黄庚的爱的实验室

Kuen Kao's Education and childhood interest in science

Colburn:
I was wondering if I could take you back through some of your early life and schooling and preparation, and what made you become interested in engineering to begin with.

Kao:
I don't know how to really answer the question because some of the things are intuitive things that may or may not be right. For example, when I was playing with chemistry, long before I was really old enough to really play with those things, so I got to know things like an understanding that if you put an oxidation agent and mix it with something that is easily inflammable, that if you mix the two, you are going to make a brighter spark, which I did. The actual things that I used were so lethal. I put red phosphorus powder and mixed it with potassium chlorate, which is an oxidation agent, and we'd touch it and it would go phooom and it explodes. A young boy to be playing with these things is really bad! I actually wrote about this. I made mud balls and put water in with those two ingredients and put it into the center of the mud ball and let it dry. and when you'd throw it, it explodes.

Colburn:
How old were you when you were doing this?

Kao:
Very young. So that's very dangerous. I was making chlorine all over the place. I nearly gassed myself, I suppose. So that's the uncontrolled environment that I was in which could have led to terrible things. However, I survived.

I think the most important point is that I mixed with lots of people that are curious, curiosity-driven people, and so we learned by reading, by experimenting. So that opened our minds in that more flexible way without the constraint of, “You must understand this book before you can move to that book,” because the parental control wasn't there, or they were not exactly understanding what we were trying to do.

http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Oral-History:Charles_Kao#Education_and_childhood_interest_in_science

Roger Y. Tsien

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2008

In 1960, RCA closed its vacuum tube division, presumably because semiconductors were replacing tubes, so Dad moved to Esso (later renamed Exxon) Research and Engineering. Esso provided much better projects and pay, so he stayed until his retirement in 1983. I believe some of the chemicals and glassware that enabled me to do the more interesting chemistry experiments were diverted from the company stockroom. Other supplies could be bought by mail order in those days with a parent's signature. Over the next 5 or 6 years I gradually did many of the classic experiments of inorganic chemistry in the basement of our house: preparing and burning H₂ gas, preparing O₂ and burning steel wool in it, preparing NH₃ in a flask and watching it suck water up as a fountain inside the flask. I distilled HF from CaF₂ + H₂SO₄ in plastic apparatus and was delighted to see its ability to etch glass. I electrolyzed molten NaOH using a step-down transformer and rectifier from a model train set, the nickel crucible as cathode, and a carbon rod salvaged from a dead flashlight battery as anode. I managed to get a few granules of very impure metallic sodium, which gave off a satisfying hiss when dropped into water. Pyrotechnics were naturally of great interest: I made and ignited gunpowder, ammonium dichromate volcanoes, and even a spectacular thermite reaction with powdered aluminum and chromium oxide. My most ambitious attempt was a multistep sequence aimed at synthesizing aspirin, for which I needed acetic anhydride, which had to be made from acetyl chloride, for which I needed phosphorus trichloride, for which I needed to burn red phosphorus in a stream of chlorine gas. I tried to do this reaction sequence in flasks with rubber stoppers (Figure 2), because I had no glassware with ground glass joints. The corrosive chemicals largely chewed up the rubber, so I did not get beyond acetyl chloride. Because I had no fume hood, I did the more dangerous experiments outdoors on a picnic table on the backyard patio. Looking back, I am appalled at how dangerous all this was for an unsupervised boy of 8 to 15, but it was also very good training in how to improvise equipment, plan and execute experiments, interpret confusing results, and decide how to do things better. These experiments made me confident enough that when I had to earn my first merit badge as a Boy Scout and was advised to pick something really easy, I chose Chemistry. Tougher merit badges like Hiking, with its requirement for a twenty-mile hike in one day, I got later.

