We now realize, with special clarity, how much in error are those theorists who believe that theory comes inductively from experience. Even the great Newton could not free himself from this error (”Hypotheses non fingo”) .** ** ”I make no hypotheses” A. Einstein, ’Physics and Reality’, J. Franklin Inst. 221, 349-382 (1936) ______________________________________________________________ 一，在爱因斯坦看来， invention和 discovery 不可同日而语 早在 1934 年，爱因斯坦发表了著名的哲学论文 《 On the Method of Theoretical Physics 》，(Philosophy of Science, Vol. 1, No. 2, (Apr., 1934), pp. 163-169) 。杨振宁先生极为推崇这篇文章，在很多文章、场合中提到篇文章。 在爱因斯坦看来， 科学理论是人类心智的自由发明( free invention ) 。在理论物理的根本方法中，根本没有 发现( discovery ) 这个词。也就是说， 发现 ，在爱因斯坦的心目中，不过是技术层面的事，在科学上的作用是第二性的。 注意， 杨振宁先生把“ free invention ”翻译成了“自由创造” 。 请看爱因斯坦文章截图之一： 之二： 二，西方科学系统中的 invention 和 discovery 有严格区分 和爱因斯坦的思想相通，托马斯·库恩关于科学革命的一个著名论断是， 科学理论是人类的智力发明 ( invention ) 而不是发现 ( discovery ) 。 而这一论断也为西方科学界、哲学界、科学史界等普遍接受。 伴随着量子力学和相对论的出现，西方思想界早就已经开始批判牛顿的著名论断“我不做假设”（ Hypotheses non fingo ），反而认为科学理论是人类的智力发明 ( invention ) 而不是发现 ( discovery ) 。库恩提出的这个命题，不过是历史的必然。 三，中国人理解的 invention 和 discovery 和西方科学界截然不同 发明 ( invention ) 和发现 ( discovery ) 这两个概念，中国人的理解还局限于日常用语阶段，和西方现代科学系统中的定义，完全相反！ 必须强调，杨振宁先生认为，西方科学界的 invention一词，更加接近中文中的创造 一词 ！ 必须说明，中国思想界，也早就主动接受了西方科学界的说法。试看土著 21 年前的小文章。 四，必须置身西方科技界的语境下理解 爱因斯坦的信 1953 年爱因斯坦给 J.S. Switzer 的那份著名信件，中外对 “ these discoveries ”或者 “ those discoveries ”和中国古代科学进步的关系，争议已久。 对由于历史的误会，原来很多人以为是“ these discoveries ”，争论的空间较大。感谢 谢力 的考据，把爱因斯坦的原信找了出来，原来是 “ those discoveries ”，这样， 争论的空间就较小 。全文如下： Development of Western science is based on two great achievements: the invention of the formal logical system (in Euclidean geometry) by the Greek philosophers, and the discovery of the possibility to find out causal relationships by systematic experiment (during the Renaissance). In my opinion one has not to be astonished that the Chinese sages have not made these steps. The astonishing thing is that those discoveries were made at all . 爱因斯坦对文字非常小心，不仅仅是他，整个西方科学界和思想界，绝不会把 discovery 和 invention 混为一谈。 很明显， logical system (in Euclidean geometry) 是一个创造 ( invention ) 。利用推理找出逻辑关系就属于发现( discovery )了。这个发现指的是例如推出电磁波、推出黑洞的存在等，和一个科学体系 例如创立欧式几何、牛顿力学、电磁理论、量子力学、相对论 ， 如何能同日而语呢 ? 至于“ those discoveries ”，连利用推理找出逻辑关系这样的发现都不如！因此，“ those discoveries ”一定是中国人的“贡献”。或者说， 中国古代哲贤并没有多少创造力 ，有的仅仅是一些小发明。这些小发明，在西方科学语言中是 发现。而这些发现，也不是逻辑的力量。 所以，较好的翻译是： “ 西方科学发展建立在两个重大成就的基础之上：希腊哲学家们(在欧几里德几何学中)发明了形式逻辑体系，和（文艺复兴时期）发现了通过系统的实验找出因果关系的可能性。 在我看来中国哲贤没能走出这些步骤不足为奇。令人惊讶的倒是中国人也做出了一些(其它的)发现。 ” 五，结论 1， 就 爱因斯坦的 这封信，少数派代表 王书宗 的理解比较合理，多数派代表 郝炘 ， 李宁 ， 刘立 ， 谢力 ， 吴国盛 ，特别是 洪建辉 的理解， 至少不符合爱因斯坦的用词习惯。 2， 推荐杨振宁先生对爱因斯坦 invention 一词的翻译为 创造 ,而不是发明。(杨振宁文集(上)，华东师大， 1998。有两篇文章《爱因斯坦对理论物理的影响》《爱因斯坦和现代物理学》有提及这个词的翻译。具体见：313页，331 页。) 注意，网络上有些版本不是杨先生的翻译。 3，科学理论是发明的，也就是人类心智的创造。 ———— 附件： 1，爱因斯坦： On the Method of Theoretical Physics， Philosophy of Science, 1(1934)163-169. Einstein On The Method of Theoretical Physics.pdf 2，王鑫，刘全慧， 为什么说物理学理论是发明的 ? 湖南大学社会科学学报， 8(1994)83-85. 为什么说物理学理论是发明的.pdf ———— 延展阅读 谢力 : 爱因斯坦有才就是任性 谢力 : 爱因斯坦的理论物理学死了 谢力 : 控制理论能够挽救理论物理 李宁 : 就爱因斯坦老师的那封信正式请教一下刘全慧老师 麻庭光 : 也说中国的发明与发现 麻庭光 : 说说爱因斯坦来信的文化背景 刘立 : 转变：爱因斯坦信中“those discoveries 是中国人滴 李泳 : 科学是自由发明的 袁贤讯 : 我也说说老爱的those discoveries 孙小淳 : 李约瑟对爱因斯坦信的理解 金耀初 : 爱因斯坦到底想表达什么？ 嵇少丞 : 那国家人一“思考”，爱因斯坦就发笑 张学文 : 概念( 含定义) 在科学理论中更具有基础意义 ____________ 杨正瓴 ： 翻译爱因斯坦回信博文链接汇集：真傻的贡献
Teaching real-world programming In an innovative software-engineering class, students meet for regular code reviews with senior programmers from Boston-area companies. Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office In undergraduate computer-science classes, homework assignments are usually to write programs, and students are graded on whether the programs do what theyre supposed to. Harried professors and teaching assistants can look over the students code and flag a few common and obvious errors, but they rarely have the time to coach the students on writing clear and concise code. In the real world, however, code clarity is as important as software performance. Large software projects can involve hundreds of programmers, each working on a small corner of an application, and over the course of