Sir William Lawrence Bragg 1890-1971
W. L. Bragg received the Nobel Prize in Physics, along with his father, in 1915, at the age of 25. It made him the youngest laureate in the history of Nobel Prize. In the following 91 years, the record has never been broken, and it seems more and more unlikely to be broken. (The majority of Nobel Prize laureates in Physics after 1970s were in their 40s or even older, decades after the achievement by which they receive it.) What's more, he was chosen as the "Most handsome Nobel Prize Winner". His deliberative, perfectly-build face was even more attractive than Feynman and Watson!
Bragg was born in Adelaide, South Australia, on March 31, 1890. He received his early education at St. Peter's College in his birthplace, proceeding to Adelaide University to take his degree in mathematics with first-class honours at the age of 18. He came to England with his father in 1909 and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as an Allen Scholar, taking first-class honours in the Natural Science Tripos at the age of 22. In the autumn of this year he commenced his examination of the von Laue phenomenon and published his first paper on the subject in the Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society in November. He was appointed as Fellow and Lecturer in Natural Sciences at Trinity College at the age of 24, and the same year he was awarded the Barnard Medal. The next year, he received his ultimate honour as a Nobel Prize laureate. Later, he received many minor prizes, and was elected a member of Royal Society.
From 1912 to 1914, he worked with his father, studying the newly discovered phenomenon: receive X-ray reflected from a piece of crystals with film can leave regular points on it. By that time, the essence of X-ray was not clearly understood. In fact, though there was evidence, like the observation of polarization, that indicates that X-ray is a kind of wave, almost everyone except young Lawrence, including his father, looked on X-ray as a kind of particle. Based on the assumption that X-ray is a kind of wave, though extraordinary intuition, unbelievable imagination and a blast of inspiration, Lawrence consider it as a kind of diffraction, and soon found out the correct and amazingly simple formula for X-ray diffraction in Crystals, and the formula was soon supported by experiments. The result was extremely practical, because men can study the Crystals by shooting X-ray on it and study the diffraction pattern. The double-helix structure of DNA molecure was discovered in this particular way. The results were concluded in his paper, X-rays and Crystal Structure (1915), which directly led to his being rewarded of Nobel Prize. By that time, he haven't received his Ph. D degree!
Many guys who come to know that he shared the Prize together with his father declare: "The main contribution must be his father's, he was no more than a graduate and assistant. And he's just too lucky to share the prize!" However, as far as I know, his father originally tend to dealt X-ray as a kind of particle, and he just gave it to his son to study the details. A surprise if there must be one, is that his father shared the Prize which should have been belonged to his son alone!
After that, he stayed to work at Cavendish Laboratory, the best physics lab in Britain, and probably in the world. In 1938, after Lord Rutherford passed away, Bragg became the director of the lab. He was famous for his moderate and democratic style of management. It is him that made Cavendish Lab played its leading role in the world in many domains, and during his year as director, there're several other scientists in the lab that became Nobel laureate of Physics, Chemistry ,even Biology (J. Watson and F. Crick). He brought renovations to the managing system, and thus effectively solved the new problems in enlarging the lab.
Laurance is a legend, a legend of youth. However, he is just an example of numerous scientists that make amazing achievements in their youth.
Open whichever book about the history of physics science, you'll find that the majority of the significant progresses in almost all fields of physics are made by youths. During the life of a physicist, the years of 20s and 30s are far more productive than later years, and his most significant accomplishments are achieved during this period.
During the days in the countryside, Newton began to think the problem of calculus, optics and mechanics at the age of 23, and actually reached the "inverse square law of gravity" by that time.
In a legendary competition, Fresnel, at the age of 27, put forward his principle, and thus put wave optics on a strict mathematical foundation.
At the age of 28, Maxwell come to the correct distribution law of the velocity of gas molecules. He made his prime contribution to physics, his immortal electromagnetic equations, at the age of 33.
In that legendary year of 1905, the papers of 26-years-old Einstein lay foundation for both quantum field theory and special relativity.
As to the thirty years that saw the establishment of quantum mechanics, we can find the great names in it are names of youths. Bohr come up with his theory of Hydrogen atoms when he's 28. Heisenberg invented matrices mechanics when he's 24. Pauli put forward the exclusive principle when he's 25. Dirac invented F-D statistics along with 25 year-old Fermi when he's 24, and wrote down the relativistic wave function for electron when he's 26. Comparing with them, de Broglie who introduced the concept of wave-particle duality and Schodinger, who wrote down the fundamental function of wave mechanics, at the age of 32 and 39 respectively, are relatively old!
