文章吧-经典好文章在线阅读:诗意的原子经典读后感10篇

当前的位置:文章吧 > 经典文章 > 读后感 >

诗意的原子经典读后感10篇

2018-04-28 20:06:02 来源:文章吧 阅读:载入中…

诗意的原子经典读后感10篇

  《诗意的原子》是一本由[美]科特·施塔格著作,北京联合出版公司出版的平装图书,本书定价:49.80元,页数:268,文章吧小编精心整理的一些读者读后感希望对大家能有帮助

  《诗意的原子》读后感(一):生命就是一团不灭的碳火《诗意的原子》书评(五星推荐)

  周日拿到书后,发现封面设计的尤为精美蓝色点点构成的人,做出一个张开双臂拥抱世界姿态,下面五个字印着“诗意的原子”,上面也满是点点,放在黑色背景中去,给人以深邃神秘感觉。因此,我决定泡泡塑料保护起来拿回住处

  这是一本谨以科学致敬爱因斯坦,谨以诗意致敬惠特曼的书,作者科特.施塔格(绝非弗兰肯斯坦一般的科学怪人,而是一个留着自然卷儿的萌叔,扉页有作者靓照),出生于1956年,而艾尔伯特于此前一年离世,作为生物学和地质博士,写了这本科作品

  这是一本有科学精神的书,书中所有结论观点皆出自有名有姓科学家以及论文。没有枯燥公式繁琐的推理,密密麻麻的数据表格,全部以我们喜闻乐见生动比方或则思想实验而打通我们科学认识的任督二脉,读着如饮纯酿,沁人心脾

  这是一本有人文精神的书,我是谁?我从哪里来?我到哪里去?这些哲学终极问题绝非一个能问此问题的门卫所能解答,作者在原子角度,选取构成我们以及所联系的我们这个世界最重要的八种元素来展开论述,角度之独特语言幽默想象之瑰丽,例子之浅显,都达到了让人感动到哭的地步,就像吃了日本那个痴人农夫苹果一般。对于这8种元素,即O,H,Te,C,Na,N,Ca,P,分别配以诗意的标题,生命之火~氧,原子之舞~氢,创造与毁灭~铁,生命之链~碳,地球之泪~钠,空气面包~氮,骨与石~钙,增长极限~磷。每章节开篇也会辅以文学作家关于世界组成的诗句相映成趣。而对于我们出生之前的世界,我们死亡之后的世界,也以原子的视角给以我们慰藉,赋予生命的尊严光荣

  下面谨以几个问答作为彩蛋修饰此书评。

  一、世界上水的密度是否相同

  答:不相同,原因在于水中氢的同位素氘含量有所不同,而影响氘含量多少的因素为空气湿度,因此,最“轻”的水在欧洲,而最“重”的水源自沙特阿拉伯。

  二、是否有蓝精灵

  答:有,位于肯塔基东部山区,他们体内缺乏一种功能基因,体内有过多不能携带氧气高铁血红蛋白,而呈现血管壁的颜色。回去可以看下孩子们屁股后的胎记,那个叫蒙古斑。

  三、红海为什么是红色的?

  答:因为红海中有大量束毛藻,一种红褐色的海生蓝藻,体内的固氮酶对铁尤为饥渴,贪婪的吸收着从非得乍得博得累盆地卷起的铁锈沙尘中的铁。

  四、天空为什么是蓝色的的?

  答:因为光的散射,这当然不能令人满意,通过爱因斯坦的研究,我们于是知道,电子云(主要是氮气,他们喜欢抱团)被快速震动的光波击中后,电子相对于原子核的运动会产生电磁扰动,而对波长较小的蓝光和紫光扰动更大,至于为什么看到蓝天,则在于人类眼睛对蓝光更敏感,对于紫光趋向于“色盲”罢了。

  五、地球可以“供养”多少人?

  答:这里的供养意味着造出人体所含的讲到的几种元素,不含他们的吃喝拉撒睡。首先氮,氧,氢,钠,铁,钙因为众所周知的原因几乎无上限,可以忽略。其次,人体(75公斤)含碳16公斤,而空气中含5000亿吨碳,可以造30万亿人。而磷,美国储量1.85亿吨磷元素(世界占比三分之一,属于想象),则可以造3700亿人口,世界人口的五十倍。当然这里没有考虑磷的吸收和浪费问题。

  六、一条定律:李比希定律,即植物生长的限定因素,取决于供应量最短缺的营养物质,无疑动物同样使用,延伸到社会文化领域,即木桶效应,你的发展取决与你的短板。同样可以设想,一个工程的工期取决于最慢的那个分项,和关键线路无关。

