the power of belief

Seraph: "Did you always know?"
Oracle: "Oh, no... No, I didn't. But I believed...I believed."

This is the last scence in Matrix Revolution: the Oracle sits on a bench besides a lake in the dawn, and Seraph comes towards her. The oracle does not know that Zion is going to be saved and the war between machine and the human is going to end before Neo achieves it. As she reiterates at last, she "believed". That belief not only gives power and strength to herself but also Neo, Trinity, Morpheus and on and on and on. In a sense, it is this belief that makes the peace happen.

I talked with one friend a few days ago about goals of life. One of her goal is to have a daughter in the year of rabbit. I am curious about it and ask why. She said old men believe persons born in pig year and rabbit year will have particularly good relationship and she is in the year of pig.

I would have regarded it as superstition and haven't bothered to give a slightest thought to it, if I heard such a claim one year before. But now, I not only find it interesting, but also "reasonable". If the mother and the daughter both believe that persons in pig year and rebbit year will have good relationship, they will feel closer to each other not only because they are mum and daughter, but also because they born in the years of special connection. And if this belief goes into the unconscious level, the influence may be greater.

Free the mind

"oki, oki, free my mind, free my mind" Neo mumbles repeatedly before he makes his first jump between buildings in the film Matrix, my favorite.

I had a free conversation yesterday with an eighty-two-year-old man, who is the husband of my grandfather's sister and an old expert on education. I asked him the question of efficient schedule, or more precisely, how to manage time. "Free your mind!", he urges. Do not be confined by any form, such as a timetable or a pre-designed schedule, he adds. When I speak confidently about my arrangement that I swim once a week and play football once week, he said "open your mind. Play football whenever you want and swim as many times as you want."

Though his view may be a little like self-indulgence, the most important point he made and the most enlightening point to me is that do not set boundary to oneself, especially in the form of a strict time schedule. Doing what one really wants to do is the key to efficiency.

The decision to postpone the GRE test

One the one side, if I take the GRE test this June, there will be less than one month preparation time, which is the worst thing because I am not even familiar with those GRE words. So I will have to spend nearly all the time from now to do the memory work and honing the specific test taking skills. And consequently I will drop a handful of other stuffs including my school work which is now approaching the finals, my laboratory work, which just runs on the right track, and the When Pigs Fly website construction that I am in charge of.

On the other side, if I take the GRE test in October, I will get quite busy this fall: I have six compulsory modules; I have GRE subject test in November; I have laboratory work; I have graduate school application to ponder about; and I have the FACES meeting to attend and FACES collaborative project to participate.

I step back, looking for a decisive weight to be added on one side of the miserable balance. And I finally found it; it's hope. There is a chance that by arranging my schedule properly, I will get so many things done in time.

....

...

It was one o'clock in the morning. Lying on bed and listening every sound night has produce, I couldn't sleep. I ought to feel comfortable; the decision I just make release me temporarily from a huge burden. In retrospect, I found that the feeling of depression is a result of reluctance to give up. In a sense, my decision to postpone the GRE test is to give up the test. I had same kind of feeling in high school when I gave up the physics Olympiad and biology Olympiad in order to focus on the chemistry one. That was also a hard decision, which later proved to be very successful.

what my life is now

One of my new friend met on FACES emailed me, ask me what kind of life I had in China. I think about what my life is like, but never write them down. She gives me a chance to take a careful look at my current life. Two words to describe it are busy and enjoyable.

It's a busy one: I have school work, lab work, and I also participate in FACES collaborative project and prepare for GRE on June.

It's also an enjoyable one. I like science and I like my current major, chemistry. The lab work is fascinating because I feel more like a scientist even though I have just started reading papers. Collaborative project is exciting; every member talks a lot in the online discussion board and I feel that I am now really going to do some work good to my local community and society. The GRE requires memory work which seems boring, but I have discovered a method to make it more interesting--to look up the unfamiliar word in American Heritage Dictionary to find some interesting sentences. I quote my favorite two sentences here: "The weapon which most readily conquers reason: terror and violence." And "Obedience, /bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, / Makes slaves of men."

long time no post

Nearly one month I have not written anything for my beloved blog! I spend most of this month preparing and enjoying FACES.

What I enjoy most is talking with the delegates and organizers. They are the most passionate, most thoughtful young people I have ever seen.

