随想

圣诞假期，我在家里无聊着，没有什么人一起玩，我也下意识里避免和别人一起出去玩。心里总想着不玩在家学习，其实很多时间被虚耗掉了。

想看很多书，学习方面的等离子体物理讲义和量子电动力学早在上个学期就说要看了，还有科普类的复杂和时间之矢之类的，包括讲分形和混沌的另几本书，都是和thesis有关，也是应该看的。昨天和赵同学聊天，突然也挺想去看看广义相对论的。自己搜出的paper不说，paper里涉及了不少数学里的知识，比如测度这个理论，之前从来没有涉及过，虽然跳掉也没什么，但为了思考的严密看了总是有好处。最近在狂看晓说，觉得文史类的书也得看看，包括读了半截的胡适。至于厚厚的什么是数学，GEB之类的，我都不期待自己能看完。一个我看的慢的原因是这些书都不适合躺在床上抱着pad看，除了科普的那几本，都是得拿个笔拿个本子边看边写的好。当然另一个原因是游戏之类来的简单的多。

我觉得自己其实是挺浮躁的一个人，比如看分形，刚看了一点就开始想自己的理解，在输入还不足的时候就总想着输出，实在没有输出就来写杂感。所以有一段不用去实验室不用上课的时间在家看看经典书籍是很有必要的。尽量的忘却自己的想法，去吸收别人的已经系统的整理过的研究成果。这里单说和我毕设有关的书籍。在chaos这个领域有过长时间系统的研究，看看这些书，对于补充相关知识，理清思绪头路，以及启发新的想法，都有着很重要的作用。

另一个想法是要养成好的科研习惯。这几个月画了各种各样的图，除了起名的时候标注了一下，其实很多参数后来都忘了，我也想过在每个文件夹下面写readme，标注一下这里的结果用的哪些参数，不过这样工作量很大。我觉得比较好的方法是每天开始时写当天计划做什么，模拟打算用哪些参数，然后当天结束时写个总结，写当天做了什么，计算用了哪些参数，结果存在什么地方，有哪些想法。另一个想法是像博客一样建立以月为单位的文件夹，这样比较好找一些。赵同学说他最近在坚持看nature，我觉得我也应该每天一篇的看paper，否则确实我对这个领域的了解不够。

《中国哲学史大纲》笔记（二）：老子

胡适认为神话传说中什么生而皓首，入关仙去之类的话全不可信。老子的生平有既在的很少，连真名和生死年月也很难考察，加上后人编造过多，胡适的推断也知道了与孔子同时代，比孔子大约20岁的地步。老子一书也有断句，错字，后人妄改等问题。

胡适把老子的学说总结为一下几个方面：极端放任主义的政治哲学，“天道”的提出，“无”的提出，“无名”的主张，“无为主义“，”不争“的人生哲学。我挑出我有所感悟的记述一下。

老子的主张“无为”，是每个中国人都知道的。但是老子的主张依然超出了我原本的想象。他说：
”大道废，有仁义；智慧出，有大伪；六亲不和，有孝慈；国家混乱，有忠臣。”
这不但是反对智慧道德，更是对我们所重视的仁义，孝慈，忠诚的讽刺。老子觉得这是因为有了这些观念的存在，人才学会弄虚作假，国家才会混乱。所以老子主张：绝圣弃智，绝仁弃义，绝巧弃利。在主流观点中认为应该追求的东西，老子却认为是动乱之源。老子对此还有更长的注解：
”天下皆知美之为美，斯恶已。皆知善之为善，斯不善已。故有无相生，难易相成；长短相较，高下相倾；音声相和，前后相随。.......不尚贤，使民不争。不贵难得之货，使民不为盗。不见可欲，使民心不乱。是以圣人之治，虚其心，实其腹；弱其志，强其骨：常使民无知无欲。“
老子认识到一切的判断都是相对的，有长才有短，有漂亮才有丑，有善才有恶。所以如果不想有恶，唯一的办法是连善也不要。这让我想起当初有人向我传播基督教时，问我人类是不是有统一的道德标准，他预计我一定会回答是，再引出上帝之说。我直接回答了不是，当时想的是人类的道德标准明显随着时间演变，更不用说有地域差异了。然而老子想的更进一步，既然道德标准是可以变化的，为什么不能抛弃呢？当我们消灭了善的概念，所谓的恶不也就不存在了么？
我觉得这里面隐藏的老子的思想是，老子不觉得什么人性本善，但相信人的本性不会恶到哪里去，一个原始的人，想的不过是满足自己的欲望而已。而一个原始人的欲望也很简单，食，色而已。只有那些接受过教育的，见识过更好东西的人，才会有更大的贪欲。那些打着正义旗号的人，那些想着称王称霸的人，才是推动社会动荡的最主要力量。”民之难治，以其智多“，因此”无为而治“最重要的，不是政府的无为，而是整个社会的”无知无欲“。