a project, personnel turnover can be high. Testing, revising and updating software may require people to review code that they had no hand in writing. If the code isnt intelligible, engineers can waste a huge amount of time just figuring out how an existing program does what it does. Professors of computer science Charles E. Leiserson and Saman Amarasinghe, who co-teach a class called Performance Engineering of Software Systems, believe that undergraduates should be taught to write clear code, not just running code. So this fall, for the second year in a row, students in the class wont just have their projects graded by their teaching assistants; theyll also have their code reviewed by senior programmers from the Boston area, who volunteer their time through a program that Amarasinghe and Leiserson call Masters in the Practice of Software Systems Engineering, or MITPOSSE. The roughly 70 students in the class work on four major projects a semester, in two-person teams. After each project is submitted, students from separate teams are paired, and each pair meets with one of the professional programmers for a code review. The code review lasts between 60 and 90 minutes, and each of the 20-odd professionals meets with two pairs of students. The code reviews dont count toward the students final grades, but they are mandatory. The mother of invention Leiserson and Amarasinghe introduced the class, which they teach only in the fall, three years ago. The first year, enrollment was lower than it is now, and the professors decided to hold their own half-hour code reviews with individual students after each project. That killed us, Leiserson says. Even though we had a small class at the time, it was clearly not scalable. So in the summer of 2009, Amarasinghe and Leiserson put the word out among friends and colleagues, former students, and members of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratorys Industry Affiliates Program that they were recruiting seasoned programmers to serve as mentors to their students in the fall. We got a tremendous response, Leiserson says. Indeed, in both 2009 and 2010, the professors had to turn away applicants to the program. To Amarasinghe and Leisersons knowledge, theirs is the first computer science class in the country to incorporate code review with professional software engineers. According to Amarasinghe, the chief purpose of the MITPOSSE program is to help students develop their own programming styles. By style he means things like selecting names for variables, so that its clear to later readers what they refer to; avoiding the use of so-called magic numbers, numerals that are simply inserted into equations without explanation (the better practice, Amarasinghe explains, is to assign the number a name that indicates its purpose, and then use the name in subsequent equations); indenting lines of code; and, most important, adding comments lines of text that appear next to the program code and explain what its doing, but which the computer ignores when converting code into an executable program. In many computer-science classes, Amarasinghe says, professors trying to preserve intelligibility will insist on a particular style of coding, which may not be natural for some students and, he says, can actually lead to bad code. The way we look at programming, its like writing an English paper, he says. If you are in English class, theres no set way of writing. Whats important is that a programmers style be consistent, not that it slavishly ape some model. Less is more Of course, all computer-science professors emphasize the importance of good comments, but busy students usually try to get their programs working and then stick in comments in whatever time they have left. Reid Kleckner, who took Amarasinghe and Leisersons class as an undergraduate last year and, as a masters candidate, is a teaching assistant this year, says that the MITPOSSE reviews can help some students get a better grasp of the purpose of comments. Usually, students hear, Comment your code, and they say okay, line by line, This is what this