In the age of particle physics, the leading role are still played by youths. Anderson found positron at the age of 27, the same age as Yukawa when he predicted the existence of meson. The parity conservation was disproved in weak interactions by two Chinese-American youths, Yang and Lee(who destroyed numerous youths in his later life, making his a criminal) at their early 30s.
All these are but some more examples of youths who make profound influence in the science of physics. Furthermore, a noticeable phenomenon is that, although not all the greatest progresses in physics are due to the work of youth, all the fundamental renovations are accomplished predominantly by youth.
Youths have so many advantages.
They have more insight, imagination and inspiration, and these, in my modest point of view, are far more important than any particular knowledge and experience.
They tend to consider facts neglected by others, and bring forward theories to explain them. They like to distract and seize the essence of complicated phenomenon with their extraordinarily bright eyes, and reach their conclusions through pure intuitions.
They publish their theory, seldom fear that they are wrong. If they're actually wrong, they simply get over the failure and start from the beginning. The fear of mistakes comes from the fear of losing honors, and youths haven't those honors. Since they have nothing to lose, they have nothing to fear. They can work audaciously. This is so precious for scientific research.
And, most important of all, they are always enthusiastic and energetic. They are eager to devote all their time, passion and intelligence to physics. They work tirelessly, as if insane, from dawn until midnight. This is not for money, position or vanity, but for their intense curiosity of the unknown world.
Gradually, the quantities mentioned above disappear as they grow older. They dare not think, imagine, suspect, and create any longer. They fear mistakes. Gradually, they become more and more conservative, and begin to suspect the new ideas by the yonths. Just turn over any book about the history of science, and you can see numerous examples of suchlike tragedies.
It seems to be a rule that's not evitable. However, through proper guidance and sufficient encouragement, we can make the yonths achieve as much as possible, and reserve such quantities as long as possible. At least, we can provide them opportunities, so that they can work without much restriction. We can tolerate their mistakes, and tell them that losing the gut of making mistake is far worse than actually making some. In 1925, two young graduates, Uhlenbeck and Goudsmit, come up with the theory of the spin of electrons. However, they soon found out there're some fundamental inconsistency in their theory. They wanted to withdraw, but their paper has been sent out. Their supervisor, Ehrenfest, told them, "You're young, and it's okay to do silly things." Eventually, the spin of electrons turn out to be a success.
However, what I see in China are nondenumerable tragedies.
Some teachers have no idea of the valuable qualities of young students, and fail to encourage them effectively. On the contrary, they restrict their minds with those conservative ideas, regular their behaviors with rules that don't make any fucking sense, restrain their enthusiasm and desire of knowledge by compelling them to "learn step by step", and reduce their courage by taunting at each mistake they make. A lot of genius are destroyed in this way.
Some teachers seem to understand the value of youth, but they're doing a far worse thing. They don't know where the advantages of youths truly lies, and come up with the absurd, foolish, vicious idea that "one should learn as much as possible when he's young, so that he can have achievement in their middle age". Hence, they chain the young students in the classroom, compel them to spend all their time absorbing the existing knowledge reluctantly. When their students try to create something new, they told them, "It's not time for you to make any invention. If you want to invent something, you must study hard, and gather more knowledge from now." The criminal I mentioned above, T. D. Lee, created a dirty class in a dirty university. He collected the young geniuses from all corners of China, and train them to be idiots with knowledge. He feel it is the best way to help these geniuses, not realizing it's the best way of destroying them.
Can Lawrence Bragg bear in modern China? I seriously doubt it.
As the hope of physics lies in youths like Lawrence Bragg, can China play a leading role in physics in the world? I seriously doubt it.
Open whichever book about the history of physics science, you'll find that the majority of the significant progresses in almost all fields of physics are made by youths. During the life of a physicist, the years of 20s and 30s are far more productive than later years, and his most significant accomplishments are achieved during this period.
During the days in the countryside, Newton began to think the problem of calculus, optics and mechanics at the age of 23, and actually reached the "inverse square law of gravity" by that time.
In a legendary competition, Fresnel, at the age of 27, put forward his principle, and thus put wave optics on a strict mathematical foundation.
At the age of 28, Maxwell come to the correct distribution law of the velocity of gas molecules. He made his prime contribution to physics, his immortal electromagnetic equations, at the age of 33.