  这本书里,你可以找到大力水手、米奇和蓝精灵,当然还有那个生产面包和炸弹的科学狂人哈伯。如果你正在读这本书时,突然没电了,请不要慌张,请合上这本书,你会发现宇宙中最美丽物体

  最后,用我的一首诗句来像作者、爱因斯坦和惠特曼致敬。

  生命就是一团不灭的碳火

  我们就是那跳动火焰

  《诗意的原子》读后感(二):听爱因斯坦演奏小提琴

  理查德·道金斯在谈到科学和感性时,以水晶作比:“水晶不会随着神秘的、充满爱的能量震动,但是从更严格、更有趣意义上说,它们确实有震动。某些水晶内部带电,当你改变它的物理形状时,电量会产生变化。”

  科学的美,不是一厢情愿幻想所赋予的,深入其中,理性头脑也能品出诗意的内核。美国科普作家科特·施塔格用《诗意的原子》一书带我们领略原子世界的美。但诚如他在序言中所说,主角不是原子,是我们每个人

  肉眼看不见单个原子,不妨碍它们构成万事万物,包括我们的身体以及须臾不离的空气。施塔格将几种常见原子的属性娓娓道来:它们的作用不可替代、它们的研究见证人世沧桑、它们的生命亦是我们的生命。从原子的角度来看,许多不可思议的事真实发生了:爱因斯坦呼出的一颗碳原子被我们吸入,死亡无法将我们体内的原子一笔勾销,人类如同一座行走的喷泉,每时每刻细胞代谢都有无数原子即将离开身体:皮屑、头发指甲……

  原子的世界不尽然是诗,但生命的相互联系可以让它变成诗。女人娇嗔,爱我就证明给我看啊。男人不知所措,唯原子如实相告:爱,有证据。科学家发现,乳齿象象牙中,氧同位素的丰度不仅记载气候变化,也记录了母象生育小象的时间。象牙环层最薄之处证明她正将体内营养物质贡献给其她生命,每一次怀孕、哺育历时四年,消耗身体所做的牺牲留下“不可磨灭的原子印记”,纵使灭绝千年仍历历如诉。人类其实也一样母亲在妊娠期间,头发中氮15含量会显著降低,营养源源不断输入胎儿体内,可从新生手指甲中找到同位素证据。

  母亲心甘情愿地为孩子付出,孩子是否也由衷深爱自己的母亲呢?倘若我们将地球视作一个巨大的胎盘,作为身处其中的孩子,我们在攫取身体所需的同时,又带给了这片环境什么?须知,从我们体内离开的原子在经历了其它转变后,可能在某天又回到我们抑或我们子孙的身体里,这些过程真的能令人高枕无忧吗?施塔格冷静地向我们解释原子的归宿:“最近出现在你体内的碳原子中,每八个里面就有一个来自于烟囱和排气管”、排入水中的杀虫剂和重金属通过食物链在人体内富集、可作肥料的氮摇身一变也会变成炸弹。诚然,世界是广阔的,可当原子飞快地扩散、渗透、变化,我们看到的只是一个有限的世界,根本存在“各人自扫门前雪”的可能性,共享的环境需要共同保护。“当我们去处理生活中产生的垃圾时,应当要牢记,至少在这个地球上,并不存在什么地方是我们可以将它们永远'扔掉'的。”

  施塔格熟悉的萨拉纳克湖也是爱因斯坦晚年隐居的地方。追随伟人足迹,在大自然欣赏原子的诗是幸福的。不过长远来看,听爱因斯坦演奏小提琴,也比不上安心啜饮身边水、畅怀呼吸新鲜空气来得惬意啊。

  ——丙申年读科特·施塔格《诗意的原子》

  《诗意的原子》读后感(三):我是本书译者,欢迎批评指正

  2015年的春天,“未读”系列的边老师找到我说,给你看本好书——Your Atomic Self, 不知道有没有兴趣翻译

  在此之前,虽说经常也会翻些科普小文章专利,但翻译书这样的事,还是没敢想的,一则来说这是个不小的工程,二则作为译者来说也不是个讨喜的工作——翻好了,那是原作的水平高,翻不好,作为译者难辞其咎。

  不过只是翻了几个片段,我就接下了这个任务,怎么说呢,要是不能在这本书的译者栏挂上自己名字,简直是终生遗憾

  也许译者是为数不多可以钻进原作者内心的人,因为很多句子,读者可以不去究其深意,译者却不能,有的时候一句话需要反复斟酌,花上几天的时间查看前后文,再找来相关文献才能确定作者的本意;译者又是为数不多可以感受原作者风韵的人,原作者的幽默和博学,透过几个口头禅或者典故展现,待到翻译之后,因为文化的差异似乎就索然无味了;译者还是为数不多可以随着原作者同喜同悲的人,在我翻到最后一章讲到“热寂论”的时候,对热力学第二定律并不陌生的我,竟对此有些伤感,但随即又在作者的指引下感到释然。