老子要”绝圣弃智“，乃至”绝仁弃义“，那是什么使他相信这个世界不会因此而动乱呢？老子认为是”道“支配着这个世界，使一切仍然有序进行。值得注意的是老子并没有斥诸鬼神来解决这个疑问，同时代的孔子，也可以说是无神主义者，中国的先贤们，在几千年前就能脱离鬼神的迷信，独立的思考，看待这个世界，是很令人佩服的一件事情。胡适觉得这是老子看到社会上人民的疾苦，认为这不可能是一个有智慧的主宰所统治的世界，也有道理。但我觉得无神的思想在当时的知识分子阶层似乎已经比较普遍了。”道“其实是一个很虚无缥缈的东西，解释起来就像什么都没说一样。我觉得还是上面所说，人的本性恶不到哪里去，社会平均来说，不加修剪其实是人能期盼的最好的状态。”人之道，损不足以奉有余“，老子是对人类自己制定的标准失望之极，所以觉得回归天道才是最好的选择。”邻国相望，鸡狗之声相闻，民至老死不相往来“，便是老子心中的理想之国。

老子通篇，几乎字字珠玑，所恨的只是年代过远，对于我这样没有古文功底的人，只有脍炙人口的几句，可以意会一二。老子所说的对不对呢？我觉得就老子当时的时代来看，已经是一个人认知的极限了。老子对社会，人性的推论我觉得极有道理，并引发出一个”道“来弥补”绝圣弃智“的不足，完整的解释了如何以及为什么要达到他所提出的状态，很多结论即使在今天看来，也是正确的，可以说是一个完备的终极理论了。老子的理想社会的不足在于，这是一个不稳定的社会，如果有人靠机巧占了大便宜，自然有人效仿，一旦有人有了争夺的野心，也由不得那些”不争“的人不做些什么，更不用说还有外族的接触等等。在老子的年代，也看不到工业革命等划时代的变化，自然想不到有一天，人的欲望可以在全社会内得到满足。虽然我们现在并没有看到那一天，但科技已经带来了生产力的大幅上升，生活舒适度的提高，寿命的延长，未来依旧可以期待。

单粒子轨道理论笔记

做毕设有点卡了，决定从基础看起，希望能对turbulence有更深的了解。于是又把本科时的等离子体物理的讲义翻出来看。本来自以为电动力学学的还可以，单粒子轨道理论这种东西肯定是一带而过。不料看了一晚也没看完，不过还是很有收获的。

首先是郑老师的讲义是用理论力学的方法来推导单粒子轨道理论的。对于已经很久不碰理论力学的我，也算是一个很好的复习吧。使拉格朗日量，哈密顿量，运动积分等名词又回到了我的记忆中。大多结论和用经典力学推导出的一样简单，有几个地方比较有意思。

带电粒子在正交匀强电磁场中会产生电漂移是早已熟知的了，这个电漂移还有个名字就是霍尔效应了。但我常忽略了这个结论成立的条件，即电场强度要远远小于磁场强度。因为这个结论是在带电粒子运动速度远小于光速时得出的，而电漂移速度正比于电磁场强度之比。当电场强度和磁场强度接近时，电漂移速度已经能和光速相比了，当然不符合预先的假设。另一个有意思的观察是电漂移速度和粒子的电性，电量，质量等无关，由此可以推断电漂移速度其实是电磁场的固有属性，和粒子实际上没有什么关系。

