Stephen Hawking's popular science books are called "A Brief History of Time" and "The Universe in a Nutshell", and Freeman Dyson's popular science books are called "Cosmic Waves", "Omni-directional Infinity", "The Sun, Genomes and the Internet"

, "Imaginary World", the names are very lofty, and you can tell it is a very awesome book when you hear it.

So what should I change the name of this book to? Lu Qiujian thought for a moment and, well, just use Liu’s classic sentence in "Chao Wen Dao"! He typed "When humans begin to look up" at the top of the document

"Starry Sky" nine words.

"When humans begin to look up at the stars, they are only one step away from uncovering the ultimate mystery of the universe." Thanks to Liu, Lu Qiujian could not find a more suitable sentence to start his article than this sentence.

The most important factor in promoting the development of human science and technology is curiosity. When humans begin to become curious about the starry sky, they will use their imagination to guess the secrets hidden in the starry sky.

Human beings first determined the time, direction and calendar by observing the sun, moon and other celestial bodies and celestial phenomena... The ancient Egyptians discovered that the rising water of the Nile River in the delta area coincided with the sun and Sirius rising on the horizon. They attributed this phenomenon twice

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The time between birth and birth is set as one year, with a total of 365 days. The whole year is divided into 12 months, each month has 30 days, and the remaining 5 days are used as festivals. At the same time, the year is also divided into 3 seasons, namely the "flood season".

”, “grain season”, “harvest season”, each season lasts 4 months.

The ancient Chinese discovered that the moon's waxing and waning cycle could be used to measure the length of the year, and found that one year was equal to twelve full moons. This discovery was one of the most accurate achievements of the early calendar.

The Stonehenge built by the ancient British on the island of Great Britain can accurately understand the 12 positions of the sun and the moon, and observe and calculate the rise and fall of the sun, moon and stars in different seasons.

Thales of ancient Greece performed the first predicted total solar eclipse; Medon discovered that the phase of the moon repeats the same date on the current solar calendar in a 19-year cycle; Eudoxus proposed the idea that the sun, moon and stars move in concentric circles around the earth;

Parmenides and Democritus argued that the earth is spherical, believed that the morning star and the evening star were the same Venus, and proposed that the Milky Way was densely populated by many stars; Anaxarchus proposed the cause of lunar eclipses and believed that

The moon shines brightly by reflecting sunlight.

The Romans, Arabs, Mayans, Indians, etc. each proposed their own understanding of the mysteries of the universe and made progress in different fields.

In the process of human beings exploring the ultimate mysteries of the universe, they have found the most powerful tool, which is mathematics. Through mathematics, they can process various data collected through observation. At the same time, there is a lot of data that cannot be obtained directly through observation, so

This gave rise to mathematical knowledge such as logarithms, spherical coordinate systems, and trigonometric functions.

At the same time, as humans observe the universe in depth, their requirements for observation tools are getting higher and higher, and manufacturing these tools also requires superb knowledge of mathematics, physics, and chemistry. After Newton used the classical mechanics system to describe the macroscopic world in mathematical language,

, Mathematics and astronomy are increasingly connected. Non-Euclidean geometry, calculus, etc. are developing rapidly under the needs of astronomy.

In modern times, both Einstein's theory of relativity and Gamow's big bang theory have borrowed many advanced data tools. It can be said that without mathematics, humans would not be able to achieve today's scientific and technological achievements.

Lu Qiujian plans to start with the development of mathematics and gradually reveal the process by which humans use mathematics as a tool to gradually reveal the ultimate secrets of the universe. He will also intersperse some knowledge of physics, chemistry, etc.

What he wants to do is not only tell people these conclusions. What is more important is to show the scientific methods of human beings in the pursuit of the ultimate mysteries of the universe. Make bold assumptions and rigorous verification, so as to eliminate those wrong guesses and arrive at the correct theory.

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The examination-oriented education currently implemented in China ensures the fairness of education to a certain extent and cultivates a group of useful talents in a short period of time. However, it is not without shortcomings. Exam-oriented education often pays more attention to the conclusion and ignores the process; in order to

To get better grades in exams, teachers usually ask students to memorize important conclusions, such as formulas, definitions, etc., while ignoring the derivation of the process that produced these conclusions.

Doing so creates a series of problems. People tend to pay attention to the results and ignore the process. However, in scientific research, the process is often more important than the results.

Moreover, when describing these conclusions, some inappropriate examples and narrative methods are often used. For example, Newton was hit on the head by an apple and discovered the secret of gravitation in a flash of inspiration. Watt saw the lid of the teapot being pushed open by steam and had a flash of inspiration to improve it.

A steam engine.

These stories leave a deep impression on people, that is, it seems that with a flash of inspiration, inventions and creations suddenly appear! This is one of the important reasons for the emergence of scientific paranoia.

It is true that Edison also said that success is equal to one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration, but I think that one percent inspiration is more important than ninety-nine percent perspiration.

But inspiration also requires a foundation. If Newton did not have advanced knowledge of mathematics and physics, then he would not have thought of gravity from the falling apple; there are so many apple trees in the world. He would not be the only one who was hit on the head by an apple.

Most people would probably just rub the apple and eat it. Only Newton discovered the secret of gravity.

Similarly, there are countless housewives who saw the scene of the teapot lid being lifted by steam, but they would only turn down the heat and use the boiling water to make tea and coffee. Like Watt, they realized the unique method of improving the steam engine.

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Therefore, Lu Qiujian not only wants to tell people these conclusions in this book, but also wants to show the process of generating these conclusions to all readers, so that they will have a relatively scientific understanding of science after reading this book, and not

As soon as I saw such lofty terms as gravitational waves and matter waves, I felt admiration and expressed my opinions without thinking.

Completing such a book obviously does not happen overnight, and the most important thing about a popular science work is that it is easy to understand and interesting. If it were written as a paper that was as difficult as a paper, no one would read it, so this requires a long process.

However, he is not in a hurry. Anyway, he is gradually getting leisurely now and has plenty of time to complete it. Moreover, even if he writes it now, it is not the right time to release it; as for the best release opportunity, he has already planned it in his heart and is just waiting for it.

An award has been announced! (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!