  今年5月,译文三校其稿,终于付梓,“未读”丛书几乎动用了绿色通道,用最短的时间,将这本书出版上市,当我收到样书时,居然感受到十几年都未曾有过的小激动心情跟当年收到录取通知书似的。16万余字,200多个夜晚,30多个译注词条,如今汇集在了一起,我相信这是最美的结果

  不过,毕竟是自己的第一本译作,搭上这本好书实属荣幸,但水平其实还是有限,也希望能够看到读者朋友们的批评,将来也能拿出更好的作品。

  多谢诸位!

  《诗意的原子》读后感(四):生命无常,原子永恒

  这一段都在读未读的书,《诗意的原子》是其中之一。刚开始读的时候感觉有点儿难懂,慢慢就会好起来,直到欲罢不能

  整体上说,这是本科普类的书,兼具知识性与趣味性,语言生动风趣,举例朴实简单易懂,内容涵盖甚广,涉及天文地理历史,从宇宙观的角度,交织时间的维度,以宏观的立体的又形象笔触世间万象解构成了各式原子,并用其中的八种(如氧、氢、铁、碳、钠、氮、钙和磷)把人类和宇宙万物相连结。

  既然是科普的书,就有科学的一面,如书中提到的通过对同位素的追踪与测量来揭示人类饮食时空变化,如坚守阵地挖掘化石的科学家,如一些关于哈伯、爱因斯坦的一些故事等等,体现着科学研究的严谨细致

  但科学也揭示温情。乳齿象象牙中,氧同位素的丰度不仅记载着气候变化,也记录了母象生育小象的时间。象牙环层最薄之处证明她正将体内营养物质贡献给其她生命,每一次怀孕、哺育历时四年。人类其实也一样,母亲在怀孕期间,头发中氮15含量会显著降低,营养源源不断输入胎儿体内,可从新生儿和婴儿的手指甲中找到同位素证据。

  除了科学事实之外,还有一些新的观点。比如说生态平衡,作者认为不平衡才是地球上存在生命的正常迹象。人类生产化肥要开采磷矿,而真菌的生长也是在开采磷矿。若从原子的角度看,这只不过是生命的元素不同循环而已。

  不知灵魂(能量)是否真的会永恒,但生命肯定是有终点的。也许从原子看来,所有生命最终都得“尘归尘,土归土”,非生命状态才是常态。任何物质都不会永恒,只是原子永恒。套用《自私的基因》的观点,也许所有的生命形式都不会是原子存在的百态而已。

  感谢作者,更得感谢译者。曾经翻译过两本书,深知译者的不易,目前写书中,更知作者的不易。平常的一个词语、一句 话、一个段落,也许读者眼睛一瞟而过,却不知道是创作的人死了几多脑细胞结晶

  《诗意的原子》读后感(五):丁酉 |《诗意的原子》:不是英雄 只是不浪费奇迹

  科特·施塔格(Curt Stager)所著《诗意的原子》(Your Atomic Self)读完已经有一段时间了,读书的过程非常愉快,但一直没找到合适的角度切入读后感。读书的过程中,灵感或者说脑洞,就像流星暴雨,映得脑海一片灿烂,合上书页后,要找到最灿烂的那颗并不容易

  直到今天(11.02),看到一段写保罗·蒂利希的话:

  “保罗•蒂利希(Paul Tillich,1886-1965)认为,存在主义是一种对于生存处境的真实描述,真正要紧的并不是一再强调人类存在时与生俱来的那份焦虑或是虚无感,而是人类是否能够对此困境有所回应。”

  去回应与生俱来的虚无感,去解决这份深埋心底的焦虑。

  古今中外,无数文人骚客用艺术表达过这种“虚无感”,从生到死,始终追寻人生的意义,“有所得”已经成为一种执念,表达出这些执念——不管是音符还是画布,亦或是一堆文字符号,都沉甸甸地缀满了人类历史之树。

  生命不息疑惑不止。

  最开始翻开《诗意的原子》,会让人恍惚觉得,拿到了一本散文版本高中化学教科书。看这些章节的名字:

  “生命之火——氧”、“原子之舞——氢”、“创造与毁灭——铁”、“生命之链——碳”、“地球之泪——钠”、“生存,毁灭和来自空气的面包——氮”、“骨与石——钙、磷”、“增长的极限——磷”……

  是否像一位温柔语文老师在絮语着O、H、Fe、C、Na、N、Ca、P?

