A group of scientists at the University of Bonn published findings last week in the journal, Nature, that they'd discovered a new type of light. This study countered many assumptions held by scientific community, who'd thought that creating such a particle would be impossible.
Report: Stuart Tiffen
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對於申請「天長地久計」的美國專利本來並沒有抱任何希望，想不到竟然拿到了！ 寫科幻小說的人很多，但是寫了科幻小說後，將科幻小說裡的「發明」成功申請成為「專利」的人恐怕並不太多。我說「並不太多」當然是謙虛的意思，事實上恐怕絕無僅有，至少我不知道有別人做過這種奇怪的事情。 許多讀者都很喜歡〈夜曲〉這短篇科幻小說。〈夜曲〉最先是在1981年2月17日於《聯副》發表，其實是愛情故事，用科幻的形式借殼上市。2004年我從 匹茲堡大學休假，回台灣到工研院擔任一年顧問。本來只是單純休假，「顧問」應該就是「顧而不問」的意思。但是院部要我提一個前瞻計畫。我一時異想天開，就 把〈夜曲〉小說裡的天長地久計拿來寫計畫，用天長地久計作時間和知識交換及管理之用。 一年後天長地久計的雛型系統在工研院開發成功。工研院同時申請美國和台灣的專利，當然最重要的是申請美國的專利。我以為希望不大，但認為不妨試試看。和律 師合作與美國專利局打交道，因此竟成為我的責任。來來往往打了幾年筆戰，想不到居然成功了。2010年11月2日，美國專利局發給工研院和我 US7827067號專利許可，專利的全名是「時間和知識交換及管理的裝置及方法」。對於這個名稱我特別滿意，因為專利的內容尚在其次，有了這名稱就可以 無所不包，軟（體）硬（體）通吃。 天長地久計的英文名稱是chronobot。這也是我發明的新字，就是時間chrono和機器人robot的合成體。用這個名稱在美國申請商標，在2009年也批准了。所以萬事俱備只欠東風，如果找到人投資做成產品，天長地久計就可以上市了。 有人走童運有人走老運，我看我就是走老運。當然升官發財都和我無緣，走老運就是永遠有許多事情可做的意思。除了教書、寫小說、做研究之外，現在又想把天長 地久計真正做成產品，又有人找我改編《棋王》為科幻劇上演，每天最大的煩惱就是時間不夠用。天長地久計真正做成產品，第一個用戶應該就是我自己。 |
日經BP社與中國光學光電子行業協會液晶分會承辦 ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ ◆□□ 會議概要 □□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□ 會議名稱：中國·北京2010年國際平板顯示產業高峰論壇 召開目的：促進中國以及世界FPD產業實現健康持續發展， 會議主題：合作，創新與發展 召開日期：2010年12月10日（星期五） 8:45～18:30 會議場所：中國 北京 國家會議中心 會 費：2000元（ 參會人員：中國FPD產業的企業經營家、 會議項目：主題演講、技術論壇、企業展示 主辦單位：國家發展改革委員會、國家工業和信息化部、 承辦單位：中國光學光電子行業協會液晶分會、日經BP社 支持單位：中國光學光電子行業協會、中國電子商會、 ◆□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□ ══ 會議日程 ══════════════════════════════ 會議開幕，主辦方致辭：中國光學光電子行業協會液晶分會 王東升 理事長 政府代表致詞：中國國家發展和改革委員會 政府代表致詞：中國工業和信息化部 政府代表致詞：北京市人民政府 主題演講：友達光電 主題演講：三星電子 主題演講：日本面板企業 主題演講：華星光電 高級副總裁 賀成明 主題演講：京東方 執行董事、副總裁 王家恆 主題演講：東電電子 主題演講：愛發科 主題演講：丸紅 詳見 http://china.nikkeibp.com.cn/ ══════════════════════════════ |
“You know the story of the invention of the computer?” one character asks another midway through Jane Smiley’s best-selling 1995 novel “Moo.” The speaker, an animal scientist, dreams of striking it rich by pioneering a new dairy-farming technology. To that end, he hopes to pry major grant money out of the agricultural industry, and he wields the history of the computer as both cautionary tale and crowbar. “The short version,” he explains, “is that the guy at Iowa State who invented the computer in the late ’30s never patented a thing. . . . And the university . . . forgot about the old machine, and threw it out.”
THE MAN WHO INVENTED THE COMPUTER
The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer
By Jane Smiley
Illustrated. 246 pp. Doubleday. $25.95
Excerpt: ‘The Man Who Invented the Computer’ (Google Books)
Now, in Smiley’s new book, “The Man Who Invented the Computer,” we have the long version. The title character — the real-life “guy at Iowa State” — is John Vincent Atanasoff, a physicist and mathematician who invented the computer largely out of frustration. Anyone who has studied calculus knows that solving differential equations is a tedious process: labor-intensive, error-prone, slow. That process grows more arduous as equations grow more complex, and by the 1930s, as Smiley recounts, the difficulty of calculation was impeding scientific advancement. In response, Atanasoff designed a machine to do what his own mind could not. “I did not want to search and invent,” he confessed, “but sadly I turned in that direction.”
