2007-Jul 1Sunday

Astronomy Tale: “Ah Nuts!”

2007年7月1日10:27　 English island, 观星手记　评论/Comment.

On one starry night at Kitt Peak, the Advanced Observing Program was well underway. After setting the camera up to begin imaging our first object, I instructed the telescope to slew towards its final destination. After a few moments I heard sounds which elicit dread in the hearts of telescope operators everywhere. The strange noises began with a soft “bink clink clink clink” and ended with mysterious “somethings” falling to the floor with a definitive “plit plot!” Not wanting to look concerned in front of the paying customer; I silently held my breath and illuminated the floor with a flashlight. I fully expected to see small sprockets and gears glistening beneath my feet- but no hardware was there! I did find something though. Scattered on the floor were small acorns and I had no idea from whence they came! In disbelief I randomly moved the telescope in Right Ascension and, sure enough, more acorns fell to the floor. Inside the hollow of the east fork arm I found a collection of a dozen acorns. Moments later, after cleaning out the stash, a small mouse skittered up the pier and came to stop between my feet. For one brief moment we stared at each other and telepathically the mouse seemed to say with a sneer “Thanks a lot buddy!” Then the bold creature ran out of the observatory, never to be seen again.

– Adam Block, http://mstecker.com/pages/appblock.htm.

2007-Jun 26Tuesday

无题

2007年6月26日23:36　 一图胜千言　评论/Comment.

京报网报道：昨天下午4时左右机场高速回京方向5车连环追尾。据在场司机介绍，由于第一辆汽车在躲闪一只小狗时紧急踩刹车造成后面汽车连环碰撞，5车司机都比较冷静在现场等待交警处理。一位司机不顾汽车受损，在路边给那只受伤的小狗喂水。

　　赶着上床睡觉，想了半天没想到一个好的题目，于是给了一个“万能”题目，正文具体含义各位还是自行体会比较好。

　　这位司机是可敬的。简单的行动，远胜于某些所谓的美文里矫揉造作的辞藻。

　　仅此一句，也足够了。

　　看起来，好人还是不少的。

2007-Jun 25Monday

Stories about Halley’s Comet’s visit in 1910

2007年6月25日13:33　 English island　有一条评论哦！1 Comment

Some of the other ideas about Halley’s Comet publicized in 1910 were fully as odd as the Koreshans’ talk of “the breaking in of zones of cruosic energy generated at the colure”. Jean B.Marchand refused to accept that the comet which appeared that spring was Halley’s Comet — the real one, he maintained, would not arrive until September. Edwin F.Nulty argued that comets’ tails consisted of sunlight focused and concentrated by the head, which acted as a lens and that consequently, a path of fiery destruction would be traced across Earth wherever the focal point went as the comet passed between Earth and Sun.

The comet provided a final impetus for some people to go mad and for others to commit suicide. A sheep rancher in California tried to crucify himself and was badly injured. A Hungarian landowner named Adam Toma did commit suicide, saying he preferred death by his own hand “to being kiled by a star.” But the story that a cult in Oklahoma was stopped just short of sacrificing a virgin to the comet was apparently made up and appeared only in some Eastern U.S. newspapers.

… One of the most famous items of 1910 Halley lore was the sale of “comet pills” guaranteed to protect people from the deadly effects of the tail’s gases. Much has been said about this racket, but where was it actually practiced? Barnard in 1914 mentioned that such pills had been manufactured and sold among blacks in the south. The pills were reputed to come from Haiti. But the idea must have been picked up by other swindlers. Ruth Freitag mentions one seller of comet pills who was arrested in Texas but, because no one seemed to care about his misdeeds, was let go. In Chicago, people without comet pills or gas masks stopped up the cracks around their doors and windows with rags and newspapers while the Earth was supposed to be passing through the comet’s tail.

– COMET OF THE CENTURY, P.183-184.

2007-Jun 24Sunday

Stories related to Comet Swift-Tuttle

2007年6月24日17:25　 English island　评论/Comment.

On the night of July 15 of that year (1862), Lewis Swift, an amateur astronomer in Marathon, New York, was out with his telescope looking for Comet Schmidt, a fairly bright new comet he had read about in the newspaper. Soon he found a fuzzy patch of light in the north sky which he took to be the comet, fainter han expected. But three nights later, Horace Tuttle, at Harvard Observatory, saw the same object and realized it was not Comet Schmidt.  After Tuttle annouced the discovery, Swift hastened to make his claim, which, fortunately for him, was accepted.

