，我们 KTH Life science technology platform 举办了一个为期一天的学术会议（有150个人左右注册）。我导师因为是这个学术平台的督导，这次会议邀请谁，安排会议行程等等很多内容导师都亲力亲为，尽管 系里有一个秘书会帮忙打点一些事情 ，然而各种琐事实在是多，也免不了要把一些工作分派给组里的人来分担。 导师给我安排的任务，是负责接送因为发展核磁共振技术用于解构生物大分子而在 2002 年获得诺贝尔化学奖的瑞士科学家 Kurt Wüthrich 。具体地来说是帮忙订出租车，陪同他从他下榻的酒店到我们系，以及在会议结束之后送他回去。这样的任务，我当然是欣然接受了。导师在上周五一大早把这个安排发送给他，也抄送了一份给我。导师在信中对 Kurt 的称呼毕恭毕敬，用的是 Professor Wüthrich ，这在瑞典是很少见的一种称谓方式。信中，导师专门问及对于我们的接送安排， Kurt 是否能够接受，所以从心理上说我们期待得到一个邮件回复的。当然，最后的结果是我们没有收到任何邮件回复。我想不能这么等下去，就直接把出租车订好了。 意想不到的是，周六晚上，我意外看到手机上有一个未接电话，电话号码区号是瑞士的，当时我应该还在 Karolinska Institute 的新讲厅聆听诺贝尔奖生理或医学奖报告......后来才知道原来 Kurt 在期待在机场专门为他订好的出租车...... 周一我们约定的是在早上 11点15分从 Grand Hotel （奥巴马访问瑞典的时候会把整栋楼都包下来，并对附近街道实行严格交通管制）出发 ，但是为了确保一切准确无误，我提前了半个多小时到。我注意到酒店的接待处附近不少人说着英语，我不知道这算不算常见，因为我不常来。只是我注意到旁边还有个带有诺贝尔奖标志的柜台，看来不少人是和诺贝尔奖有些关系了。 我订的出租车提前了 7 分钟到，而 Kurt 则迟到了 5 分钟。司机按理说应该知道我们要去的地方，因为预定出租的时候都讲过，他们应该有记录，结果他闻所未闻，好在有车载的定位系统，所以一切也算顺利。 上了车，我问 Kurt 感觉斯德哥尔摩如何。他说天气真不错，另外在Grand Hotel住能遇到不少有趣的人。我接话说这个期间不少诺奖获得者吧。他的回答让我出乎意料，他说不仅仅如此，还有很多政府高官 以及有钱人......司机听我们聊天，插话进来说他以前也是个化学家，做的就是结构生物学，不过不是用核磁共振，而是 X 光晶体衍射。他是欧洲人的长相，名字也是颇具瑞典特征的（我说这个是因为瑞典的司机以移民居多），具体我没记住，不过我也没好意思问怎么就跑去做司机了......我突然想到 转行做出租车司机的生化学家Douglas Prasher。他在克隆出来绿色荧光蛋白后无偿献给后来因为荧光蛋白获得2008年化学奖 Martin Chalfie和钱永健...... Kurt 的讲座可能是整个会场，大家听得最云里雾里的，我想大概只有做核磁共振的人才能完全跟得上吧。当然，他的研究很了不起，三维动态高精度的解析度，对 X 光晶体衍射技术而言是很重要的互补技术。很遗憾我不了解这是如何实现的。 Kurt 在会议结束后，没有参加我们的 Poster session，而是前往参观位于斯德哥尔摩市内的北欧博物馆了 。 提到 poster, 昨天我最高兴的事情就是得到了业界领袖 ，德国科学家Stefan Hell 的赞扬，在大概不到5分钟的时间里，我简要介绍了我自己想出来的一个改进图像处理的一个算法。 简单提一下， Stefan 是第一位打破远场可见光光学衍射极限，开发超分辨率显微镜技术的旗舰型人物 ，很多人都猜测他将来可能拿诺贝尔奖。他最近的工作中，还极大地提高了超分辨率显微镜的拍照速度 ，这是其他超分辨率显微镜技术所无法媲美的，非常的了不起。能够得到他本人对我最近的工作（即将完成，但最近刚开始动笔写初稿）说出“very good”的评价，我当然心里美滋滋的。Stefan 还问我是不是快毕业了，说他还记得我刚刚进入导师实验室的样子。虽说Stefan 是我导师的好友，见面的机会不太少，我还去他哥廷根的实验室学习过，但是我还真的很怀疑他对我以前能有多少印象。好像之前唯一一次能够和他面对面说话的机会，是第一次我随同导师和他见面时，我提出帮他拿手提箱...... 一晃博士我都读了 5 年了，不少学弟学妹都早博士毕业了。剩下最后几个月，加油！
I attended a lecture named "poetic mathematics and mathematical poetry" by Prof. David Liu in Nov. 28th, 2012. Here enclosed the report in English and Chinese and hope they can remind me of the happy time here in future. Computer scientist Prof. David Liu gives a talk on “Poetic Mathematics and Mathematical Poetry” Prof. David Chung-Laung Liu, a world-renowned computer scientist, education expert and Doctor honoris causa of the University of Macau (UM), today (28 November) gave a lecture entitled “Poetic Mathematics and Mathematical Poetry”, at UM’s Cultural Centre, to a full-house audience of UM staff and students, local secondary school teachers and students, as well as members of the general public. UM Rector Wei Zhao gave a speech before the lecture, in which he mentioned