Atanasoff’s device became known as the Atanasoff-Berry Computer, or the ABC — except that it hardly became known at all. In the technological pantheon, Atanasoff is overshadowed by the likes of Alan Turing, who laid the intellectual groundwork for the computer and helped crack the German Enigma code during World War II. And the ABC itself is overshadowed by Eniac, an early computer conceived by the physicist John Mauchly. Mauchly was not a better scientist than Atanasoff, but he was a more ambitious entrepreneur. In his patent application for Eniac, he and his fellow designer J. Presper Eckert claimed responsibility for more than 100 innovations. As Smiley puts it, they saw themselves not as “team members,” but as “stars and owners who stood to gain fame and fortune.”
In 1973, a judge invalidated the Eniac patents, ruling that Mauchly’s invention was based on Atanasoff’s innovations. That decision represents the climax of Smiley’s book. Yet to say that Atanasoff’s story concerns a disputed patent is like saying that “Bleak House” concerns a disputed will. It’s true, but it leaves out the rivalry, the betrayal, the mysterious death, the international espionage and, to top it off, the Second World War.
This is material that seems especially suited to Smiley’s prodigious talents. In “A Thousand Acres,” she turned a property dispute into a psychological drama both nuanced and epic; the book is a masterpiece of storm’s-a-coming suspense. In “Moo,” she made sense (and light) of intellectual arcana while keeping tabs on a cast of thousands. So it is puzzling that this new book is at once so dense and so slack. Smiley tries to render Atanasoff’s tale as a fable about the American heartland: the hard work, frugality and pragmatism of middle Americans versus the cleverness and greed of the East Coast and Old World elites.
But even that story, which is hardly the whole story, doesn’t stick. The narrative shuffles painstakingly along; reading it is like watching a very old man pack for vacation. The characters feel morally and intellectually uninhabited, lighted from without rather than within. The scientific developments at the heart of modern life are never satisfactorily explained (except in the wonderfully lucid appendices). Despite its tantalizing material, “The Man Who Invented the Computer” ultimately offers both too little computer and too little man.
Flying cars! Jet packs! Lasers that zap malaria-carrying mosquitoes! Here are the year's biggest (and coolest) breakthroughs in science, technology and the arts
威廉·湯姆森，第一代開爾文男爵，OM，GCVO，PC，PRS，FRSE（William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin，1824年6月26日－1907年12月17日），北愛爾蘭出生的英國數學物理學家、工程師。也是熱力學溫標（絕對溫標）的發明人，被稱為熱力學之父。
1824年6月26日、北アイルランドのベルファストで二人兄弟の次男として生まれた。父親のジェームズ・トムソンはスコットランド系アイルランド人の農家の生まれで、教師として働く傍ら独学でグラスゴー大学へ入学し、ベルファスト大学の数学教授となった。トムソンは兄とともに父から家庭で教育を受けた。兄のジェームズ・トムソンも後に物理学者となり、圧力による氷点降下や水の三重点を発見している。父は1832年にグラスゴー大学へ赴任するが、幼い頃から神童ぶりを発揮していたトムソンは、その2年後わずか10歳でグラスゴー大学への入学を許可された。1841年からはケンブリッジ大学で学び、1845年に次席で卒業した。その後パリのルニョーのもとで学んだ。そして翌1846年に22歳の若さでグラスゴー大学の教授に就任し、イギリスの大学で初めて物理学の研究室を作った。
ケンブリッジ大学在学中の1842年からトムソンは独自の研究を開始した。この年発表した、熱の分布と静電気力の分布の比較研究による論文は、電磁 場と非圧縮性弾性体の間の類似点を指摘していた。1845年の論文では、電磁誘導を何らかの媒体（現在「場」と呼ばれているもの）によるというファラデーの考えに数学的な表現を与えた。これらは後のマクスウェルに重大な示唆を与えるものだった。
1849年から10年間、トムソンはファラデーが発見した常磁性と反磁性、およびその理論を一般化するための研究を行った。ここで透磁率と磁気感受率という概念を導入し、磁石のもつ全エネルギーを表す式を導いた。電気においては、電流の流れる回路のもつエネルギーを表す式を得、1853年に振動回路の理論を発展させた。これは1857年に実験で確かめられ、後にヘルツによって電波を発生させるのに使われた。
1851年、ヴェーバーが国際単位系の電磁気への拡張を提案したとき、トムソンはこれを受けてダニエル電池の起電力やジュールの法則の計算を行い、さらに英国学術協会に電磁気の標準を決定するように働きかけた。
1845年、ケンブリッジ大学を卒業したトムソンは、パリのルニョーのもとで実験技術を磨き、同時にクラペイロンの論文を通じてカルノーの研究を知った。トムソンはルニョーの実験結果とカルノーの研究結果を発展させ、1848年に、「温度が物体中のエネルギー総量を表す」という絶対温度の概念を導いた。この単位は後に彼にちなんでケルビン（K） と呼ばれるようになった。また熱素説が残っていた当時、ジュールが発表していた「熱はエネルギーの一形態である」という論文を高く評価し、1851年に 「熱を全て仕事にすることはできない（トムソンの原理）」ならカルノーの理論とジュールの法則が矛盾しないということを示した。これは現在熱力学の第二法 則と呼ばれている。
同じく1851年からは熱電気の研究を行い、「温度勾配がある物質に電流を流すと熱の移動が起こる」というトムソン効果を発見した。
1847年のオックスフォードで初めて会ってから数年間、トムソンとジュールは共同で研究を行った。1852年、二人は細いノズルから気体を噴出させる実験を行い、ジュール＝トムソン効果を発見した。
