With celebrities (reading)

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Features: Recently, some middle school students pick up geometry books and chant with a tune, "Life is short, why study geometry? What use is geometry if learned? What if geometry isn't learned?" Perhaps these children singing such ditties don't know that many great figures in history were influenced by Euclid's Elements. Elements is a foundational work in the history of mathematics, axiomatized. Around 300 BCE, the Greek scientist Euclid was invited to Alexandria by King Ptolemy to conduct research and teaching, and Elements was the culmination of his work. It is said that Ptolemy I once asked Euclid if there were any shortcuts to learning geometry besides his Elements. Euclid replied, "There is no royal road to geometry." Another student, who had just started learning his first proposition, asked Euclid what benefits he would gain from studying geometry. Euclid said to those around him, "Give him three coins quickly, for he seeks only practical gain in his studies." Euclid lived during the golden age of Greek culture and science, and Elements was a comprehensive summary of the mathematical achievements of that period, exerting significant influence at the time. For example, when Archimedes came to Alexandria to study, he attended the school founded by Euclid and learned many valuable things from Elements. Moreover, Elements deeply influenced many later philosophers and scientists. Newton's Principia Mathematica, the holy scripture of classical mechanics, bears the imprint of Elements in both its structure and writing style. Robert Hooke, who once served as president of the Royal Society of London, said that when he first encountered Elements, he read it six times within a week. Einstein, too, held Elements in high regard. As a young man, Einstein was deeply impressed by its rigorous logical system and never forgot it until old age. When Einstein was 12, his family invited a poor Jewish student to dine with them every Sabbath. This young Jewish man from Russia, named Max Talmud, was a medical student at the University of Munich. Talmud was a keen observer, and during meals, he noticed that Einstein was particularly fond of mathematics. So he gave Einstein a copy of Elements, which Einstein treasured as if it were a priceless gift. He devoured it with an insatiable appetite, calling it, in his own words, "a miracle." Elements was like a lighthouse, illuminating the path for later generations to explore science. If buildings and tools are the materialized forms that sustain human material civilization, then books are undoubtedly the bridges that transmit human spiritual civilization. Looking across the world, nations with enduring vitality are often those that value reading. The Jewish people are the most avid readers among all ethnic groups globally, reading an average of 64 books per person per year. As a homeland for Jewish people, Israel ranks 21st in the world for its human development index (a composite index combining indicators such as life expectancy at birth, adult literacy rate, and actual GDP per capita) and is the country with the highest human development index in the Middle East. The Jewish people's love for reading is why they were able to reclaim their nation after 2,000 years of exile; their love for reading is why they rapidly modernized after their revival; their love for reading is why they produced countless outstanding thinkers, scientists, and artists like Marx, Einstein, and Mendelssohn during their wanderings; and their love for reading is why they not only rank among the world's wealthiest but also hold a significant proportion of Nobel laureates. In short, their passion for reading has made the Jewish people an exceptional nation. P2-4