Your first reaction might be to think poor Tuttle unfairly got second billing in this comet’s name.

Horace Tuttle had already discovered several comets and would discover at least one more very important one - Comet Tempel-Tuttle, the parent of the Leonid meteor showers and storms. But Tuttle, after what some called heroic service in the Civil War, was dismissed from the Navy years later, when it was discovered that he had embezzled a small cial success, Horace Tuttle’s fate was to die in 1923 with only $70 to his name and to be buried in an unmarked grave.

2007-Jun 23Saturday

Story of Leslie Peltier

2007年6月23日17:30　 English island　有一条评论哦！1 Comment

…Lwaliw Peltier of Delphos, Ohio, an unassuming farmer who was “the world’s greatest non-professional astronomer”. Earlier in this century, Peltier discovered a dozen comets and made 132,000 variable-star observations. He earned $18 by picking 900 quarts of strawberries in order to buy his first telescope, “the strawberry spyglass”.

– P.129, Comet of the century, Fred Schaaf,  Copernicus, Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.

2007-Jun 23Saturday

Some interesting facts of Japanese comet hunters

2007年6月23日17:26　 English island　评论/Comment.

… Great Kaouru Ikeya, who took a factory job at the age of 14 to help support his family but eventually saved enough money to build his own inexpensive telescope. He searched the pre-dawn skies before work for 335 hours over 109 nights in more than a year before finding his first comet. His co-workers were so proud of him that they put together a gift of $300 to help him continue his comet hunting. …Ikeya proceeded to discover another comet the next year (1964) and then, in 1965, one of the great comets of the century — the sungrazer Ikeya-Seki. In 1966, Ikeya found a rather dim comet and then, at the end of 1967, another comet that also ended up being called Ikeya-Seki. In 1965, Ikeya had found the great comet just 15 minutes before Tsutomu Seki; in 1967, he beat Seki by no more than 5 minutes!

The many Japanese amateurs’ skll and intensity is demonstrated by the events of October 5, 1975. That night, three of them independently discovered Comet Mori-Sato-Fujikawa within 70 minutes of each other. Later that night, five of them independently discovered Comet Suzuki-Saigusa-Mori within half an hour of each other. Hiroaki Mori is the only person ever to have discovered two comets visually in one night.

– P.127, Comet of the century, Fred Schaaf,  Copernicus, Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.

2007-Jun 23Saturday

Stories about Charles Messier

2007年6月23日17:14　 English island, "十年少"仙丹　评论/Comment.

The sport of visual hunting got started after the first predicted return of Halley’s Comet. Charles Messier thought he was the first person to recover the comet in January 1759, but he then learned that a German farmer, Johann Georg Palitzsch, had beaten him by almost a month. This disappointment must surely have been a factor in inspiring Messier to start hunting for comets in the 1760s. At first, he had the field to himself, but his countrymen Jacques Montaigne and Pierre Mechain soon became his rivals. Messiers’s fierce competitiveness is suggested by a famous story. Shortly after Messier’s wife died, he heard that Montaigne had found a new comet. A friend, seeing Messier wracked with grief and thinking he was upset over his wife’s death, said “I am sorry.” Messier allegedly replied, “Alas! Montaigne has robbed me of my comet!” — and then, trying to recover, “Poor woman.”

– P.123-124, Comet of the century, Fred Schaaf,  Copernicus, Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.

2007-Jun 22Friday

入团申请书

2007年6月22日22:27　 泉志咨文　评论/Comment.

尊敬的团组织：
　　本人，中山大学环境科学与工程学院大气科学系大气科学专业2006级学生叶泉志志愿参加中国共产主义青年团。希望团组织能予以批准，让我能更好地为祖国的建设贡献自己的一份力量。
此致，
　　　敬礼
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　叶泉志
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　x年x月x日

2007-Jun 20Wednesday

MPD计划和它的新进展

2007年6月20日23:22　 鸡毛蒜皮, 学而时习　评论/Comment.