1862年、トムソンはフーリエ級数を用いて球の冷却速度を計算し、地球の年齢が数千万年、長くても4億年を越えることはないと結論した。これは地 球全体がどろどろに融けた状態から現在の温度になるまでの時間を求めたものであった。しかしこの論文は地球はできてからは冷めるだけであるという前提に 立っており、当時発見されていなかった放射性元素の崩壊熱を考慮していなかったため、後にラザフォードによって計算された正しい値からは大きくずれていた。
1863年にトムソンは、地球の形状が太陽や月の潮汐力によって変形していること（地球潮汐）を利用して地球のかたさを求めた。
Lord Kelvin (William Thomson in private life) is rated as one of the world's great physicists. He taught, and himself acted on the belief, that "the best performance of the everyday occupations of mankind are those to which the principles of science are rigidly applied." The term "applied science" has been given to the kind of work which he thus instituted.
Lord Kelvin's achievements were many and diverse. He formulated the dissipation of energy principle that is summarised in the second law of thermodynamics. His knowledge of engineering made it possible to lay the first telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean. He invented a temperature scale, instruments for receiving cable signals, a mariner's compass, and a deep-sea sounding apparatus. He made significant contributions to the theories of elasticity, magnetism, vortex motion, and electricity. His lectures fill three volumes; his articles seven.
William Thomson was born in Belfast, Ireland, on June 26, 1824. He was the second son of Professor James Thomson, head of the mathematical department of the Royal Academical Institution - whose family originally had emigrated from Scotland to escape religious persecution. William's mother, who was the daughter of a Glasgow merchant, died while her children were still young and Professor Thomson alone reared his five sons and three daughters.
In 1832, when William was eight years old, his father went to teach in the mathematical department of Glasgow University, the same university where one day William would also teach. Even before William's time, Thomsons were not unusual among the Glasgow faculty. In fact there were so many of them that students and townsmen often spoke of the school as the Thomsonian University. Both William and his elder brother, James, showed remarkable mental abilities when they were boys. At the ages of ten and twelve respectively they were able to pass entrance examinations at the university. There they held their own among their fellow students although their subjects were difficult. They studied Newton's Principia, Lagrange's mathematical work, Theory of Functions, as well as philosophy, logic, chemistry, Latin, and Greek. Competition in their class was keen; one of their fellow students was John Caird, who afterwards became head of the university.
In the summer of 1840, Professor Thomson took William and James with him on a tour through Germany. He wanted the two boys to have an opportunity to study the German language at first hand. Unfortunately for the success of this project, William discovered a book - Fourier's work on mathematical physics which completely absorbed him, and had a deep influence on his later career. He had no time for speaking German.
In 1841, on his father's advice, William entered St. Peter's. There he was assigned to a tutor, as the custom was, and began to study mathematics. Before long he was contributing articles to the Cambridge Mathematical Journal and gained a reputation for brilliance. He was also interested in rowing and swimming and showed such aptitude for music that he was made president of the university musical society.
The highest honor a student of mathematics could win in those days was top place on the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos lists - in other words, highest score in the tripos contest. Those who competed in the contest were called "Wranglers," and the student who came out ahead was known as "Senior Wrangler." Every mathematics student aspired to this honor, and William, whose record was outstanding so far, had a good chance to win it. He and his father anxiously awaited the results of the examination. The post of professor of natural science was vacant at Glasgow University. Professor Thomson wanted his son to get the post, and it would probably be his if he became Senior Wrangler.