Lots of funny things happens too. I played Taiji in the rock music party, and I have to move three times faster than usual. To fufill the requirements of a game, Scavenger Hunt, I entered the lady's restroom with other four group members --three of us will definitely not be able enter again--to get a photo of ourselves in mirror. And An old-book store owner roared at me because I am going to take photos in her store. And on the farewell dinner, I gave the worst speech I can ever give, but still someone says he enjoys it and he is not kidding.

Stanford students seems to be busy with their extracurriculum activities all the time. They will be regarded as "Bu Wu Zheng Ye" if they ever do this in Nanda. Two education systems and the corresponding evaluation system are different. Perhaps it is hard to make a fair judgement on them if I am still inside the system.

When an american delegates talks about the ordinary postal mail, he says:"it is so 20th century". I enjoy this accurate judgement particularly for its odd wording. I copy it and say "it's so FACES that people are nice, that organizers keep warning us to be hurry because we are behind the schedule, that there are so few people majoring science and engineering, and that it is not so sad to say goodbye because the planned re-union on November in Beijing."

3.26 march

CNN depicts the march as a public protest for peace, for freedom, for democracy, and against potential war. Sina tells us that the march is a completely political show, and any sensible people are not in it.

兼听则明，偏信则暗。

mad thought

I often heard that we live in a four dimension world: three dimension of space and one dimension of time. In space dimension, we can travel up and down, forward and backward, left and right. But in time dimension, we have only one direction.

Of course, everyone knows that.

Since space and time are linked, and everybody think about if we can travel to the past, what will happen... I am sometimes in that kind of dreams, but recently I find that I forget one thing.

If we can travel to the past, we change one property of the dimension of time, i.e., from one direction to two directions. So, we have to pay for what we get. What is the price? We have to sacrifice a direction from a space dimension. In other words, if we can travel to the past, we will sacrifice our ability to go right(left), or up(down), or forward(backward).

maths and language are abstracted symbols

--for memory of theoretical physics

The above formula means that internal energy of ideal gas is not a funtion of the volume of the ideal gas, in other words, the internal energy of ideal gas will not change if only the volume of the ideal gas changes. It is a direct application of the first law thermodynamics in ideal gas.

In the above paragraph, I use one sentence, 42 words, to explain briefly what the equation means. But from another point of view, I used 42 words to explain the result of direct application of the first law of thermodynamics to ideal gas. And the same application (or fact) can be described by only one equation.

Of course, the letters U, V and T need definitions before the equation, or any combination of them, has any meaning. But is the 42-word sentence self-contained or self-sufficient? No, what is ideal gas, what is internal energy, what is volume, what is temperature and what is function. Even what is "change"?

In maths, definitions are like building blocks, one upon another, which form the mansion of maths. I try to find out what is at the bottom of this mansion. I look at numbers: 1 to 9 and the 0. They are abstracted symbols of the things in real world. 1 apple, 2 apples...From the real things, we get the idea of 1 and 2 and so on.

Language more or less serves the same function: to describe the real things. But a big difference between maths and language is that too many words in a language do not have clear definition. And it seems that people do not care about whether they have clear definitions or not.

a handful of photons

Guess what will you get more if you make a hollow fist, photon or air molecules? I guess it is photons. But the calculation prove that I was wrong.

Under room temperature, a hollow fist will have about one billion photons while the number of air molecules is 25 billion billion, two billion times than photons.

The meaning of life

My high school classmate, a young life, came to an end not long ago. Death comes to me so near again and deliberately to show me the fragile nature of life. It once again lets me to ponder about the meaning of life.

Everybody knows that "we're all going to die, and it's just a matter of time", but few keep it in mind. Perhaps that's why Russell once wrote that "a certain awareness of the ends of human life" is an indispensable portion of wisdom. When fear and despair take the full control over reason, to die seems to be a good option. So reason alone cannot prevent one to choose that option. "On the one hand, by knowing things somewhat remote in time or space, and, on the other hand, by giving to such things their due weight in our feelings" we might broaden our mind and our feelings, and ergo prevent letting fear and despair take the control.

Most of the world is in peace now, and the country is growing. And there is no tyranny to fight against. It's suitable to take a lighthearted attitude towards life. Forget the burden, forget the stress. "人生就像是在旅行,在乎的不是目的地,而是沿途的风景和看风景的心情." So, one part of meaning of life, it seems to me, is to experience and feel everything--the human, the world and the universe.

Small thoughts

Standing upside-down bring more blood to the head, a good practice during reading breaks.