　　MPD计划是我在进行的一个雄心勃勃的、具有国际先进水平的大计划，将动用我的全部编程功底来做一个大程序。呵呵—— 那具体是什么哈？总之涉及天体轨道计算一类，具体内容暂时保密……

　　今天利用午饭时间仔细思考了一下，花了大约一堂课时间导出了指定条件下Ω和ω值的算式，使得那个有9个变量的微分方程变成了只有7个变量…… 其中好像有5个是指定值的？那明天的任务就是考完英语以后导出剩下两个变量了。

　　为了完成这第一个步骤，还要研究Dr.Jedicke等的论文，到时候再来涂两把……

2007-Jun 19Tuesday

康乐园黑鸟诗

2007年6月19日23:20　 吟诗作赋, 椰子笔谈　评论/Comment.

中大的老校区的小礼堂的南面的有一大片青草，
还有校徽有校训还有一只康乐园的黑鸟。
它在草地上跳啊，跳啊，跳，
却不是挑逗一只熟睡的黑猫。

是什么让鸟儿如此翘首，
我顺着它望去，看见一山、一水、一钟楼。
原来是闪光的校徽，引起了鸟儿的趣味，
它继续向它跳去，头也不回。

我笑了，突然想起了什么，
原来一年多前，我也曾是只鸟儿，
向着山水钟楼校徽，跳，跳，跳……
眨眨眼睛，黑鸟飞走了，而我还在这儿。
呵呵……

2007-Jun 19Tuesday

图书馆黑狗诗

2007年6月19日23:20　 吟诗作赋, 椰子笔谈　评论/Comment.

适往康乐园，流连图书馆。
采书行亩间，直至白日偏。
整包正欲走，忽见大黑狗。
黑狗坐门前，正襟色威严。
神甚大将军，气魄上九天。
莫非知书籍，进步之阶梯？
我便敬礼之，黑狗摇尾答。
顾我实浅陋，不曾闻此狗。
笑笑复笑笑，且顾且之走。
此事实有趣，记之以自娱。

2007-Jun 14Thursday

施氏食狮史试诗

2007年6月14日22:58　 吟诗作赋, 书虫之语　评论/Comment.

　　某日，网上闲逛，幸遇赵元任先生名作一篇，其名《施氏食狮史》，意之于证有文只可意会不可语读也。叶某愿试杂诗以为读后感，以之自娱，是为序。
世界多奇事，
有人愿食狮。
某居广州市，
未闻狮可食。
狮肉实难食，
不知何嗜之。
嗜之便嗜之，
还誓食者十。

国人读此事，
十九伤舌齿；
老外读此事，
永不碰汉字；
狮子读此事，
立马倒地死。
死前吐五字：
竟有此狂士！

某某年月日，
叶某读此事。
兴发又一次，
誓言作此诗。
诗也不言事，
全当消遣之。
勿要我试释，
此交后来士。

　　附赵先生原文：
　　石室诗士施氏，嗜狮，誓食十狮，氏时时适市视狮，十时，适十狮适市。是时，适施氏适市，氏视是十狮，恃矢势，使是十狮逝世，氏拾是十狮尸，适石室，石室湿，氏使侍拭石室，石室拭，氏始试食十狮尸，食时，始识是十狮尸，实十石狮尸。试释是事。

2007-Jun 14Thursday

由Gay Bomb所想到的

2007年6月14日22:05　 "十年少"仙丹, 书虫之语, 椰子笔谈　评论/Comment.

　　6月14日的《参考消息》第二版有一篇转载英国卫报的文章，介绍的是新近披露的美国Gay Bomb计划。这个计划是大名鼎鼎的空军怀特实验室在1994年在一定的实验基础上提出的，要求国防部提供750万美元的资金，开发一种能把straight man变成gay的化学武器，以便在敌军中造成大范围的”homosexual behaviour”，使得敌军士气瓦解。这一计划所建议开发的化学武器还包括能使黄蜂或老鼠变得愤怒并攻击敌军士兵，以及使敌军感染严重口臭以便轻易辨别混入平民中的士兵等等。
　　看了这一则报道，我笑了一路，到了宿舍还在狂笑。狂笑之余，转念一想：为什么偏偏是美国人能产生这种可怕又可笑的思想呢？
　　我突然想起某位达人对我的教导：高级实验室有钱就可以建，但高水平的思想不是有钱就可以生出来的。现在这么一想，那位达人说得真有道理呀！我相信Z国也有很多高水平实验室，未来肯定会更多；但能产生这等思想的人物有多少呢？我不清楚，总之从小学到中学十二年下来，别人的思想恐怕是学得够多的了。
　　人类的知识不懂就学，一般不会太迟；自己的思想，一旦丢掉，恐怕就难以捡回了。