When the results of the tripos contest were announced, William was second on the list. A student named Parkinson, from another college, had won the top honor. However, there was another mathematical award, Smith's Prize, for which William still had a chance. He entered the competition, as did Parkinson; this time William placed first and Parkinson second. After the competition, one of the examiners said to another, "You and I are just about fit to mend young Thomson's pen."
Soon after William won Smith's Prize and acquired a tide for himself after all - "Smith's Prizeman" - he was offered the professorship he wanted at Glasgow. But before he settled in Scotland, he went to Paris to study under the great physicist Regnault, who was working in thermodynamics. William also visited London, where he met Michael Faraday.
When he began to teach at Glasgow University, where he remained for fifty-three years, William Thomson was twenty-two years old. His first, or inaugural, lecture was an outline of the scope and methods of physics. It was considered an excellent piece of work but was badly presented because Thomson was so nervous.
As time passed, he lost his self-consciousness and went to the other extreme, often forgetting during a class that he was talking to students and not to himself. Something in the subject matter would suggest an idea to him and he would cover the blackboards with figures that meant nothing to his audience. Many of his pupils were present only because their course required a certain number of credits in physics. They made no effort to follow their professor on these intellectual excursions and consequently were bored. "I listened to his lectures on the pendulum for a month," one of his students said, "and all I know about the thing yet is that it wags."
Professor Thomson was popular, however, with students who loved physics. They were interested in his digressions and appreciated the way he used clear physical meanings instead of stereotyped textbook phrases. They went to him for help with their own scientific projects - both when they were students and later in life - and he gave them complete attention, encouragement, and enlightened criticism.
Sometimes in class Thomson illuminated a point with lightning clearness. For example, he once asked a student to explain the meaning of the symbol dx/dt. "Sir," answered the young man, "it denotes the limiting value of the ratio of the increment of x to the increment of t when the latter increment is indefinitely diminished." "Hmm," observed Thomson shortly, "that's what Todhunter would say. Does nobody know that it represents a velocity?"
Fortunately for Professor Thomson's own research, the university sessions lasted only six months of the year, and he was left with considerable free time for his own work. Some of this had to do with electricity. He discovered how to determine the unit of current in both the volt and the ampere and established the measuring unit known as the standard ohm by applying to his measurements of the volt and ampere the consequences of Ohm's Law.
He played a part, too, in one of the most dramatic discoveries of the twentieth century - wireless telegraphy. That it was possible to produce an oscillatory current in a Leyden jar had first been postulated by Joseph Henry. This idea had been regarded as a rather wild speculation until Thomson, in a brilliant paper delivered before the Glasgow Philosophical Society, confirmed Henry's idea. (Later it was proved experimentally by still another physicist.) In the same paper, Thomson presented a formula for determining the rapidity of the oscillations. Building on these ideas, James Clerk Maxwell, a contemporary of Thomson, showed that if the oscillations could be made sufficiently rapid, much of the energy stored in a Leyden jar could be radiated into space in the form of electromagnetic waves. Heinrich Hertz developed the idea still further. Not only did he produce such waves, he devised a method for receiving them - and then it only remained for such men as Marconi and Sir Oliver Lodge to work out the practical applications and make wireless telegraphy a reality.
Before he settled down at Glasgow University, Thomson had gone to Paris to study thermodynamics, or the theoretical relationship between work and heat. His teacher, Regnault, had done some important experiments on steam, and the French physicist, Nicolas Carnot, had discovered that it was possible to convert mechanical work into heat and that the reverse was also true: heat could be converted into work. Moreover, he had found that to a given amount of mechanical work there is a corresponding definite amount of heat. Little attention had been paid to these discoveries, but Thomson thought they were important. He wrote an article about them that was widely discussed by other scientists and gave these discoveries the attention they deserved.
Thomson himself did research in the field of thermodynamics, research that led to the development of the conservation of energy law, which holds that the sum total of all energy in the universe remains constant.
Thomson's law became more important when the actual mechanical equivalent of heat was determined. This was done by James Prescott Joule, an amateur scientist who was a Manchester brewer by trade. After many experiments, he had obtained a result of 778 foot-pounds of work as the mechanical equivalent of the pound-ºF. The Manchester Guardian publicised his discovery, but the other English newspapers were not impressed. This did not matter to Joule, who realised that his work was potentially important. He succeeded in getting permission to read a paper about his discovery before the British Association at Oxford. Before the meeting, the chairman, thinking Joule's paper to be of little value, had advised him to be brief. Therefore Joule skimmed through his paper, and the little he did say was barely heard, because he was so nervous. (Thomson said later that "there was no consciousness in the very unassuming young man's manner that he had a great idea to unfold.") The chairman was about to pass on to another subject without asking for questions or further discussion, when Professor Thomson jumped to his feet. He asked the audience to consider how Joule's discovery might be used to determine the amount of energy changed to heat when an electric current flows through a wire. Today Joule's Laws are standards in thermodynamics.