four reasons that make Prof. Liu the pride of all Chinese people. First, Prof. Liu received his early education in Macao, and after graduation from high school, he went to Taiwan and then the United States to pursue further education, and eventually attained remarkable academic accomplishments. Second, during the time he served as the president of Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, the university progressed by leaps and bounds, which is testament to his brilliant leadership skills. Third, he answered the famous “Qian Xuesen Question” by educating a student (Prof. Andrew Chi-Chih Yao) who later became the first and only Chinese to receive the Turing Award, which is considered the Nobel Prize in computer, since the founding of the award. Fourth, he gave up his tenured professorship in the United States to return to Taiwan and devoted himself wholeheartedly to educating Chinese—this admirable decision of Prof. Liu has motivated a large number of Chinese scholars to do the same. Prof. Liu opened his lecture with discussion of a chessboard, and went on to intriguing examples of questions, problems and phenomena in our everyday lives that could be easily explained by mathematical theories. He unveiled the mathematical aspect of poetry and the poetic aspect of mathematics through ingeniously interwoven examples of maths theories and problems and quotes of Chinese and foreign poems, both ancient and contemporary, to an entranced audience, who frequently interrupted his speech with thundering applause and laughter. Prof. Liu also shared some of his life experiences, especially the period when he was studying in Macao. He stressed that education knows no boundaries, and every life experience could be a disguised opportunity to learn something. The essence of maths, explained Prof. Liu, is to find and establish connections between things where others don’t see any. Therefore, noted Prof. Liu, maths and literature are like two different paths leading to the same destination—to discover and appreciate what’s beautiful in life and in the world. The audience lingered long after the lecture was over, taking turns asking Prof. Liu questions. Prof. Liu advised the participants to have extensive interests in the pursuit of knowledge, to explore in an in-depth manner, to imagine boldly, to listen with an open mind, to think critically, to strive for perfection, to have a sense of humility, and most importantly, to never give up. He also encouraged everyone to be a diligent reader and thinker. Towards the end of the QA session, Rector Wei Zhao presented a souvenir to Prof. Liu on behalf of