进一步的解释是，我们都知道动磁生电，动电生磁，而爱因斯坦的相对论又告诉我们运动其实是相对的。由此我们知道，在不同的参考系中的电磁场也是不同的。而当电场强度和磁场强度大小不同时，我们总可以找到一个参考系，其中只有纯电场或纯磁场。在电漂移的例子中，我们可以不加计算的猜想，在以电漂移速度移动的参考系中，电场为0，只有磁场，从这里看来，粒子绕匀强磁场做周期圆周运动。

那么当电场强度等于或大于磁场强度呢？这时可以看到用理论力学来推导的好处。相对论效应其实是直接被考虑在内了。结果是当电场大于等于磁场时，磁场完全不能把粒子拉住，圆周运动完全消失，粒子会径直飞走（电场大于磁场时轨道为双曲线）。 当电场小于磁场时，我们依然有电漂移速度正比于E/B， 但粒子绕导心的运动从圆周变为了椭圆运动。

再次用刚才的理论，既然电漂移是电磁场的固有属性，为什么在这里圆周运动会变为椭圆运动呢？ 我自己的解释是，简单的从刚才的模型考虑相对论效应，一切条件都没变，但在电漂移速度所在的那一维，由于有相对运动，所以看到的距离会变短，这就是为什么圆周轨道会变成椭圆了。

《中国哲学史大纲》笔记（一）

大学期间曾经读过几篇胡适的文章，也是他的中国哲学史大纲里几篇，里面论及的思想和方法有很多是我闻所未闻的，当时才对“学者”一词有了新的认识，也大体知道古代”治学“大概是怎样一种辛苦的过程，在我所接触的理工科世界里，也算是别开天地吧。只是当时读的囫囵吞枣，这本书论及的思想却庞杂且深，当中夹杂的少许古文对我而言如同天书一般，后来终究没有读完。

最近受了”晓说“里说林徽因那期的影响，对民国时代发生了兴趣，第一个想起来的人物，就是胡适，于是又把《中国哲学史大纲》翻出来重读。这次打算一路做点笔记摘要，希望能从这部书里，多出一些不同于新奇的收获。

今天看的《导言》一篇，也算是全书的精华所在。胡适在这里详细的写下了研究哲学史的方法，特别是中国哲学史的方法，包括对于史料的审定，整理等等。胡适认为自己的书是”初次尝试“，所以希望留下方法，待到后世学者来”做一部更完备更精确的《中国哲学史》“。

《导言》从哲学定义和哲学史的分类出发，然后提出了哲学史的三个目的：明变，求因，评判。我觉得对于我们读哲学史的人来说，这三个也是我们要寻找的，了解到思想发展的脉络，原因，至于评价，个人觉得始终是见仁见智的事情，但是胡适所说的三个判据（简单说，对当时或后世思想，社会，个人的影响）倒是可以由哲学史家为我们整理出来，也算是客观吧。

曾听说，胡适是第一个提出中国哲学在世界上与欧洲哲学有同等地位的人。如果这样，那便是在这篇导言中。胡适认为世上哲学有东西两支，东支有印度中国两系，后来印度系加入中国系，发生出中国的近世哲学。而中国的哲学，分为古代，中世，近世三个时期。

后面讲到了哲学的史料，就是导言的精华，开始叙述”述学“的方法。史料有原料副料之分，望文生义，不难理解。但各种史料，特别是古代哲学时期的史料，不仅失散无数，而且有大量的假书，更有错字，误读，语意读音变迁等各种问题，想从这里面找到确实的可以信赖的史料来最大的还原哲学家的思想，不得不花一番功夫。