line does, this is what this line does. But, Kleckner explains, comments are in fact more useful when they are spare and descriptive. A program might, for instance, include some clever but obscure procedure that makes it run more efficiently. Simply commenting in the margin that, say, the procedure rounds a number up to the nearest power of two may be all the information the reader needs. You dont need to say, here are the arithmetic operations that I am performing, and they achieve this result. Heres my mathematical proof, Kleckner says. Moreover, Kleckner says, with the MITPOSSE approach, Its not just graduate students telling you how to write code. Its coming from a figure of authority, in some sense. He laughs and adds, Not that the T.A. is not a figure authority. But a T.A. is not a prospective employer. Indeed, for the mentors, some of the appeal of volunteering for the program may very well be the opportunity to scout talent. So Leiserson and Amarasinghe have drawn up a set of rules that the mentors agree to abide by, including no recruiting, hints at job opportunities, offers of summer internships, lab tours, free dinners, etc., until the semester is over and no power relationship exists. But many of the mentors simply find the work intrinsically satisfying. Barry Perlman, who as an independent software consultant doesnt have any job vacancies to fill, volunteered with the program last year and came back again this year. I felt like I was doing something useful, he says. The world doesnt need more software engineers; the world needs better software engineers. Andrew Lamb, too, has joined the MITPOSSE for a second year in a row. He works for a small software company, which isn't looking for dozens of new engineers every year. But, Lamb says, when they have some question and Im able to answer it, and their eyes light up, and they say, I get it, I get it, thats very cool.
Welcome to SRC Basic research is of benefit to all. If you're willing to make the investment, the value is very high. Ralph Cavin, Ph.D. Chief Scientist, SRC PLAY VIDEO Collaboration, Invention, Revolution Founded on the radically simple premise that cooperative university research programs focused on pre-competitive technologies and sponsored by industry rivals would raise the competitiveness of all participating companies, SRC has become a continuing source of revolutionary ideas and talented professionals that are fueling industry and impacting the world. Announcing TECHCON 2010 September 13 14 in Austin, Texas Get a quick overview of SRC's twelfth technical conference. Check the TECHCON home page for more information News Announcements SRC researcher, Lawrence Pileggi, selected by IEEE Circuits and Systems Society to receive 2010 Mac Van Valkenburg Award More The 2009 SRC Annual Report The Value of Members is now available. More SRC and Columbia University researchers develop novel metrologies that provide insights to minimize leakage and breakdowns that cause chip failure. More SRC and the University of North Texas establish center to focus on advanced plasma processes and insulators used in semiconductor manufacturing. More Long-time SRC researchers, Jan Rabaey of the University of California/Berkeley and Reinhold Dauskardt of Stanford University were recipients of SIA's 2010 University Researcher Awards presented during the SIA's recent Washington DC meeting. More NRI announced an open call for NSF-NRI Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Fellow Supplements to NSF Centers in Nanoelectronics. Supplemental funding requests must be submitted by May 10th. More GRC addresses the critical challenges on the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), delivering the solutions that sustain Moore's Law. http://www.src.org/Default.asp When we started SRC, the first big challenge was to get (company representatives) to realize that it was okay to collaborate. Within a year, they were openly discussing the goals for pre-competitive generic research. Larry Sumney President CEO, SRC PLAY VIDEO http://www.src.org/Default.asp?bhjs=1
标签: invention