  接着读下去,总会不时发现藏在书中有趣而优美的文字里熟悉的化学方程式。这本书最可爱的地方,就在于它可以让有一点点化学基础的人读着读着,会心一笑,也可以让毫无化学基础的人改变对化学的刻板印象——化学不仅仅是五颜六色的溶液,它和文学艺术一样,都和人类历史紧密相关。

  每一个抽象的反应方程式背后,都有一段值得惊诧的往事。自然科学,虽然不如社会科学那样,与人类有着显而易见的关联,但它们发展的每一步,都是由人类迈出的。

  此书的原名是Your Atomic Self,与中文译名相差甚远,英文原名更切合具体内容。虽然讲的是这8种原子,但每一章节都在扣题。正如阿德莱·史蒂文森所说:

  原子里面没有恶魔,有的只是人类的灵魂。

  氧——常见于氧气,不分贵贱流转在生命之间。最珍贵的往往难以估价。

  氢——生命的始祖,最简单却最富含变化的原子。给氢足够的时间,它能变成人。

  铁——人类历史进程的推手。也许阿基米德想撬动地球,也不得不求助于铁。

  碳——没有人是一座孤岛,我们住在一个有限的世界,却因它有了无限的可能。

  钠——钠和氯长久的爱恋,打造了一个有味道的世界。

  氮——闪电、炮火和面包,不管是硝烟弥漫还是平凡的世界,都在它的掌控下。

  钙——你的骨骼源于岩石,最终也会带你回归大地。

  磷——这将来可能是一种比钻石更昂贵的物质。

  当我们在关注自身,解决生活中一个个问题的时候,虚无和焦虑就像幽灵一样被日光驱走。但在那些喘气的空隙,在每一个无所事事的瞬间,“从何来去何处”、“为什么存在”、“有什么意义”这些问题,仿佛病毒在思想中繁衍。

  用精神、意志,用一切形而上的东西来对抗,或者让喧嚣充斥每个空隙,都是向内心出发,驱走幽灵的办法。将自我置于整个世界乃至宇宙之下,把所有都还原到最初的状态,再来思考,也是一种办法。

  理解原子与自我、与万物的关系,并不能在现实中帮忙还清车贷房贷,也不能马上幻化出优雅得体的衣物,可它能牵着我们缓缓转一个圈,安静从容地审视那些看起来迫不及待的需求,对抗社会上一波一波短暂但汹涌的物欲和诱惑。

  非战争年代,英雄已经不是当年策马纵横的拿破仑式的模板,有所坚持、有所割舍,也许每个人都能在现实平淡的生活中,体验到英雄的骄傲。

  本文首发于公众号:Das_ist_Wasser

  原文链接:http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/nzuJIoK6OwzoiqzF8xA6qw

  《诗意的原子》读后感(六):Prologue: Your Atomic Self

  Unknowingly, we plough the dust of stars, blown around us by the wind, and drink the universe in a glass of rain.

  —Ihab Hassan

  One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike—and yet is the most precious thing we have.

  —Albert Einstein

  What could be more interesting than the story of your life? Well, good news—that’s what this book is about.

  Although the text often refers to atoms, they are merely the supporting cast. You are the main character with whom they will interact as you go through the routines, the ecstatic successes, and the profound tragedies of daily life. My role will be to try to show how those same atoms connect you to some of the most amazing things in the universe.

  What do atoms have to do with you? Everything. They were present and intimately involved when you and everyone you have ever loved—or hated—did everything that you and they have ever done. Every scent you’ve ever savored, every sight you’ve ever seen, every song you’ve ever enjoyed, every cry or sigh that ever passed your lips sprang from atoms at work within the atmosphere and the darkest recesses of your body. When you eat, the bodies of other living things become part of you. If you cut yourself, the wreckage of dying stars runs out in a stream of ancient atoms that triggered some of the most violent explosions in the cosmos. When you flush your wastes, you scatter the atomic echoes of lightning bolts and volcanoes into a global cycle that may some day return them to you, as unpleasant as that may sound. And whenever you grin, the sparkling of your teeth conceals the dim afterglow of nuclear fallout from Cold War bomb tests over the Pacific.

  You are not only made of atoms; you are atoms, and this book, in essence, is an atomic field guide to yourself. All you need in order to interpret your life in primal elemental terms is access to some of the latest scientific information, some new ways to reconsider your world in light of it, and an active imagination. In doing so you will begin to experience a revolution in self-awareness that is playing out on a larger scale around the world.