审定哲学史料的方法大体上有五种：1. 史事，作书的人的年代需要与书中所记之事相符，很容易理解；2. 文字，作书的人所用的字词应当是他所处年代所有，否则则可认为是假； 3. 文体，同样，作书人所用不应当是之后才发展出的文体；4. 思想，看书中有无矛盾之处，书中有无之后才发生出的思想；5. 旁证，即是他人书中所引，互相作证，这大概是最有力的证据了。

在描述这些方法的字里行间，隐藏着一个很重要的思想，那就是一个人的文字文风思想，总不会脱出他所处的时代太多。这是我上大学看这本书的感受，对我有很大的影响。现在我更认为，我们即是我们所受教育的产物，我们所有的思想，从和平民主到非主流活出自我，无一不是我们所处环境时代的体现，每个人有不同的选择和理解，却鲜有人活在这个时代之外。不仅我们无法脱出这个规律，那些伟大的哲人思想家也是如此，因此文字文体思想皆可拿来用作历史的判据。

整理史料需要做校勘，训诂和贯通的功夫，这大概是真正做哲学史的人需要去关心的，对于我这样一个文言功底浅的人，也就一看而过了。不过从这些描述中我们可以看到古书可以在哪些地方出错，比如传写中的脱误，字义的变迁等。这些都是些极细极考功夫的活，需要各种对照考察，没有丰富的学识和经年累月的苦功是做不来的，古人说的“治学”，在此可见一斑。至于贯通，更要有高人一筹的眼光和所治之学以外的知识，却又更难了。

最后摘一句很喜欢的话，却是出于韩非而不是胡适的：
“无参验而必之者，愚也。弗能必之而据之者，诬也。故明据先王必定尧舜者，非愚即诬也。”

German Course Notes 6

I felt today that I like the male lecturer more. He is more energetic, and really emphasize on pronunciation, corrects us one by one. I like the feeling of precise when I practice. 

First we practice the possess form of a third person. I'm not familiar with grammatical terms in English, so maybe I will be somehow unclear when describing grammar. The possess form is shown below. 

	maskulin und neutrum	femilin und Plural
ich ( I )	mein	meine
du (you informal)	dein	deine
er (der words)	sein	seine
sie (die words)	ihr	ihre
es (das words)	sein	seine
Sie (you formal)	Ihr	Ihre

Just remember to add 'e' for femilin and plural words. 

Another grammatical phenomenon is the difference between Nominativ and Akkusativ, which is basically subject and object. In English, the difference is marked by the order of words. Like "I eat an egg", we know that it is me eating the egg. "An egg eats me", which makes no sense, but we understand who eats who, it lies in the order of the words. German is different. To make a difference, the Akkusativ form of "der" words changes. 

-Der Hund beißt den Briefträger. [The dog bites the postman]

We change the order,

-Den Briefträger beißt der Hund. [also means the dog bites the postman, the Akkusativ is marked with den]

Things get complicate here because only the "der" words need to make a change. "die" words and "das" words remain the same.

-Ich esse einen Hamburger. (an "en" is added)

-Ich esse eine Pizza. ("e" because it is die Pizza)

-Ich esse ein Eis. (das Eis, ice cream) 

Then we come to "essen", eat. 

-Morgens esse ich einen Hamburger. (I eat a Hamburger this morning)

The word "essen" is irregular. 

ich esse,    du isst,    er/sie isst

So there are words we learn for time, which are 

morgens=am Morgen ( in the morning )    mittags (at noon)

abends ( in the evening )

das Frühstück [breakfast]    das Mittagessen [lunch]    das Abendessen    die Kaffeepause 

And words for food and drink, and there are lots of them.

der Apfel [apple]    der Zucker [sugar]    das Salz [salt]    die Tomate    die Banane    die Gurke [cucumber] 

das Obst [fruit]    die Orange    die Zitrone [lemond]   das Fleisch [meat]    der Vegetarier    das Eis    

die Pizza    der Saft(e) [juice]    das Keks [cookie]    der Kebab   der Quark [white cheese] 

das Huhn [chicken]    die Hühner [pl. chichen]   das Hähnchen [chicken meat]    die Kartoffel(n) [potato]   

der Salat    der Käse     die Wurst [sausage]     der Reis [rice]    die Milch [milk]    das Wasser [water] 

der Wein    die Butter    der Fisch [fish]    das Brot [bread]    das Bier    das Ei [egg]    der Kuchen [cake] 

() marked the pl. form.