In that legendary year of 1905, the papers of 26-years-old Einstein lay foundation for both quantum field theory and special relativity.
As to the thirty years that saw the establishment of quantum mechanics, we can find the great names in it are names of youths. Bohr come up with his theory of Hydrogen atoms when he's 28. Heisenberg invented matrices mechanics when he's 24. Pauli put forward the exclusive principle when he's 25. Dirac invented F-D statistics along with 25 year-old Fermi when he's 24, and wrote down the relativistic wave function for electron when he's 26. Comparing with them, de Broglie who introduced the concept of wave-particle duality and Schodinger, who wrote down the fundamental function of wave mechanics, at the age of 32 and 39 respectively, are relatively old!
In the age of particle physics, the leading role are still played by youths. Anderson found positron at the age of 27, the same age as Yukawa when he predicted the existence of meson. The parity conservation was disproved in weak interactions by two Chinese-American youths, Yang and Lee(who destroyed numerous youths in his later life, making his a criminal) at their early 30s.
All these are but some more examples of youths who make profound influence in the science of physics. Furthermore, a noticeable phenomenon is that, although not all the greatest progresses in physics are due to the work of youth, all the fundamental renovations are accomplished predominantly by youth.
Youths have so many advantages.
They have more insight, imagination and inspiration, and these, in my modest point of view, are far more important than any particular knowledge and experience.
They tend to consider facts neglected by others, and bring forward theories to explain them. They like to distract and seize the essence of complicated phenomenon with their extraordinarily bright eyes, and reach their conclusions through pure intuitions.
They publish their theory, seldom fear that they are wrong. If they're actually wrong, they simply get over the failure and start from the beginning. The fear of mistakes comes from the fear of losing honors, and youths haven't those honors. Since they have nothing to lose, they have nothing to fear. They can work audaciously. This is so precious for scientific research.
And, most important of all, they are always enthusiastic and energetic. They are eager to devote all their time, passion and intelligence to physics. They work tirelessly, as if insane, from dawn until midnight. This is not for money, position or vanity, but for their intense curiosity of the unknown world.
Gradually, the quantities mentioned above disappear as they grow older. They dare not think, imagine, suspect, and create any longer. They fear mistakes. Gradually, they become more and more conservative, and begin to suspect the new ideas by the yonths. Just turn over any book about the history of science, and you can see numerous examples of suchlike tragedies.
It seems to be a rule that's not evitable. However, through proper guidance and sufficient encouragement, we can make the yonths achieve as much as possible, and reserve such quantities as long as possible. At least, we can provide them opportunities, so that they can work without much restriction. We can tolerate their mistakes, and tell them that losing the gut of making mistake is far worse than actually making some. In 1925, two young graduates, Uhlenbeck and Goudsmit, come up with the theory of the spin of electrons. However, they soon found out there're some fundamental inconsistency in their theory. They wanted to withdraw, but their paper has been sent out. Their supervisor, Ehrenfest, told them, "You're young, and it's okay to do silly things." Eventually, the spin of electrons turn out to be a success.
However, what I see in China are nondenumerable tragedies.
Some teachers have no idea of the valuable qualities of young students, and fail to encourage them effectively. On the contrary, they restrict their minds with those conservative ideas, regular their behaviors with rules that don't make any fucking sense, restrain their enthusiasm and desire of knowledge by compelling them to "learn step by step", and reduce their courage by taunting at each mistake they make. A lot of genius are destroyed in this way.
Some teachers seem to understand the value of youth, but they're doing a far worse thing. They don't know where the advantages of youths truly lies, and come up with the absurd, foolish, vicious idea that "one should learn as much as possible when he's young, so that he can have achievement in their middle age". Hence, they chain the young students in the classroom, compel them to spend all their time absorbing the existing knowledge reluctantly. When their students try to create something new, they told them, "It's not time for you to make any invention. If you want to invent something, you must study hard, and gather more knowledge from now." The criminal I mentioned above, T. D. Lee, created a dirty class in a dirty university. He collected the young geniuses from all corners of China, and train them to be idiots with knowledge. He feel it is the best way to help these geniuses, not realizing it's the best way of destroying them.
Can Lawrence Bragg bear in modern China? I seriously doubt it.
As the hope of physics lies in youths like Lawrence Bragg, can China play a leading role in physics in the world? I seriously doubt it.
1 条评论:
In a word, the pedants' way of education could never give birth to any remarkble archievemnt is any territory of scinece and technology.
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