يكي از بزرگترين فيزيكپيشگان نيمه دوم قرن بيستم ميلادي
سي-ان-ينگ است. او زياد اهل مصاحبه با خبرنگاران نبود. به همين خاطر در بين غير فيزيكپيشگان آنقدر ها مشهور نيست. اما ينگ كم از
فيزيكپيشگان بزرگي
چون اينيشتين فرمي ديراك و غيره ندارد. او به همراه تي-دي-لي در سال پنجاه و هفت جايزه نوبل را به خاطر كشف نقض پاريته در برهمكنش هاي ضعيف دريافت كرد.اما سهم او در پيشبرد علم فيزيك ذرات به اين كشف محدود نمي شود.فيزيك پيشگان همگي
Yang-Mills theory
آشنا هستند. ايده هاي ينگ بسي فراتر زمان خود بود.
ينگ در سال 1922در چين متولد شد. تحصيلات خود را تا دوره كارشناسي ارشد در چين گذراند. سپس مدتي در دبيرستان هاي چين تدريس كرد و آنگاه به آمريكا رفت و دكترايش را در شيكاگو تحت نظر تلر گرفت. بعد هم مدتي با فرمي كار كرد. بايد تاكيد كنم كه چيني كه ينگ در آن متولد شد و باليد با چين امروز زمين تا آسمان فرق داشت. چين آن روزگار چين قحطي و گرسنگي و خرافه پرستي و بدبختي بود نه اين چين امروزي كه اقتصادش آمريكا و اروپا را به چالش مي كشد و بازي مي دهد.
در كتاب زيباي
Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics by Andrew Pickering
خواندم كه ينگ در كارهاي بعدي اش كه در آمريكا انجام داد از معلوماتي كه به هنگام نوشتن پايان نامه كارشناسي ارشد خود در چين به دست آورده بود بهره ها برد. آن نوع رياضيات كه براي اين فرمول بندي ها لازم است در آن روزگاران در غرب به طور متعارف تدريس نمي شد اما ينگ اين معلومات را با خود به آمريكا برد. چه بسا اگر ينگ از همان ابتدا در آمريكا تحصيل مي كرد تا اين درجه نمي توانست فيزيكپيشه موفقي شود. آنچه كه مي گويم به نظر من نقطه ضعف سيستم دانشگاهي آمريكا نيست بلكه از جمله نقاط قوت آن است.
استفاده از نقاط قوت ديگرسيستم ها و هضم آنها قابليت و درايت فراواني مي خواهد كه از هر كس و هر سيستمي بر نمي آيد.
بگذريم! بررسي نقاط ضعف و قدرت سيستم ها به درد يك دانشجو يا يك استاديار نمي خورد. ما در اين مرحله بايد ببينيم چگونه خود مي توانيم بباليم و پيشرفت كنيم.درسي كه من از اين قصه مي گيرم اين است: ينگ از نقاط قوت هر محيطي كه در آن قرار گرفت نهايت استفاده را برد. در چين به نوعي و در آمريكا به نوعي ديگر.آنان كه منتظر مي مانند تا به آرمانشهر روياهايشان برسند و آنگاه اين آرمانشهر به طور معجزه آسا نبوغشان را كشف كند, "هيچي نمي شند."
۹ نظر:
How many Yang's do you know? Lets talk about average people!
Its my point:
Some people prefer to stay in situation which is easily accessible without any risk and preserve the present situation.
But if someone loves real research, s/he should try to be in the best possible institutes.
There are two ways to handle this issue: 1-leaving inappropriate situation to better one and 2-Trying to improve the system.
Being able to go to better places requires high quality and reality is that just a few people are strong enough to do that (I mean going to better places).
The second solution is even harder! But if someone for any reason couldnt choose the first solution, the only remaining option is the second one!! A desirable alternative is individual work and isolation from system for many researchers but in those days this manner decrease the quality of research dramatically and in long term nothing would be achieved!
Everything has its price: No pain no gain.
I meant in these days!
Dear Comet,
In fact, I know many Yangs!
Yang is a very common family name
among the chinese!
This was just a joke!
I understood what you meant.
Please notice that my point in this note was not to show that staying in your own country is the best.
By no means I want to convince
anybody to stay in Iran or return
back from abroad.
The point I want to make is in order to be successful you should try to make best of what you have.
Well, I am not as smart as Yang but
I still want to be as successful as possible. What should I do?
My answer is that instead of
spending my time on nagging and criticizing the system, I had better make the best of whatever I have access to.
Let me tell you a sad but true story.
At Sharif we had a friend who
used to be a good student in high
school. She was smart, she was rich, she enjoyed
full support from her highly educated and loving family, she had US green card and any other facility that an Iranian young woman can dream of.
But now that about ten years have passed since then,
she is a loser.
In fact in our class every body
made something of herself or
himself. Some stayed in Physics and some left it.
Some stayed in Iran and some
went abroad.
However, all, in my opinion, are
successful people in their own
field except her that enjoyed
more facilities than anyone else.
Do you know what was the reason?
Well, she used to looked down on education in Sharif. Since she always was dreaming about going abroad she slept in the class all the time.
While we were studing and solving
exercizes, she spent her time rediculing the professors.
Then she failed in her exams and
as a result universities of her dreams did not accept her.