Also container and cutlery.

die Gabel [folks]    der Löffel [spoon]    der Teller [plate]    das Messer [knife]    das Glas    die Gläser

die Flasche(n) [bottle]        die Dose(n) [can,tin]    die Tasse(n) [cup] 

Some other words.

der Buchstabe [letter, remember Buchstabieren]    der Fehler [mistake]    der Rucksack  [backpack]  

die Brille [glasses, for eyes]    das Geschäft [shop]    sonder [not A but B]    warum [why]    

Sag mal [tell me]    leer [empty]     das Kabel [cable]    Abfall [waste]    die Tafel(n) [blackboard]  

das Fenster [window]  voll [full, sounds also like full]   ehrlich [honest]    billig [cheap]

Guten Appetit! [ :-)]

German Course Notes 5

I've been a bit lazy these days. So the lecture on Friday, we had a lot of grammar coming. First is the different genders of German words.

	maskulin	feminin	neutrum	Plural
Bestimmte Artikel	der	die	das	die
Unbestimmter Artikel	ein	eine	ein	-
	kein	keine	kein	keine
Personalpronomen	mein	meine	mein	meine

For the possess form of a person I use "ich", which is "I" as an example. The pattern is easily seen, we use "der" and "das" for "maskulin" and "neutrum" words, and use adjective as the way they are when adding before them. We use "die" for "feminin" and "Plural" words, and when adding adjective words to them, we also add "-e".

There are some rules that we can tell which word is maskulin and which is feminin, but according to the teacher, they are not so make sense. So the suggested way is to remember the word with its article. Like you should always remember "Hamburger" as "der Hamburger". It is the same with turning singular words to their plural form. There are 8 ways of doing it, you should pretty much remember for every word which category it belongs to.

New words and their articles.
der Hamburger     der Wein    der Kaffee    der Cartoon    der Kugelschreiber [pen]  
der Radiergummi [eraser]    die Uhr    die Flasche Wein    die Tasse Wein    das Auto    das Schwein [pig]
das Glas Bier    das Buch [book]     der Stuhl [stool]    der Tisch [table]    die Batterie [battery]
die Lampe    der Steaker [plug]    der Steakdose [socket]    die Kamera     die Postkarte    der Wasserhahn [water tap]    das Waschbecken [washbasin]    der Taschenrech [hand calculator]    das Klavier [piano]
der Elektroherd [electric cooker]    der Topf [pot]    der Schrank [cabin]    das Regal [shelf]  
das Kochfeld [cooking field]    die Rentnerin [retired woman]   der Rentner [retired man]
der Foßball     der Teddybär [teddy bear]    der Käse [cheese]    die Glühbirne [bulb]    die Spüle [sink]

German Course Notes 4

The course vier went slower as a new teacher coming and we introduced ourselves again.  And here's mine.

Ich heiße Karl. Ich komme aus China. Ich studiere physik an der Universität hier. Ich bin 23 Jahre alt und ich bin ledig. Meine Hobbys sind Musik hören, reisen und schach spielen.

Wir studieren vier Satzstrukturen(sentence structures).

1)  Aussagesatz (clause of statement)
- Ich nehme eine Bier.
We should note that the verb should always be in the second position. It is the same in Nertherlands. We could change the position of other parts. But the verb always comes in second place.
- Eine Bier nehme ich.
- Morgen Arbend nehme ich eine Bier. (Morgen Arbend is time, counts as one part).

2) Satzfrage
These are the type of questions that should be answered with "Ja" or "Nein". Simply we put the verb in front.
- Nehme ich eine Bier?

3) Wortfrage
Starting with a word indicating what is asking.
- Was nehmen Sie?