原文：BBC News, “US military pondered love not war”, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4174519.stm

2007-Jun 9Saturday

有点孩子气不好吗？

2007年6月9日23:56　 椰子笔谈　有2条评论哦！2 Comments

　　“六一”儿童节还没过两天，我就收到了国际小天体命名委员会否决“爸爸妈妈星”命名建议的消息。我将自己发现的、首颗具有独立发现权和命名权的小行星132825号命名为“爸爸妈妈星”，以向包括自己父母在内的天下父母致敬。这一“颇具韵味”的命名建议被否决，让我十分意外。更令人意外的是，他们给出的解释竟然是：“太孩子气了。”
　　有点孩子气不好吗？

2007-Jun 8Friday

传递

2007年6月8日21:12　 椰子笔谈　有一条评论哦！1 Comment

　　6月7日，9点，宿舍。——我好像有什么人在外面召唤一样，转过头看了看门外，自言自语：“开始了。”
　　出乎我意料之外，——其实也在意料之中，我们宿舍四人彼此心有灵犀地交换了一个眼色。“嗯，又一年。”俊锋说。
　　我点了点头，吐了一口气，好像要寻找并拿起什么很重的东西一样，打开去年6月份那两万字的日记。这些已经是记忆，我的记忆；而对于许多人来说，可以算是“共同的”。现在，它的魂却从冷冰冰的文字里蹦出来，悄悄地传递给了我们之后的那一群人。
　　我走到阳台上仰望天空。

“……现在6月的日记总算开始写了—— 对的，就是六月的日记，几天之后特别战役即将打响，而这个文档写完的时候，历时12年—— 随便你怎么说吧—— 的工程就要划上另一个句号了，但现在，在战斗结束之前，一切还是可以改变的。”（18年6月1日）

　　“很久以前”，我开玩笑的说，18年6月10日就像一个黑洞一样，在它后面有什么是无法预知的。而现在，高三最后的回忆，也只留下几个空虚的躯壳：“充实”、“努力”、“奋斗”，诸如此类；其余真正可供玩味的，则像一个灰暗的幽灵一样退缩到黑暗里去了。一并退缩而去的，还有众人统一着校服的印象、一天十四小时陪伴着的杂乱的书箱和乱扔的试卷、黑暗课室里讨论数学题的慷慨激昂、晚九点空荡的地铁车厢，以及某些眉来眼去的微妙情感。高考所终结的不仅仅是一个时代，还是一连串记忆。

“我踏着近乎正步的步伐走向地铁站，一个时代结束了。”（18年6月3日）

　　当“他们”在写作文的时候，我坐车去南校区开会；开完会的时候，“他们”已经要开始接触那些多面体、代数方程、双曲线了。我路过六中，所见的也依然是：

“在校门口外面早已经是—— 不算人山人海—— 也算是有几百位家长在那里了，神色紧张。所有的老师清一色穿上了红衣服……”（18年6月7日）

　　这一印象是高二的时候来到的。我在学校补课之余，站在教学楼最顶端，以“后来人”的身份看着“他们”在对面的玻璃窗子里接受烹饪。一年过去，印象中的主角身份传递给了我们，是轮到我们坐在玻璃窗子里接受烹饪，接受“对面”的后来人、过来人和其他人欣赏。几天之后，我们疯狂，这些印象像股灾中的股票一样被我们廉价抛售，于是它们传递到“他们”那儿，而我们则拿到了“过来人”的标签。
　　长江后浪推前浪，一代新人赶旧人。
　　我微笑，以一个局外人的身份路过。

“完成了一件事情而已。”（18年6月10日）

　　“高考作文题出来没有？”晚上回到宿舍，我装着很随意的样子问林炯。
　　“‘传递’。”林炯说。
　　“啊？”我一惊。
　　“‘传递’呀，今年高考的作文题。”
　　我点了点头。钥匙“咔哒”一下，将锁转到了正确的位置。“传递”，这一个动词，对于这样一种心境，，很是精准。
　　只是，对“他们”来说，这个作文题来得太早了吧？