  Long after leaving the Neolithic cultures in which we learned to make crude implements from rocks and minerals, we are entering what might be called a “neo-Neolithic” stage in which the exquisitely crafted silicon chips of computers and the polished glass and metal of powerful microscopes and telescopes enhance our lives and inform our senses. With those new tools to help us build upon knowledge left to us by our forebears, we can replace the early Greek concept of four primary elements of creation—air, water, earth, and fire—with a richer and more useful worldview that arranges more than a hundred kinds of atoms into an orderly periodic table of elements. It shows that the first three items on the traditional list are not fundamental elements but compounds, and that fire is more of a process than an indivisible substance. Such a perspective also helps to reveal with scientific rigor the hidden connections that physically link our bodies as well as our very thoughts and feelings to the atoms of the earth. And in this age of intense technological, cultural, and environmental change, knowing just how intimately bound we are to this planet and to one another has become crucially important. Today more than ever, the lessons of science are key to the well-being of billions of people and the ecosystems that sustain them.

  Much still awaits discovery, of course, and future research will surely revise much of what we now believe to be true, perhaps including some of the information in this book. Nobody knows everything, and even geniuses make mistakes. Isaac Newton didn’t know that matter and energy are interchangeable, Albert Einstein resisted quantum theory, and the physicist Ernest Rutherford, who derided all scientific fields other than his own as mere “stamp collecting,” didn’t believe that nuclear weapons or power were feasible. Even the meaning of the term “atom” itself changed during the last century or so. More than two thousand years ago, Greek philosopher-scientists deduced that matter consists of tiny fundamental units and called them “a-toms” or “indivisibles.” In the strictest sense the things that we now call atoms are unworthy of the name because physicists can split them into smaller pieces. The Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, for example, smashes subatomic particles into even smaller muons, gluons, and leptons. Therefore, if true a-toms exist, we have not yet found them.

  ut it would also be incorrect to claim, as some people do, that all scientific facts are too ephemeral to be trustworthy guides to reality. Yes, the frontiers of knowledge are dynamic, but the trailblazers of science leave many reliable paths for you to tread. You can trust, for example, that atoms really do exist. They have distinctive properties and interact in universally predictable ways. Water truly is a combination of hydrogen and oxygen, and so is most of your body. And, yes, the same elements that fill a bead of sweat on your brow can also be found in the majestic tail of a comet, in the bones of the planet beneath your feet, and in every other living thing on Earth. This book invites you to travel some of those trusty paths to remarkable new perspectives on yourself and your world that may be surprising but that are nonetheless demonstrably true and potentially transformative.

  Let me introduce you now to one of your oxygen atoms. It won’t look like much, basically just a bubble with a speck of matter floating at its center, and from the outside it resembles a featureless Ping-Pong ball. But traits as simple as the number of particles in that central speck or the structure of the outer shell make the properties of such elements as wildly different from one another as the living species they help to produce.

  If you are an average-size adult, you carry nearly two thousand trillion trillion oxygen atoms inside you, more numerous than the leaves in every forest on Earth. Imagine singling out one of them from the flesh of your thumb and zooming in for a closer look.

  Like all atoms, this one is mostly empty. If you could magnify the jiggling cluster of eight positively charged protons and eight neutral neutrons at its core to the size of a raspberry (which it would then resemble), the negatively charged electrons that encircle it would orbit the berry from about two hundred yards away, roughly twice the length of an American football field. The sphere encompassed by the electrons would contain millions of cubic yards of nothingness, many times the volume of MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. This is what scientists refer to when they say that the substance of your body is mostly empty, an airless vacuum much like the depths of intergalactic space.

  o matter how heavy you may feel you are, the emptiness of your atoms means that you are more like a porous froth of atomic Styrofoam than the relatively solid mass you seem to be. And you are lucky that this is so, because if it were not, the ground beneath you might not support your weight. The tiny central nucleus (Greek for “kernel” or “seed”) is so dense that if your body could be packed with deflated atoms rather than the mostly empty ones that comprise you now, the tip of one of your pinkies would weigh close to a billion tons.

  Eight electrons circle the nucleus of your chosen oxygen atom. These are not miniature planets limited to a firm orbital plane but stranger, more freely wandering wraiths that act simultaneously as waves and particles, and they swarm around the nucleus at such tremendous speeds that they blur into nested, cloudlike shells. If you were to boost the energy states of electrons such as these, you could make them jump to more distant orbits and make an atom’s surface appear to swell, and physicists can also blast electrons away from inner shells with X-ray lasers in order to produce “hollow” atoms.

  ut most important from our perspective, some of these electrons can be shared with other atoms, forming the covalent chemical bonds that help to hold your body together. Nudge two oxygen atoms close enough to each other for their outer shells to mesh, and some of their electrons may begin to run loops around both nuclei. Such electron-sharing can yield hundreds of thousands of atomic combinations from muscle filaments and membranes to hormones and hairs.

