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前年曾说“放慵”(http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-279992-466773.html,http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-279992-467815.html),好像还没放下;去年在山里,也没放下;今年,放下了,哪儿都没去——除了脑子跟着Penrose去了我们的“共形无限远”(后话,暂且不提)。
“放慵”归来,像逃学的小朋友,最好是偷偷地从后门溜回教室。带回来一本题目有趣(内容却很“老实”)的书:Dr. Euler's Fabulous Formula: Cures Many Mathematical Ills(by Nahin, Paul J. Princeton University Press, 2006),其实讲的是与那个虚数(i)有关的“正统”数学,当然也涉及一点儿物理,如“测不准”——以前有一个老师问我,虚数有什么意思,我说虚数就是时间,是测不准。
其实,这会儿想与同学们分享的是作者在前言里引用的一段对话(原出处是Longfellow 的小说Kavanagh, A Tale(1849)其中Mary是Churchill(当然不是首相大人)的夫人:
Mary: For my part I do not see how you can make mathematics poetical. There is no poetry in them.
Churchill: Ah, that is a very great mistake! There is something divine in the science of numbers. Like God, it holds the sea in the hollow of its hand. It measures the earth; it weighs the stars; it illuminates the universe; it is law, it is order, it is beauty. And yet we imagine—that is, most of us—that its highest end and culminating point is book-keeping by double entry. It is our way of teaching it that makes it so prosaic.
看来,“长友”兄不但歌颂人生——钱钟书先生说他的《人生颂》是中国第一首汉译英诗(现在有人找到更早的了)——还能歌颂数学。能如此欣赏和理解数学的诗人不多,能以如此眼光看数学的非数学科学家也不多——更多的人,包括某些“科学家”们,倒像yet后面说的,以为数学的最高境界就是做账本儿(book-keeping by double entry),他们的老师是那样教的,他们的学生也是那么学的。
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