好久没有写博客了。这两天楼下装修，吵得人没办法干正事。于是成天在Youtube上面转。偶然找到了《聪明的一休》动画片的片尾曲：
这首曲子连同播放时的画面，是唯一让还是小屁孩一个的我感到惆怅的东西。一休是一个孤儿，但是他记得他母亲。这个挂在树上的小人儿就是他母亲留给他的。在整部动画片里有少数几个地方刻画了一休对这个小人儿的感情。片尾的这首歌很短，短得简直没有前奏和高潮。它的旋律听着好像能牵起多年以前拥有过的温馨回忆。我小时候常常做梦梦见到挂在树上的一个这样的小人儿。
自从长大了，开始听BSB，看《Titanic》，做习题之后，我基本上忘了一休还有个让一个十岁不到的小男孩不能倒头就睡着的片尾曲。今天才知道这曲子名字叫《献给母亲大人》，听到日语歌词最后，好像是“一休”这个词。我猜，这首歌的歌词可能就是一休给他妈妈写的一封信吧。
不知道为什么当时看那小一休，觉得他比我大比我懂事。现在再看，觉得他好小啊。动画片里的角色永远停留在一个岁数，看动画的人却长大了。
这几个图是从一篇1956年的关于尼龙纤维粘弹性能的文章（J. Polym. Sci., 1956, 20, 515-536）。现在我们要研究高分子的粘弹性，有动态粘弹谱仪，大家都喜欢进口的耐驰或TA热分析品牌。通了液氮，从-100°C到300°C扫温 度，扫频率，G’、G”和tan°全部都能弄出来，电脑自动作图分析。样品夹具也是各式各样，什么东西都能做。可是在1956年没有电脑，没有自动化的 测试仪器，科学工作者只能在“土仪器”上进行改装，自己组装特种测试仪器来满足实验的需要。头四幅图就是为研究尼龙纤维在粘弹性的各种改装天平。根据应变 频率的不同，天平的原理也要不同。因为可以想象，不同实施方式应该只在有限的频率范围下能够达到最高的精确度。全频率域的数据则不得不使用不同原理的天平 实验汇总而得。这些天平的原型全是精密的扭矩天平或者分析天平。改装本身就是一个很考验思维能力和动手能力的活。考验动手能力自不待言，思维能力也很重 要。对每一项改装都要思考会引入什么误差，误差的大小是多少，是一个常量还是一个随实验条件变化的变量，如果误差是个变量，那么误差处于可接受值的测量量 程应该在哪里等问题。最后一幅图是文章里的其中一幅曲线。文章的曲线也全是人手画的，可以看到纵座标标尺、物理量的单位、描点、画线等等全都一丝不苟。那 时候可没有电脑，没有微软的Excel或者Origin作图软件。现在如果要做线性拟合，Origin里面一个命令，不仅直线方程就出来了，而且R2，标准差等参数也自动给算出来；要放在以前，必须老老实实地用最小二乘法，数值计算基础要十分过硬才行。
老一辈的科学家由于年轻的时候设计和改装测试仪器都是家常便饭了，因此他们在测量的严谨性上都很过硬，对今天的现代仪器的测试结果也保持着可贵的怀 疑态度。但是我们新一代的研究生们，红外、核磁、XRD全都做得像家里空调冰箱似的熟落了，对这些仪器结果也无比信赖，在某种程度上可以说被仪器架空在现 实之外来讨论问题，有时发现不到真正的问题。现在的学生作图也是电脑化，我们化学的，很多人还只懂用Excel，作出来的图丑死了。不管用Origin还 是Excel，很多同学作出来的图丢三拉四。更不用说那些只有三个点就作个图，两个点就拟合（ORZ！）或者R2<.8还拿直那斜率说事儿的错误了。
我觉得这些都不能仅仅说素质问题，如果说素质问题，那就并不需要跟1956年的人作比较。我觉得跟旧时代的科学工作者比较出来的，不是素质的差距， 而是品味的差距、价值观的差距。随随便便对待科学观察（广义的科学观察，包括仪器测试），随随便便作图，体现出来的是一种不高贵，没有科学家的尊严和品 味。虽然说人类一思考，上帝就发笑。但科学家就是那在上帝的嘲笑声中仍然坚守思考的尊严的人。就算像尼龙力学性能这种在上帝看来简直是白痴的问题，科学家 也有煞有介事地研究一翻的尊严，也有煞有介事地改装土得掉渣的破天平的尊严，也有煞有介事地标上自己的物理量、单位和曲线的尊严。本来在上帝的嘲笑声下还 能知道点儿有重复性的事情并不容易，如果还随随便便地弄，那就干脆别弄了，回头信天主教去吧。
说窄一点儿，咱们化学是一门历史悠久的学科，它是从一间间外表是欧洲古典建筑风，内部是充满酸的气味的老式化学实验室中发展而来的，里面横着各种形 状的木制架子，桌放着奇形怪状的玻璃，各种笨拙的、近乎画蛇添足的冷凝管，各种本生灯，还有一位戴着单框眼镜，留着八字胡须，里面穿着西装外面套着白大褂 的绅士——他的名字就是将来某人名反应。我真向往那种时代，就是居里夫人、阿仑尼乌斯、能斯特、吉布斯、Grignard、Langmuir那些人的时 代！
说到这里顺便放出几张老实验室的照片吧，大家感受一下那逝去的时光。
1864年的实验室和1899年的实验室
1902年的实验室和英国作曲家Elgar的实验室（1909）。喜欢古典音乐尤其是小提琴的人应该会知道Elgar吧？他业余喜欢做化学实验。这个链接是关于他和音乐和化学实验的介绍。
1920年和1949年的实验室
不知何年的老实验室。这个图片比较清晰。
THE ‘REST OF THE WORLD’ VERSION:
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed. The shivering
grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
THE BRITISH VERSION:
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.
A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving.
The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food.
The British press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty.
The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the squirrel’s house. The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts a multi cultural choir singing “We Shall overcome”. Ken Livingstone rants in an interview with Trevor McDonald that the squirrel has got rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his “fair share” and increases the charge for squirrels to enter inner London.
In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The squirrel’s taxes are reassessed. He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work. The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile.
The squirrel’s food is seized and redistributed to the more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper. Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home. The local authority takes over his old home and utilizes it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to Britain as they had to share their country of origin with mice. On arrival they have tried to blow up the airport because of Britain’s apparent love of dogs.
The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempt bombing but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody. Initial moves to then return them to their own country were abandoned because it was feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from people’s credit cards.
A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel’s food, though Spring is still months away, while the council house he is in, crumbles around him because he hasn’t bothered to maintain the house. He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshoppers drug ‘illness’.
The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment since arrival in UK.
The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks. He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery.
A commission of enquiry that will eventually cost £10,000,000 and state the obvious, is set up.
Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased. The asylum seeking cats are praised by the government for enriching Britain’s multicultural diversity and dogs are criticised by the government for failing to befriend the cats.
The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose. The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison. They call for the resignation of a minister. The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in the United Kingdom.
The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses, their taxes are increased to pay for law and order and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.
Since this was written, the squirrel has decided that enough is enough and has sold up everything he owned and has sodded off to Spain!