  When two or more atoms hook up in this manner, they form a molecule. The term derives from the diminutive version of the Latin word moles, which itself refers not to small furry beasts but to a “pile of stuff.” A molecule is therefore simply a small pile of stuff. The oxygen atom that is now on display in your imagination is rarely alone but is instead normally part of a molecular team. In your body it is most likely to travel in tandem with another oxygen atom as a molecule of oxygen gas in your bloodstream, or to join two smaller hydrogen atoms to form a water molecule.

  The first chapters of this book will help you to get to know both of these molecules and their component atoms better, also revealing some of the ways in which they make you what you are. Many atomic elements can be found in and around you, but fewer than a dozen of the most abundant and biologically critical ones will be prominently featured here. These few will serve to unveil the hidden roles that atoms play in your life and show how they connect you to the rest of the world.

  As you read on, you will follow your atoms through wind, waves, fire, and forests to your fingernails. Hydrogen atoms will wriggle into your hair and betray where you live and what you have been drinking. The sodium in your tears will link you to long-dead seas and—strangely enough—to fluttering moths. The carbon in your breath will become cornstalks, then the muscles of a mighty bull, and then the twitching whiskers of a fox. You will find that many of the nitrogen atoms in your muscles once helped to turn the sky blue, phosphorus in your bones helped to turn the waves of an ancient ocean green, calcium in your teeth was mined from rocks by mushrooms, and iron in your blood once destroyed a star. You will also discover that much of what death will eventually do to you is already happening among the atoms of your body at this very moment but that, nonetheless, you and everyone else will always exist somewhere in the fabric of the universe.

  Taking on this atomic view of life is much like watching an opera with a playbook at hand. If you were to watch Don Giovanni without understanding Italian, for example, the music might be enjoyable but the story couldn’t grab you. Having a playbook handy would reveal the details of the story that your uninformed eyes and ears would otherwise miss. Similarly, the better you understand the world in atomic terms, the richer your experiences may become.

  One of the great gifts of science is the ongoing revelation of what we most truly are. Although it is easy to imagine that cell phones, supermarkets, and city life have isolated us from nature, it is only our awareness of still being connected to it that sometimes lags behind the burst of new technology and knowledge that has erupted during the last century. We can never really lose touch with atomic nature because, whether we know it or not, we are too much a part of it. The task that we now face is not so much to reconnect physically as to more closely attune our worldviews to the fascinating reality that Earth-orbiting telescopes, atom-probing microscopes, and other complex inventions have only recently uncovered for us.

  It can be thrilling to revel in the wonder of being direct relatives of the stars, as when one of Joni Mitchell’s songs tells us that “we are stardust” and billion-year-old carbon. Those words from the song “Woodstock” capture the essence of insights that science can now confirm, although some nerds among us might also feel compelled to add that most of our carbon is actually much older than that, and that some of it is a few weeks or months old (more on that later).

  The main point here is that such insights are aesthetically and philosophically inspiring but also increasingly valuable for practical reasons in this most recent stage of history, which many scientists are calling the Anthropocene epoch, the age of humans. We have become so numerous, our technology so powerful, and our lives and cultures so globally interconnected that we are now a force of nature on a geological scale. Our carbon emissions alone are sufficient to stop the next ice age, to lift the surfaces of the oceans high enough to flood coastlines, and to drive entire species to extinction. And the contents of our hearts and minds now trigger actions that echo around the world and deep into the future.

  In this setting, understanding our atomic connections to the earth becomes less a matter of choice than a necessity, and science is our clearest window on the truth. The biologist and author E. O. Wilson recently put it this way: “Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it the ‘environmentalist’ view, as though it were a lobbying effort outside the mainstream of human activity, and to start calling it the real-world view.” Rather than rely solely on our limited senses as our early ancestors did, we can now use new information about the previously hidden atomic nature of things to better interpret what our senses tell us and, we may hope, to produce more sound and sustainable ways of living as well.