4) Imperatio
Asking people to do something.
- Nehmen Sie bette!

Then there comes the change in form of verbs according to the subjects.
"Sein" has five forms.
Ich bin ...      Er/Sie/Es ist ...    Du bist ....   Wir/Sie/Sie sind ....   Ihr seid ...
What may be confusing here is "sie", "sie" has three meaning, when means "she", "sie ist", means "they", "sie sind", and with a capital 'S', "Sie" is the formal way of saying "you", "Sie sind".
"möchten" has four forms.
Ich möchte ....   Er/Sie/Es möchte ...  Du möchtest ...   Wir/Sie/Sie möchten ...  Ihr möchtet ...

Then come to the vocabulary part.
die Türkei und die Schweiz
Turns out that Germans will add infinite article to certain countries, Turkey and Switzerland are examples.

jagen [hunting]    der Hase(n) [rabbit]    der Vogel [bird]    der Verteitiger und der Torwart [position in football]     Schach [chess]    Badminton    das Augeln [fishing]    das Essen [eating]    das Metall [metal]
der Boss= der Chef     die Autobahn [highway]    woher [where from]    wohin [where to]    liegen [lie]
der Geburtstag! [birthday]    Klavier [piano]      

German Course Notes 3

The course becomes a suffer for me because my throat hurts. I don't know exactly why, but I feel uncomfortable after a few talking. I drank cola every 10 minute to make myself feel better, which make my classmates think I'm addicted to it.

Okay, weekend is two days away, just hang on.

The course started with listening practice, the words we heard are names of place in Stuttgart, which I find a good idea for it helps us get familiar with this city. But I suck at this practice. Anyway, for pronunciation I only note TH could also pronounced as "t".

More questions on personal information
-Wie alt ist du? ( How old are you)
-Was ist sie von Beruf? ( What does she do for job)
-Sie haben zwei Kinder. ( They have two kids)
-Ist sie verheiratet? ( Is she married)
-Wie viele Kinder hat sie? ( How many kids does she have)
-Was sind Ihr/Sein Hobbeys? ( What are her/his hobbys)
-Ich weiß nicht. ( I don't know ) very useful on class :-)

-Entschuldigung! (sorry)
-Macht nichts.

So "wie" has the meaning of "how", "was" means "what", "woher" or "wo" means "where", "wer" means "who". Perhaps you will notice in changing forms of the verbs, it is one big theme in learning German, the gender of words, we just got in touch with it. I will write it when the teacher introduce it systematically.

Then comes a huge wave of new words.
wald [forest]  die karte [can be used for map or card]  postleitzahl [postcode]  Ort [place]  klein [small]
Landwirt(e) [farmer]  die Briefmarke [stamp]  die Postkarten [postcard]  die Hauptstadt [capital]
die Alpen [take a guess :)]  nicht [not]  zusammen [together]  werdeul [become]  der Neckar [name of river]
aber [but]  morgen [morning&tomorrow]  jetzt [now]  ledig [single]  verheiratet [married]  kaufen [buy]
verkaufen [sell]  lernen [learn]  studieren [study]  unterrichten [teach]  physiker  geschieden [divorced]
struktur [structure]  mal [multiply]  partnert [coupled, didn't found it in dictionary]  durch [divide]
verwitwet [widowed]  falsch [false]  richtig [right]  die studenten   addieren [verb add]   subtrahieren
multiplizieren   dividieren  schluss [end]  heute [today]  zählen [count]  möchen [want]  schüler [pupil]
stück [piece]  die zahl [number]  

German Course Note 2

The course start with a kind of review practice which we ask each other stuff from last class, then to how to ask about more detail of a person.

Was/Wie ist Ihr/dein Familiename/Vorname/Wohnort?
Was/Wie ist Ihre/deine Straße/Telefon/Adresse/Anschrift?

These two are very similar. Asking about family name, given name, address and so on. The big difference is Ihr vs. Ihre. They all mean "your". The difference lies in the subjective, they are of different genders. And when apply definite articles to them, it might be die, der, das according. I don't really know which one is which. But, those who should have "der" in front of them, you can put "Ihr" in front of them. And for "die" and "das" words, you should add an "e" and make "Ihr" "Ihre". The same with "dein", it's only inoffizell.