Thomson was indebted to the research of Carnot and Joule for the clues that led him to develop his absolute temperature scale, which is independent of the properties of any thermometric substance and is used principally in thermodynamics. The Kelvin scale starts with the lowest possible temperature and calls it absolute zero. Since Thomson utilised centigrade divisions, the freezing point of water, or 0º centigrade, became 273º in his scale, and the boiling point of water, or 100º centigrade, became 373º Kelvin.
William Thomson was interested in all the scientific problems of his time, and inevitably he became involved in the development of telegraphic communication between England and America. In 1850 an experimental line had been laid across the English Channel between Dover and Calais. This cable was made of copper wire, insulated with the rubberlike substance, gutta-percha. In the try-out the signals received were characterised as "extraordinarily sluggish" and after a few hours, all communication ceased. The line had been severed by the anchor of a fishing smack. It would not be hard to make a stronger cable, but something had to be done to clarify the signals.
William Thomson knew that the cable was in effect an elongated Leyden jar of great capacity. The copper acted as the inner lining, the salt water as the outer lining, and the gutta-percha as the glass of the jar. When a battery is connected to one end of the core, the "Leyden jar" gradually gets charged up, first at the battery end, gradually farther and farther along the wire, and so to the other end. When the battery is withdrawn (or the circuit broken), the discharge is equally gradual.
Extending this principle, Thomson worked out a theory of the telegraph. The retardation of the electric impulse along a cable, he said, was proportional to the capacity and the resistance of the cable, and each of these quantities was proportional to the length to such an extent that the time retardation of a signal was in actual practice proportional to the square of the length.
He illustrated: "If a cable 200 miles long showed a retardation of one-tenth of a second, one of similar thickness that was 2000 miles long would have a retardation 100 times as great, or ten seconds."
It seemed impossible to apply these proportions to a cable long enough to cross the Atlantic, but Thomson had a solution. He said in effect: Employ a copper cable of the lowest resistance possible, and consequently of the highest conductivity, and use the thickest cross-section obtainable. There were many objections to his suggestion, but Thomson's reputation as a practical physicist was so great that plans were laid for the forming of the Atlantic Telegraph Company. Thomson himself was named chief director.
The cable was laid successfully but signals were so weak that ordinary receiving methods were useless. Thomson's solution was the invention of the mirror galvanometer, which is today considered an essential part of the equipment of every scientific laboratory. This instrument was quite simple. To the magnet at the centre of the coil of an ordinary galvanometer Thomson attached a spherical mirror so that it hung vertically and swung with the magnet whenever a current passed around the coil. A spot of light from a lamp was reflected from this mirror to a distant scale. The scale was placed far enough away so that a tiny movement of the mirror caused a very noticeable swing of the spot along the scale. This instrument proved sensitive to even the smallest current changes and recorded very feeble currents.
More than seven hundred messages had been received and the problems presented by a transatlantic cable were apparently solved, when, suddenly, messages stopped coming. The cable had broken and it was impossible to mend it.
"We must build a new and better cable," said Thomson. He busied himself with the plans, arranging to have a cable ship, the Great Eastern, carry the whole length of cable required. He equipped the ship for the free maneuvering necessary to lay the cable. Two attempts were made before a successful line was laid in 1866. As electrical engineer of the expedition and the man most responsible for its success, William Thomson was knighted by Queen Victoria.
As time passed, Thomson found that his mirror galvanometer did not operate quite as efficiently as he wished. Eventually he replaced it with a siphon recorder. Part of this instrument was a small pen, made of glass tube and shaped like a siphon. One end of the pen dipped in an ink bottle, the other end wrote messages in little zigzag notches on a ribbon of paper drawn past it by machinery. The siphon-pen was moved by signal currents which flowed in a small coil hung between the poles of an electromagnet. The ink spurted from the pen to the paper in a succession of fine drops. This was done by electrifying the ink bottle and ink and keeping the paper in contact with an uninsulated metal roller. Attraction between the electrified ink and the unelectrified paper thus drew out the ink drops. Since the pen never touched paper, it was not retarded by friction.
While Thomson was working on transocean cables, he watched sailors repeat the inaccurate and time consuming process of deep-sea sounding which was so important in laying cable. The ship would be stopped, a rope with a sinker at the end lowered into the ocean; then after it had reached bottom, it would be hauled up again and the paid-out line measured.
Thomson thought of a better way to measure the depth of the sea. He would use piano wire, which could be wound mechanically, and his sounder would be a glass tube, of small diameter, with the upper end stopped. The tube's interior would be coated with silver chromate, a chemical that changes colour upon contact with salt water. When this tube was weighted and dropped into the sea, open end first, water pressure would increase as the tube sank to lower and lower depths. As the air trapped in the tube was increasingly compressed, more and more silver chromate would be exposed to the action of salt water. When Thomson's sounder was removed from the water, the ocean depth could be calculated from the height of discoloration on the tube.