I help my young cousin with her middle school math every Sunday. She is learning elementary algebra now. All her homework is about how to substitute the variables in formula with other monomial or polynomial. The basic thinking pattern--substitution--is one work we now still practise in college.

子贡问曰:"有一言而可以终身行之者乎?"子曰:"其恕乎! 己所不欲, 勿施于人。"I read similar thoughts in Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People: "If out of reading this book you get just one thing--an increased tendency to think always in terms of other people's point of view, and see things from their angle--if you get that one thing out of this book..." Humans are similar in nature whether we are yellow, white or black.

chemistry joke

When my instructor describe how class for graduate student in Harvard Chemistry department is. He quipped: "After the four courses, the thermodynamics problem is solved (the students get fully prepared of knowledge in a particular research area), and what is left is kinetics problem (how to apply those knowledge in actual research work).

new semester and boring lecture

The new semester began officially on Monday. But for me, it just begins today, because I have no classes on Monday and Tuesday. I feel a little excited of having classes again after a terribly long three-month holiday. But after listening to two lectures, I was bored.

The first lecturer has a little enthusiam but cannot articulate his speech clearly. Further, by constantly mentioning his position as a teacher and our positions as students, who should work hard on his subject as he also nags , he seems to prevent a intellectual intercourse on a mutual equal ground.

The second lecturer has no enthusiasm at all. He delivers his lecture in a monotonous voice, which easily send people to sleep.

Lectures do not always like that. I still remember the well-organized and well-articulate mathematics lecture from Prof. Su, and humourous and enlightening philosophy letures from Prof. Holbo. Those lecturers not only transmit knowledge but also enthusism of their own subjects as well.

The extent of feeling

Two months have pasted since the tsunami. I sometimes wonder why I have not donated anything.

When I was having my dinner in the ground floor of a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur, I bought a book and two ballpens from a elementary school girl who was collecting money for local charity. In Singapore, I joined an charity activity which also collects money for local charity orgainzation. On that day, which is called flag day by NUS, we spend all of our time asking one question: "Could you please give some donation for chariy?" Whether in Kuala Lumpur or in Singapore, I was connected with those unfortunate people directly, either by the girl or by an orgnization. The connection is not only a human relation chain, but also a link between my feelings and the unfortunate's. This connection let my feeling extend outside my own region and reaches out to a far-away person. And by giving the donation or collecting the money, I was gratified emotionally.

So when I think about why I did not give a donation, I concludes it is because there is no such connection near me. My area of feeling has no connection with those unfornate people. And my area of feeling has not grown to the stage that it can automatically generate a motive for building the connection, i.e. that I did not search for an organiztion for the donation.

So finally, one thing can be improved. Just as Carl Jung says, "We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect, we apprehend it just as much by feeling." The area of feeling is to be enlarged.

a slip before chance

I am interested in analyzing human feelings these days and how emotion can influence reasoning. The patient is myself. I feel depressed this morning after knowing that the earliest interview time for my visa application will be on April 11, which is too late for FACES. The depression generate a sudden panic in me for quit a while.

The interesting thing is how such feeling, whether I call it depression, panic, fear or worry, take over the control of my mind. After the phone call, I write and sent a short message to a delegate informing this emergency. It was not until quite a while later that I discover the message is full of unconsciously mistyped words. I do not notice it at all when type them.

It is easy to keep balance when standing on normal ground. But when on the icy road, it is not such a easy task to keep balance. The same is the case that an emotion take over the mind when I still want to keep reasoning.

Drilling is what I need.

The baby met in Malaysia

I met Malysia parents and this baby in the twin tower in Kuala Lumpur. At that time, the parents were taking photoes of the baby. A very lovely baby. So I take one too, after having their parents' permission.

Science websites: Special Topics

Special Topics As the main page claims, it provides "citation analyses and commentary for selected scientific research areas that have experienced notable recent advances or are of special current interest."

Molecular Self-Assembly

Molecular Self-Assembly
this pages provides top papers, top authors, top institutions, top nations and top journals of self-assembly.

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology
this pages gives top papers, top authors, top institutins, and top journals of the nanotechnology.

two more small thoughts

1. Yu tongmao: a man who solely learn from experience and who see college as an absolutely means
2. from the sound and lights show in Malacca. The Malaysia was colonized by the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, and the Japanese in succession. When they seek the independence, they unite all the ethnic groups in Malaysia, which demonstrates again that unite we win, divided we fall.