UM. Prof. Liu received his bachelor degree from Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, and received his master’s and PhD degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States. A world-class computer scientist and a dedicated educator who has nurtured many outstanding students, Prof. Liu is the pride of Chinese people. He has successively taught at MIT, the University of Illinois, and Tsing Hua University (Taiwan), for over forty years. He is currently William Mong Honorary Chair Professor of Computer Science at Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. He is a member of the Academia Sinica and a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Association for Computing Machinery. He has received honorary doctorates from UM and Chengchi University, Taiwan. His major awards include the Phil Kaufman Award from IEEE’s Council on Electronic Design Automation, the Technical Achievement Award from IEEE’s Real Time Systems Technical Committee, the Technical Achievement Award from IEEE’s Circuits and Systems Society, and the IEEE Education Medal. His research interests include computer-aided design of VLSI circuits, computer-aided instruction, real-time systems, combinatorial optimization, and discrete mathematics. He has published over 180 technical papers, eight technical books, and seven essay collections in Chinese. http://news.umac.mo/nrs/faces/pub/viewItem.jspx?id=22546locale=en_US 國際知名計算機科學家、澳門大學榮譽博士、知名教育專家劉炯朗教授今(廿八)日於澳大文化中心主講題為「數裡有詩，詩裡有數」的大師講壇，除澳大教職員與學生外，還有來自澳門多間學校的師生以及大批公眾蜂擁而至，全場座無虛席。 開場前，澳大趙偉校長首先向在座聽眾親切介紹了劉炯朗教授，他特別指出四點：首先，劉教授是澳門人，1952年從蔡高中學畢業後，先後赴台、美留學，學術成就非凡；其次，劉教授在擔任台灣清華大學校長期間，推動該校踏上騰飛階段，足見其非凡領導才能；其三，劉教授代表中國人回答了著名的“錢學森之問”，他培養的學生姚期智教授是有“計算機科學界諾貝爾獎”之稱的圖靈獎自創立以來唯一一位華裔獲獎學者，足令華人、尤其是澳人感到驕傲；最後，劉教授放棄在美終身教授席位，返台投身華人教育事業，貢獻心力，不但令人敬佩，更成為後來一大批海外華人學者歸國效力帶來積極表率，影響意義深遠。 劉炯朗教授在講座中首先以棋盤為引子，聯繫起日常生活中無所不在的數學理論，其後再將數學與文學的詩辭歌賦結合：如數學的對稱，與詩賦的對比實為異曲同工；又以數學茶壺原理解釋詩詞鈎句、流水句等……他將看似深奧的數學原理融入古今中外的詩文篇章，深入淺出，趣味盎然，不論詩文佳句還是數學思考題，皆順手拈來，不時引發觀眾歡笑鼓掌，令大家充分領略數學與文學的巧妙內在聯結與迷人魅力。在演講會上，劉炯朗更即場分享自己當年在澳門的求學與成長經歷，他強調教育無邊界，一個人的任何經歷其實都是教育的一部分。研究數學之根本，也就是在常人看不到之處，如何尋找並建立萬事萬物之間的關係。故此，他指出數學和文學其實殊途同歸，都是為了發現和欣賞“美”──萬物之美及生命之美。演講後，在趙偉校長主持下進行互動環節，劉教授一一解答了現場觀眾的提問，他提出，做學問要興趣廣泛，深入探討，大膽想像，虛心聆聽，嚴謹批判，追求完美，並心懷謙卑，不懈努力。他更鼓勵大家要多讀書，多思考。最後，趙偉代表澳大向劉炯朗教授致贈紀念品，活動在歡欣愉快的氣氛中圓滿結束。 劉炯朗教授為台灣成功大學理學學士、美國麻省理工學院理學碩士和理學博士。他年青時期曾在澳門就學，其後負笈留美，學有所成，不但成為大師級科學家，更投身教育事業，培育英才無數，值得澳門人以之為傲。劉教授先後於麻省理工學院、伊利諾大學、台灣清華大學等高校任教四十餘年，現任台灣清華大學蒙民偉榮譽講座教授。他曾先後當選台灣中研院院士、電子電機工程師學(IEEE)會士以及計算機協會(ACM)傑出會員，並榮獲澳門大學及台灣政治大學頒授的榮譽博士學位。劉教授曾獲電子設計自動化學會的菲爾卡夫曼獎、實時系統技術委員會技術成就獎、電路系統學會技術成就獎以及教育勳章，其專業領域涵蓋超大型集成電輔助設計、電腦輔助教學、實時系統、系統組合的優化、離散數學等，迄今發表了180多篇學術論文，出版了8部學術專著以及7部中文散文集。
标签: 学术人生