Thomson had to experiment for a while before he perfected this invention. One day Joule found him surrounded with piano wire. When Joule asked what he was doing, Thomson replied, "Sounding."
"What note?" Joule asked, and Thomson promptly replied, "The deep C."
Today Thomson's sounding device, which has evolved into a seven-strand steel cable three hundred fathoms in length, is still in use, and has saved countless ships from running aground. "Heave Thomson over!" commands the navigation officer whenever he wants to know the depth of the sea.
When Thomson was asked to write an article on the mariner's compass for a technical journal, he found that he knew very little about it. He studied the compasses then in use, and was surprised at how faulty they were. The needles were heavy, often fifteen inches long. They were mounted on large cards, supposedly to make them steady, but in fine weather they often stalled, and in stormy weather they were practically useless. After reading some studies of compass deviation, Thomson decided that a shorter needle mounted on a lighter card would be an improvement. "A slow horizontal swing will avoid unsteadiness," he said, "besides lessening the amount of friction to prevent sticking." He also realised that it was essential to shield a compass from the magnetism of the ship's ironwork. His improved mariner's compass was used almost universally until the advent of the gyrocompass.
Next Thomson turned his attention to lighthouses and suggested a system whereby one light could be distinguished from another. He made a study of the tides and a tide-predicting instrument. As a result of his mathematical investigation of waves, he made improvements in ship design. Thomson's fame reached such proportions that a sailor once said, "I don't know who this Thomson may be, but every sailor ought to pray for him every night."
In 1892, Queen Victoria raised Sir William to the peerage. He chose the title of Baron Kelvin of Largs, to perpetuate the name of the Kelvin River near Glasgow University. Honours from governments, scientific societies, and universities came to him from all over the world. He was president of the London Royal Society for five years, and of the Edinburgh Royal Society four times. In 1896 all Glasgow honoured him for having completed a half-century as Professor of Natural Philosophy at the university. Representatives of many governments and scientific societies gathered to pay him homage.
Lord Kelvin remained at his university post for three years longer. Then, when he was seventy-five, he retired from his professorship. He was succeeded by Andrew Gray, a former student and assistant who later wrote a biography entitled Lord Kelvin.
Lord Kelvin by no means gave up his work when he retired from his professorship. On the very day of his resignation he enrolled as a special student in scientific research. For eight years longer he worked, hale and hearty "except for occasional bouts of facial neuralgia." He died on December 23, 1907, and was buried beside Sir Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey. "There," says Andrew Gray, "he sleeps well who toiled during a long life for the cause of natural knowledge, and served nobly, as a hero of peace, his country and the world."
In May 1921, scientists gathered at the Institute of Civil Engineers to award the newly created Kelvin Medal. In his speech on that occasion, Lord Balfour said:
Lord Kelvin had, in a manner hardly and perhaps never equalled before, except by Archimedes, the power of theorizing on the darkest, most obscure, and most intimate secrets of Nature, and at the same time, and almost in the same breath, carrying out effectively and practically some engineering feat, or carrying to a successful issue some engineering invention. He was one of the leaders in the movement which has compelled all modern engineers worthy of the name to be themselves men not merely of practice, but of theory, to carry out engineering undertakings in the spirit of true scientific inquiry and with an eye fixed on the rapidly growing knowledge of the mechanics of Nature, which can only be acquired by the patient work of physicists and mathematicians in their laboratories and studies.