  Gifted science communicators from Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson to Brian Cox, Brian Greene, and Michio Kaku have done a spectacular job of showing us the subatomic realm and the cosmos, but much of the middle ground between those outer limits of size remains to be interpreted from an atomic perspective. Vivid pictures and documentaries help us to imagine tiny quarks and vast galaxies, but it can be difficult to bring them all down to Earth, so to speak. Readily observable species and cells may appear to be simple by comparison to the marvels that mass spectrometers and space telescopes reveal, but most living things are actually too complex and unpredictable to be described with the precision that physicists might expect from their studies of protons or pulsars. Just imagine trying to predict the exact route that a butterfly will follow through a meadow, to calculate exactly when a particular sprouting seed will open its first blossom, or to list in advance all the thoughts that will pop into your head tomorrow. Modeling the motions of electrons and planets is, by comparison, relative child’s play.

  It is into this lively jungle of daily experience that the following chapters will lead you, armed not with esoteric formulae but with intuitive, sensory, and practical examples of the connections between atoms, yourself, and the world you live in. But how can we make atoms seem real if, as we so often presume, we can’t see them?

  It’s simple. Just look in the mirror and you will see trillions upon trillions of them staring back at you from the contours of your face. If you can recognize atoms in their teeming multitudes for what they are, then you don’t have to view them individually in order to sense their presence any more than you need to analyze every grain of sand in order to enjoy a day at the beach. What you can do instead is to let reputable experts work out the more granular details for you and then use what they find to better inform your life.

  Amazingly, however, even individual atoms are now more accessible to us than they used to be, and if you want to look one of them in the eye, guides to some of the latest scientific discoveries can help you to do so. The online site Electron Microscopy—A Journey into Nano-Cosmos, hosted by the Triebenberg Laboratory at the Technical University of Dresden, recently presented a series of photographs that zoom in on microscopic specks of gold. The series closes with a final shot that magnifies the sample more than a million times, showing gold atoms arranged like marbles in orderly ranks and files.

  ot only are individual atoms becoming visible to us, they are also audible. An online program posted by the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology and titled “The Radioactive Orchestra” allows you to compose a melody using sounds that represent the distinctive energetic frequencies of atoms undergoing radioactive decay. The host site archives tones that represent energy emissions from dozens of unstable elements from carbon-14 to potassium-40. “Our goal is to inspire,” the home page explains. “We hope to achieve increased awareness of the beauty of nature, even at its smallest scale, and hence to stimulate interest in basic science. Equally important to us is the creative, musical dimension.… There is a lot in common between science and art. We hope the Radioactive Orchestra will contribute to strengthening the bond between the two.”

  Writing this book has been a personal exploration for me as well. It isn’t easy, even for a scientist such as myself who studies the interactions among species, climates, and the elements of life, to connect the invisible to the tangible when I flop onto the couch after a long day at the office or take a walk in the woods. It can be surprisingly difficult to think of oneself as a lump of inanimate matter as well as a person and, truth be told, I have yet to hear many scientists say that they really feel, in their heart of hearts, that they are made of atoms even though they may be able to discuss that fact in depth on an intellectual level. But I assure you that even a fleeting glimpse of this miraculous truth can change you forever, and for the better.

  Although my own interest in atoms dates back to early childhood, I began a more transformative journey into atomic reality during the 1970s. I was a college student at the time, majoring in biology and geology, and I was struggling to reconcile my affection for the natural world with the seemingly sterile rigor that my science courses demanded of me. What I didn’t yet realize was that such rigor can be as necessary to tuning oneself in to the majesty of life as tedious daily practice is to an actor or musician.

  I don’t remember who handed me the scrap of paper that contained an excerpt from The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, a Pulitzer Prize–winning drama written by the playwright and science teacher Paul Zindel in 1964. But I’ve never forgotten the effect that this fragment of the script had on me. In it, a high school student tells her sister what a teacher recently said to her. These words, I think it is safe to say, changed my life, and they can still produce a lump in my throat when I read them.

  He told me to look at my hand, for a part of it came from a star that exploded too long ago to imagine…

  When there was life, perhaps this part of me got lost in a fern that was crushed and covered until it was coal.

  And then it was a diamond millions of years later—it must have been a diamond as beautiful as the star from which it had first come…

  And he said this thing was so small—this part of me was so small it couldn’t be seen—but it was there from the beginning of the world.

  And he called this bit of me an atom. And when he wrote the word, I fell in love with it.

  Atom.

  Atom.

  What a beautiful word.

  《诗意的原子》读后感(七):用原子的角度看懂自己、看懂生命、看懂世界

  记得有段网络红文,以佛教口气说:“世界之大,大至无穷;世界之多,犹如恒河沙数。介子纳须弥。一滴水中有八万四千虫,一粒微尘中还有三千大千世界”。这段话貌似很玄,但是随着科学技术的进步,我们通过各种仪器设备观测到了分子、原子、中微子等等微观世界,同时印证了“恒河之沙,三千世界”的说法。

  现代科学告诉我们,世间万物都是由原子、分子、中子等各种粒子构成的,并随着温度变化永不停歇地处于运动状态。这些粒子是如何组成万物,形成绚烂多彩的世界呢?