My point in this writing is to show the contrast between her approach and Yang's.
I will write about challenges
of working in Iran in detail
(or as you put it in isolation )
in another post.
One point for one post is more than enough!
By the way I said I am not as smart as Yang. But perhaps you are.
Why not?
As far as I have understood from
your comments you are still a student; aren't you?
If you allow me, I would like to
give you some pieces of advice.
As a student, you are not in a position to reform the academic
system around you. You may try but
most likely you will not succeed.
Then, you may get depressed.
Moreover, by spending time on reform you may not be able to concentrate on your studies.
Since the previous comment got long,
I divided it into two. Now the rest:
The best thing a student can do
is to concentrate on his/her studies. Then, s/he should try to
broaden his/her contacts and consider going to abroad for short
or extended periods of time to advance his/her education and broaden her/his horizons.
But, the priority is with studies.
Obsession with going abroad should
not come into the way of concentrating on
studies.
If as a student you study hard and
have a wide web of contacts (the latter closely depends on high skillful you are in making poster and seminar presentations), I promise you, you will find many options to choose from. In time, you will
be offered many post-doc positions
both from abroad and from Iran.
Then, you should decide whether to stay in Iran or go abroad.
In my later posts, I will try to
convey my experiences since I have come back to Iran (declining the post-doc positions which were offered to me).
In short, I say if I did not have the support of my previous supervisors in Italy and SLAC,
I could not do the research work that i am doing now back in Iran.
For the time being, I recommend you to concentrate
on your studies and try to excell in presentation skills.
Regardless of whether you want to
go abroad and stay there or you want to work and live in Iran, in order to be successful you will both need
a web of connection (I mean some world-class scientists that know you and think highly of you and would support you by writing recommendation letters or answering your questions) and strong
background knowledge of physics.
The time to obtain such skills and
such web of connections
is now. Don't miss this time.
I am sure if you study hard and
make yourself known, in time you will be a very successful scientist
regardless of whether you stay in Iran or go abroad.
I have come to realize that one of the main reasons why there are so many depressed individuls in Iran,
(specially in the academia) is that
people do not appreciate the limits their position naturally
puts before them. In a healthy academic system, there is a natural hierarchy. A graduate student has a certain responsibilities and concerns.
An assitant professors have more responsibility and (proportional to
it) more power and more authority.
As one's position goes up, these two increase in proportion.
A student should not
be concerned about
for example budget.
He is not expected to patrol
the scientific ethics of the community.
These are the responsibilities
of more senior people.
A student should not be concerned
how a certain visitor is invited
and who pays his ticket.
His concern should be how to
make herself/himself known to the visitor and learn from his knowledge.
Unfortunately, in Iran, everything is mixed up.
Atmosphere is such that a student
mimics the concerns of senior people and since she/he has to authority or power
to make a difference gets
depressed.
To avoid such a depression, we should remind ourself of our position and concerns that a person in such a position should have. In west, the atmosphere
naturally tells where you stand but here the atmosphere sends you
wrong signals.
I do remind myself of my position
all the time.
I contact my colleagues abroad to
find out what is expected of them
at that particular position.
I have made it known to my boss
that I want to have concerns
suitable for my position (as my friends in European institutes): neither less nor more.
Fortunately my boss has appreciated
this and has helped me in this direction.
To make steady progress and to avoid depression in
this atmosphere,
such an action is quite useful.
Dear Monjoog,
You are right, I am student but already among the first group I mentioned!
I myself prefer to devote my energy and time on the work I love instead of trying to change everything, so I left improper system.
But you are right. It is not students main busyness to change rules. The best thing students could do is working as hard as possible to learn.
شاید این رفتار سیستم آمریکایی یک جورهایی خصوصیت فرهنگِ آمریکا باشد. در بازدیدم از پاریس٫ گایدم به مجسمه‌ی کوچک آزادی اشاره کرد و گفت: آمریکایی ها عادت دارند که چیزهایی بزرگ را بگیرند و در عوضش کوچکش را پس بدهند
Dear Comet,
I wish you a successful career
wherever you choose to stay and live.
I hope that my coments have not
caused the impression
that I mean everybody has to
be satisfied with the status quo.
By no means I meant such a thing.
However, to make a change for better, one has to consider how much power for change he or she possesses.
A student's main asset is his talent, energy and youth. He or she
has a lifetime ahead of him.
He or she should first prepare himself/herself for this life.
However, s/he has no power to make
reform.
Once you become a post-doc you will
have more authority and your critism and proposals will be taken more seriously. As your position
goes up, your power to make change
increases.
I have seen this since I have returned back to Iran.
In case, you choose to return
to Iran after few post-doc positions, you will not be anymore
considered the same naive student who
once used to be. Little by little, you can prove and show to the more senior people that your suggestions/critism/proposals are
worth being taken serious.
Then you can make reform and changes for better "Aheste va peivaste".
That is the course that I have chosen to take. Despite the fact that many things did not turn up as I had planned, so far I am not
disappointed. I observe that I am
making a difference by some steady rate and this gives me enormous
satisfaction.
سلام خدمت جناب دکتر منصوری. می خواستم نظر شما و دیگر اخترشناسان را راجع به این یافته نوین جویا شوم
http://seyyedmohammadi.blogfa.com/post-259.aspx
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