艾未未批评说，"政府以教育，自然资源以及大多数人的利益为代价，只是为了让一小部分同政府有关系的人大发横财。"这位现年53岁的艺术家 同时也颇为自信地表示，不过这种状况不会持续很久了。他认为，因特网技术是给中国的一件绝好礼物，这种新技术将结束专制统治。他认为，借助因特网将使越来 越多的人了解中国的真相。
11月5日，艾未未透过推特网宣布，他于周日午夜前被禁止离开北京住宅。一般认为，这一软禁令同艾未未发起所谓"河蟹宴"有关。艾未未邀请人们前往 其上海的工作室，以抗议当局拆毁这一工作室的计划。艾未未周日表示，尽管他本人无法参加"河蟹宴"，但仍有近千名网友如约参加了这一活动。
艾未未目前虽然遭到软禁，但他可以接待客人，其中也包括记者。作为艺术家，仗义执言的艾未未经常遭到当局的骚扰。2008年，因调查四川地震中豆腐渣校舍师生死亡情况，艾未未被当地警方殴打致伤，后来不得不来德国接受手术治疗。
诺贝尔奖委员会将本年度和平奖授予中国异议人士刘晓波后，一个月来，已有大量异议人士，律师以及学者遭到政府的打压。此前，刘晓波妻子刘霞向上百名 刘晓波的友人发出邀请，呼吁他们参加12月10日奥斯陆的诺奖颁奖仪式。 受到邀请的人士中也包括中国记者及环保人士戴晴。戴晴本人目前正在加拿大。法新社援引一个环保组织的消息报道称，戴本人表示，如果届时刘晓波仍不能获释， 她将前往奥斯陆代为领奖。
而香港中国人权及民主信息中心的消息称，刘晓波在中国境内生活的兄弟也正在计划前往奥斯陆。此前，北京曾向各国驻挪威大使馆发出呼吁，要求他们不要出席诺贝尔和平奖颁奖仪式，不过，截至目前，只有中国方面明确表示不会出席颁奖仪式。
因参与发起"零八宪章"，敦促中国进行政治改革，刘晓波被以"颠覆国家政权罪"判处十一年监禁。
综合报道：达扬
责编：严严
****Wikipedia
艾未未（1957年8月28日－）是中國藝術家，建築設計師、詩人艾青之子，曾在美國居留與工作。他被《楚天都市報》喻為當代中國實驗藝術的領軍人物[1]。現任中國藝術文件倉庫藝術總監。[2]艾未未除了是藝術家，還積極參與維護公民合法權益。他積極關注毒奶粉受害人事件，參與調查四川汶川地震央死難學生人數身份，積極聲援被迫害的維權人士等。正是因為他的維權行動，艾未未多次受到當局的拘押和身體傷害。[3]
他曾為電視劇《北京人在紐約》擔任副導演，並在2008年北京奧運會擔任國家體育場「鳥巢」的設計顧問[1]。
目錄[隱藏] |
艾未未為艾青與高瑛之子，1957年於北京出生[1]，其妻為路青，目前居住在北京草場地村。反右期間，艾一家三口被流放新疆，中小學期間在新疆居住十六年。1978年，入讀北京電影學院。1981年至1993年居住美國，主要居於紐約，曾就讀紐約帕森設計學院。後因成績不佳被學校停止發放獎學金，於是艾未未離開學校，也不再去定期註冊居留證，成為了非法居留者。[4]他混跡於紐約，他的公寓成為了許多中國未來的藝術家們在美國的中轉站。1987年，在美國舉辦《舊鞋、性安全》藝術展，被藝評家稱為「引人注目的新達達主義」[5]。在紐約，他也是一位積極的街頭抗議者，參與了許多街頭的抗議活動。1993年4月，父親艾青患病，他返回北京並放棄了因六四事件得到的美國綠卡。[6][7]
1994年至1999年，主編中國前衛藝術刊物《黑皮書》、《白皮書》、《灰皮書》。1999年，設計、建造位於北京東五環外草場地村的艾未未工作室。
2000年，與馮博一在上海舉辦「不合作方式」藝術展。2003年，與瑞士的建築事務所赫爾佐格和德梅隆（Herzog & de Meuron）合作設計北京國家體育場「鳥巢」。2006年，在紐約哈德遜河谷區設計一所私人住宅。
2007年，作品《童話》、《模》參加第十二屆卡塞爾文獻展。《模》被大雨摧毀，但艾沒有修復，他認為大自然的力量令作品更出色。
2008年12月5日，艾未未發起了公民調查志願者活動，對512大地震遇難學生的具體數據（學校、姓名、年齡、班級、家庭住址、家長聯繫方式）進行調查，活動的宗旨是「事實、責任和權力」。截至2010年3月，公民調查共找到5212名遇難學生名單。
2009年8月12日，艾未未與公民調查志願者等11人應譚作人律師邀請，作為證人前往成都準備出庭，當天凌晨在安逸158酒店遭到成都警方的拘禁和毆打，艾未未在成都被警察毆打後一直處於頭疼中。該過程拍攝成紀錄片《老媽蹄花》並上傳至網際網路。