Figure 2. Setup for preparing Cl2 and reacting it with red phosphorus, sometime in 1966– 1967, in our screened backyard patio. The leftmost flask contained KMnO4 to react with aqueous HCl added through the funnel controlled by a pinch clamp. The Cl2 was dried by passage through CaCl2 then directed onto P4 in the flask on the ring stand. Because no running water was available, the water to cool the PCl3 condenser was siphoned from the recycled milk jug and deposited into the waste can labeled "Hawaiian Punch". The receiver for PCl3 was immersed in ice in the thermos bottle. The alcohol lamp allowed auxiliary heating for the phosphorus. Note rubber stoppers everywhere.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2008/tsien-autobio.html

And this is Ian Huang's:

[北京]自2002年以来，中国的科学技术工作者的数量增加了74%，但是其中几乎1/3 的人说他们想换成别的工作，诸如公务员或管理人员。

5200万科技工作者中的40%是女性（比2002年的34%有所提高），研究人员的平均年龄下降到了38岁，而拥有硕士或博士学位的比例从2002年的11%上升到了25%。

尽管3万份问卷的回答者的49%说他们对于工作感到满意，但超过半数的人不愿意让他们的子女成为科研人员。这些调查表发放给了科研人员、工程师、医院技术员和科学教师。

中国科学技术协会（CAST）的这份报告的作者之一张小梅把相当一部分人的不满意归结于低收入、高压力和职业前景不好。

大约32%的受访科技工作者的工资比全国平均工资水平更低，而8%的人每周工作超过70小时。2007年在10个城市进行的一项类似调查中，CAST发现将近40%的被调查者说在他们在工作环境中无法实现全部潜力。

今年调查的半数回答者在过去3年中发表了论文，但是大约20%的回答者说发表论文的压力让人担忧。

学术不端也是让人担心的一个领域，55%的回答者说确切知道自己周围的研究者有过至少一种学术不端行为，而39%的人承认自己对科研道德和学术规范“了解很少”或者“不了解”。

中国科协调研宣传部副部长崔建平说，来自上级频繁的评审增加了科技工作者感到的压力，特别是对于那些学术资格或级别高的科技工作者，例如教授。

他说，对于科技工作者工作的评价，要有一个合理的提升途径，而较少地把重点放在诸如发表论文数量等外部因素上。报告的作者们认为，这样将增加科技工作者的忠诚度。

　　如果死亡就在眼前－－一年之后－－你会做些什么？选择一年这个长度，因为如果是明天，可能会因为时间过于短暂而来不及做些什么；而如果是十年二十年，可能会因为太过漫长而与平日生活别无两样。

　　1年，4个季度，12个月，52个星期，365天，……

　　是回归田园，放慢节奏，平静安详地观察周遭？亦或释放自已最后的能量，拼命工作，贡献最后的微薄之力？

　　因为时间短暂，因而将之前认为将来一定会有时间去做而又非常重要的事提上议事日程？用更多的时间陪伴父母、爱人、孩子，看望朋友、同学、同事、恩师？说出之前一直想说却无法开口的话？亦或通过文字、作品留下自已曾经存在的证明，给爱的人留些念想？

　　开始关心自已，早睡早起，少操心别人？还是将一切需要交待嘱咐的事反复考虑，再三关照，继续劳碌命？

　　人之将死，其言也善；鸟之将死，其鸣也哀。是选择向自已曾经伤害过的人道歉请求宽恕？还是死不悔改死要面子？曾经和一个学心理学的朋友聊天得知有种职业叫临终关怀，即给临终的人以照顾和心理干预。令人向往的职业，因为想必将死之人一定有很多常人不知或忽视的感悟吧。

　　看了电影「飛鳥へ，そしてまだ見ぬ子へ」（致飞鸟及那未见到的孩子），很喜欢那种淡淡的感觉。和《一升的眼泪》一样，开始不久即知晓是一个悲剧，但却仍旧很美很有爱，虽然心痛遗憾却仍旧那样美好。

　　的确如剧中所言，人总是要等到失去了，才懂得珍惜之前唾手可得的美好。人真是种可悲的动物。

　　假期将止，过去的研一短暂而又漫长，煎熬又令人期待，有欢笑有泪水，晕晕乎乎地就将升至研二。希望能尽早找回原来积极向上的自已，不再迷茫。