Buchstabieren Sie, bitte! (Please spell it)  IMPERATIV

When asking about spelling and telephone number, we have to learn to spell and count. German has 26 Buchstaben (letters same as English) and 4 Sonderzeichen ( ä ö ü ß, which English does not have). The letters sound  a bit different, takes time to get used to it. We even heard an ABC rap, it's like back in middle school. Luckily we don't have to learn to sing it.

Numbers are quite different from English, you can find the similarity, but not very much. And they say 21 like one and twenty, which is not that straightforward. Of course German are better than French in counting, in France, to say 88 you have to do the math and say 88 as some plus some plus some. Really stupid. So here are the numbers.

0 null  1 eins  2 zwei  3 drei  4 vier  5 fünf  6 sechs  7 sieben  8 acht  9 neun  10 zehn  11 elf  12 zwölf
13 dreizehn  14 vierzehn  15 fünfzehn   16 sechzehn  17 siebzehn  18 achtzehn  19 neunzehn  20 zwanzig
21 einundzwanzig  27 siebenundzwanzig 30 dreißig  60 sechzig  70 siebzig  100 hundert  1000 tausend

We practice a lot on numbers. Like phone number, price, plate license, math.

-Wie teuer? (how much)
-Das kostet XX €.

-Vier plus sieben ist elf. (4 + 7 = 11)
-Elf minus vier ist sieben.

Pronunciation 
Most of German look exactly they sound. So pronunciation is pretty important in German. Unfortunately I suck at it. I can't tell a lot of phonemes apart. And I'm not fully understand the rules.

EI  has the sound of "I" in English
s  has the sound of "z" in English,
ö  no corresponding sound in English, to pronunciate it, you should have the lip like when you are try to say 'o', and the tongue like you want to say 'e'
ü  another deutsch phoneme, have the lip like 'u' and the tongue like 'i'

Vocabulary
feuer (fire)  Ausländer (foreigner)  langsam (slowly)  noch einmal ( once again )  der buchstabe
Adresse=Anschrift  zahlen (numbers)  teuer (expensive)  Kennzeichen (license plate)  Hanse
die Vorwahlnummer  billig  arbeiter  etwa=circa (almost)   Zum Beispiet (for example)  schon (already)
schön (beautifully)  schaltjahr 

German Course Note 1

Yesterday was my first German class. We are level 1, which means it requires zero German knowledge. Although it seems that I'm the only "zero" one, others more or less learned a little bit by themselves. Anyway, I will put an effort to it. And I write here as a review.

The course starts with
-Ich heiße XXX. Wie heißen Sie?
Answer
-Ich heiße Karl. / Mein Name ist Karl.

The meaning is obvious. And that is the formal (offiziell) way of asking, we can go like
-Wie heißt du?
Which is informal (inoffizell).

Germans also have a habit to put definite article in front of the name. Like
-Ich bin der Karl./ Ich bin die Jane.
Just a habit, though a bit strange.

Then I will keep it quick.
-Woher kommen Sie? / Woher kommst du?
-Ich komme aus China./ Er kommt aus ... / Sie kommt aus ...
-Wer ist das?
-Das ist Karl. / Das bin ich.

-Wie geht es Ihnen? / Wie geht es dir?
-Es geht. Und Ihnen? / Und dir?
-Gut, danke.

-Guten Morgen/Abend/...

The last sentence pattern is
Ich lese gern.
"lese" means read. This is how to say I like reading.

An important part is pronunciation. I kind of fall asleep during this part (shame on me). Here is what's on my notebook.

-SCH  together sounds like "sh" in English
-PH  sounds just like English "ph"
-AU sounds like ao
-Z  sounds like ci ( It is more Chinese way of marking the sounds, I don't know how English would mark it, and it is too troublesome to phonetic symbols ).
-CH  has the sound of "k", just like English "c"
-ÄU/EU sounds like oi
-S  when leading a word, sounds like z
-ß  verz German, sounds like s, and the vowel before it always have longer sound. (how to put this).