  美国科学家、科普作家、生物学与地质学博士科特•施塔格教授以非常独特的视角,幽默诙谐的语言以及精彩生动的解说,编写了《诗意的原子》,用诗人一样的情怀,介绍了组成生命的基本元素:氧、氢、铁、碳、纳、氮、钙和磷,向我们阐述了神奇的大自然是如何将这一堆没有生命的原子变成生龙活虎的人类。视角之独特,言语之风趣,见解之独到,剖析之深刻,较之以往的此类教科书和科普类书籍,可以说绝无仅有、空前绝后。对此,我个人认为,对此书的评价,绝不吝惜笔墨,再多溢美之词也不为过。

  或许,我们对原子没有更深切的概念,因为我们无法单纯用肉眼观测到原子的存在,就像我们无法单纯用肉眼看到航天员留在月球上的脚印一样。但是,他们的确存在,以庞大的数量存在。据称,如果你的体重是68千克,那么你的原子总数将会远超过宇宙中可以看到的恒星总数,7×10(27)个原子。而我们所知的恒星总数,大约是这个数字的几千分之一。

  在这些原子中,科特•施塔格教授选取了我们赖以生存的8种元素,一一进行了解读,并根据各自的特点和功能,给每种原子起了一个绰号,如氧是生命之火,氢是生命的始祖,碳是生命之链,氮是来自空气的面包,等等。这些特点,非常的贴切和适合。比如,氢何以称为生命的始祖,是因为氢作为最基础的元素,在我们身体里的每个原子,都是源自于百亿年前宇宙大爆炸时开始扩散的氢原子。我们离不开的水分子也是由原始的氢原子所产生,并被赋予了特殊的属性。科特•施塔格教授对此描述的非常精彩:一切与水有关的生命活动,不管是叶片中的绿色组织,还是你身体里的细胞液泡,都是因为这种两颗氢原子骑在一颗氧原子之上构成的分子而存在,它遍布整个地球,并且在氢核聚变的太阳驱动下,震动不息。非常形象,非常易懂,也非常容易理解。

  道家曾言,一生二,二生三,三生万物。万物正是由于这些原子,方才构成整个世界。科特•施塔格教授在书中做了大量的类比进行说明。比如作为生命之链的碳原子,在我们的生活中无处不在。当你把车开到快餐店的停车场。汽车引擎燃烧着我们称之为汽油的海藻碳,走过黑色的由碳链和碳环组成的柏油路上,迈进基于石油的树脂地板,看着墙上由碳原子组成的菜单面板,用着燃烧古生代森林的碳作为能源发电,吃着经过碳基食用油炸成的薯条,用海藻碳制成的卡片付款......所到之处,碳原子的踪影无处不在,我们避无可避。对于形形色色的原子,我们人类只了解了很少的一部分,但这极少的一部分已经大大改善了生活,延长了原子组成生命体的寿命。

  2500多年前的道教就提倡“道法自然”,认为人的生命来自大自然,人是大自然生命的一部分,提出“天人合一、万物一体”的哲学观,强调人与大自然应当和谐为一,维护整个自然界的和谐、平等与安宁。从原子的角度来看,这种观点非常正确。科特•施塔格教授在书中不止一次阐述了这种观点:氢原子可以在你的发梢荡漾,并暴露出你曾经居住的地方和饮食;你呼出的碳会成为玉米秸秆的一部分,进而又进入一头公牛的肌肉中,再成为你身体的一部分;你血液中的铁原子可能杀死过一颗恒星,又不远亿万光年融入到你的身体之中。因此,科特•施塔格教授指出:你最终会面临的死亡,其实每时每刻都在你的原子间进行着,然而和其他所有人一样,你也将在宇宙结构的某个角落永存。

  科技的进步,同时带来了资源的滥用。当我们正在以日益增长的规模开采资源、利用资源的同时,我们也在生产着大量不可降解、不能重新纳入原子循环的废弃物。“天人合一、万物一体”,这不仅仅是祖宗留下来的名言,更是重要的行动法则,要求我们遵守大自然的规律,保护自然环境,节约自然资源,维护生态平衡,维持人类本身赖以生存与持续发展世界。

  因为不管我们人类如何独一无二,我们的原子性质让我们和其他物种一样,都是地球生态系统的一部分。

  想要更深层次的看懂自己、看懂生命、看懂世界,一定要深刻挖掘科特•施塔格教授《诗意的原子》。

评价:

[匿名评论]登录注册

评论加载中……