2009年9月14日，艾未未在德國慕尼黑美術館布展期間，頭痛加劇，被送到德國慕尼黑大學醫院，經診斷為「重挫造成的外顱與腦體間大面積出血」，醫生建議立即進行顱創手術，手術獲得成功。[8]。
2009年10月開始，艾未未發起的「公民調查」向中央、四川省級、縣市級以及基金會等100多家不同政府機構申請公開512完整的信息，包括災情核查、捐款使用明細、坍塌校舍調查報告、遇難師生具體情況等近萬條信息，但沒有得到任何正面的回復。
2009年11月，艾未未的助手從北京搭機到日本東京成田國際機場探望並採訪因被上海當局拒絕返國而滯留於機場管制區內的維權人士馮正虎，並將過程剪輯成記錄片《馮正虎回家》。
2010年2月22日凌晨2時，北京朝陽區金盞鄉長店村的創意正陽藝術區遭強制拆遷，有目擊者稱200多名身分不明的人到園區內打傷藝術家、砸壞物品，包括日本藝術家岩間賢在內的8人被打傷，有挖掘機毀壞房屋。當天下午艾未未等近20名藝術家拉起寫著「公民權利」及「嚴懲兇手除黑打惡」的橫幅，到北京長安街遊行示威。原來他們預定要走到天安門廣場，不過在距離廣場兩公里處就被趕到的大批軍警和公安人員攔阻。[9][10]第二天，《環球時報》英文版罕有地對事件進行了報導。[11]
同年3月36日，接受美國有線新聞網（CNN） 阿曼普爾（Amanpour）關於「藝術的力量與數字時代的異議者」的訪談。4月6日，前往成都金牛區西安路派出所報案，要求警方對其在2009年8月 12日被毆打事件立案偵查。5月4日，艾未未工作室完成紀錄片《美好生活》並上傳網路。該片記錄了馮正虎回家的故事。5月6日，發布歷時近兩年，艾未未工 作室對楊佳案的全程紀錄片，《一個孤僻的人》及其副本《王靜梅》。5月12日，發布紀念「512地震遇難學生」的《念》。
同年，艾未未被邀請創作一個作品來補充丹麥哥本哈根因租借到上海參加世博會的美人魚雕像而造成的空位。他建造了一個能現場直播小美人魚世博會情況的閉路電視系統。以表達「中國人都處在某種監視之下的真實生活」[5]。 2010年11月6日，艾未未其Twitter上稱自己被軟禁於北京的住所。[3]
艾未未在其新浪的博客里陸續公布了調查到的因地震死亡的具體的學生名單，但這些數據不久後便被管理方刪除。
2009年六四事件20周年前夕的5月29日凌晨，艾未未的新浪、搜狐和網易博客同時被徹底關閉，但艾未未在防火長城之外的牛博國際博客未受到影響。
艾未未早期的作品深受杜尚顛覆正統風格的影響。艾未未在建築設計上充滿了個人主義的風格。[5]
近來有民眾反應，家用ADSL的實際上網速率與申請速率有落差、最多更達2-3Mbps，懷疑不法集團或電信業者詐騙民眾上網費用。
針對此，消基會董事長蘇錦霞表示，消基會未曾接獲過以上網速率作為詐騙上網費用工具，目前也未接獲民眾投訴家裡上網速率與實際申裝的上網 速度落差過大情形。不過，消基會多年前曾經實際偵測過ADSL上網速度，因為區域別（人口密度、距離路邊光化交接箱遠近）、不同時段（夜深人靜或上網尖峰 時段）不同，上網速度確實會有差落差，但直至目前，不曾接獲過詐騙事件申訴個案。
擁有國內最多上網用戶的中華電信指出，家用ADSL的上網速度，確實會因為用戶與路邊光化交接箱距離遠或近，而產生速率衰減情形，舉例來說，光化交接箱方圓2公里之內，同樣申請8Mbps傳輸速率，距離路邊交接箱（或俗稱電信接線箱）僅數公尺的家庭用戶，其上網實際速率必須先扣掉傳輸控制訊號(包括接收封包當下提醒控制台傳送下一個訊號)占用20％頻率，使得用戶實際上網速率僅可達到6.4Mbps。
如果用戶距離光化交接箱太遠並接近2公里、傳輸訊號自然衰減情況下，上網速度將進一步降至5-6Mbps。
相同情況，申裝1-2Mbps上網費率方案的用戶，同樣也會因為距離電信光化箱遠近、產生上網速度與實際申請安裝速度有所落差情況。
中華電信表示，這種現象並不是只在台灣才 會發生，幾乎全球推展ADSL過程都會遇到這個問題，主要因為ADSL線路採用傳統銅絞線（有線電視採用銅軸線），該設備特性是、會因為用戶與設在路邊的 電信光化箱遠近而有衰減上網速率情況，而且，用戶若要申裝8Mbps以上傳輸速率，就無法安裝ADSL線路、必須改用光纖網路才能傳送高速上網服務。
世界最怪異螞蟻：產蜜的蜜罐蟻
每當大雨過後，植物會分泌大量花蜜，
世界最怪異螞蟻：產蜜的蜜罐蟻
飽餐後的蜜罐蟻能達到葡萄的大小！帶到食物短缺時，
世界最怪異螞蟻：產蜜的蜜罐蟻
它們用這樣的方式為同伴貯存食物，
世界最怪異螞蟻：產蜜的蜜罐蟻
墨西哥人用蜜罐蟻腹中的蜜，經發酵製成一種酒，已成為名酒。