Vocabulary
sind heiße lesen fahrrad/rad(mountain bike) fahren(ride) fußball(football) spielen(play) musik hören(listen) dichiter(poet) seite(page)

An interesting word is DENGLISH. Turn out that nowadays more and more English words show up in Germany, turning German in to Denglish, D stands for "deutschland" or "deutsch", which means Germany and German. And it seems that proud Germans are not happy about it.

So much for now. And time for class. :-)

Course review: Death

I just got the open course Death removed from my iPod. It is a course provided by Professor Shelly Kegan in Yale University. I downloaded it to my iPod so I will not waste the time when I was jogging.

It is a good course, I have to say, and also it is introductory level, which is suitable for a non-philosophy student like me. Nevertheless I failed to finish it. First of all, I need something funnier than this for jogging. Secondly, also one reason for the funny thing, up to now Professor Kegan is mainly talking about physicialism which is not new for me. Another course I've watched talked about this in a more persuasive way.

It is not to say that I don't like this course, I got several ideas that I would appreciate for the few lectures I've listened to, mainly about physicialism and dualism, do we have a soul or can I survive my death.

Shelly started by examine the question, what does it mean by asking can I survive my death. Very impressive, typical philosopher. It is a good habit that before you are trying to answering something, find out what the question about first. And it is not always clear.

Then comes a long debate for dualism. Three ideas left an impression. First is Descartes' argument that if we can think of something separately, they must be two different things. We can think about a body without a soul and we can think about a soul without body, so body and soul must be two things. This argument, from my point of view, is obviously wrong. I know that there are some ideas about how powerful merely thinking or naming is, and I appreciate those idea. But not this one here. Human imagination has its own limitation, you can easily find it when studying physics, like quantum mechanics or high dimensional world. On the contrary, we can think about various things that are not there, like dragons. So human imagination, interesting as it may be, can not be used as a way of judgment.

Then is Platonic forms. It is an interesting idea which separate beauty, just, and in Plato's view, soul from our everyday object. Platonic forms, they are perfect, they are pure. It occurs to me that perfect and pure should also be platonic forms. So, don't worry about death, Plato says, it only makes you better because you will get rid of your body, and what remains, is the essence, is what is pure, namely your soul.

The third one is Shelly's view of how to prove the non-existence of something. We could only do it by proving the evidences for the existence of something do not stand. And as we can see, even if we did that, we can only reach the conclusion that something tend to be non-existing, I think to that extend, mathematics is unique.

What would also worth recording is my feeling towards philosophy. I like their way of thinking, and I admit that the best physics is about philosophy, about how we view our world. But, I don't see that other than brain storm, what would philosophers bring us. Shelly fights a long way for physicialism, but his best proof comes from psychology or computer science. So why don't we just appeal to these subjects for answers? After all, from my point of view, what can really move this seems eternal question ahead is the advance of neuroscience. 

New Start

New semester,new place, new home, new university, and I want a new me.

That's why this blog exist. I'm the kind of guy who won't think about something unless he has to. And now I have to. No longer a first year, I will graduate, I have to think about my life afterwards.

Different time, different thoughts. I remember just 2 months ago, I was exciting about the summer event and the coming thesis. I told myself, PhD is what I wanted, fusion is the area to devote. I want to go to America, and I want do fusion. But now it is "wanted".

I always think that physics is the kind of stuff that when you quit, it is hard to get in. But 5 years studying it, I still don't get the feeling of "in". If life is about experience, I could use these years for more other stuff. That's when I started thinking about jump out. Not because I'm not interested, just there may be more outside.

So while exploring the new city, I am here, to dig out that within me, what I have and what I want. I will try to write my understanding about nuclear fusion and my thinking about life. There are several times that my view of life changed dramatically, I also want to record those, before I forget.

I name the blog "seeeking", hope I can find something here.