With Celebrities: Reading

Author: Mu'er (Compiler)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: Recently, some middle school students pick up geometry books and chant, "Life is short, why study geometry? What use is geometry if you learn it? What if you don't?" Perhaps these children singing such ditties don't know that many great figures in history were influenced by Elements (Euclid's Elements). Elements is a groundbreaking axiomatic work in the history of mathematics. Around 300 BCE, the ancient Greek scientist Euclid was invited by Ptolemy I to Alexandria 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 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 wants to learn geometry for practical gain." Euclid lived during the golden age of Greek culture and science, and Elements was a comprehensive summary of the mathematical achievements of that era, exerting a significant influence at the time. For example, when Archimedes went 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 structural and stylistic influence of Elements. Robert Hooke, who once served as president of the Royal Society of London, said that when he first saw Elements, he read it six times within a week. Einstein, too, held Elements in high regard. As a teenager, Einstein was deeply impressed by its rigorous logical system, and the book remained unforgettable to him throughout his life. When Einstein was 12, his family would invite a poor Jewish student to dine on the Sabbath each week. This Russian Jewish youth, named Max Talmud, was a medical student at the University of Munich. Talmud was observant and noticed that Einstein was particularly fond of mathematics during meals. He then gifted Einstein a copy of Elements, which Einstein treasured. He devoured it with an insatiable appetite, calling it a "miracle" in his own words. Elements was like a lighthouse, illuminating the path for later generations to explore science. If buildings and tools are the material manifestations of human material civilization, then books are undoubtedly the bridges that sustain 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, 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 re-establish their nation after two millennia of exile; why they quickly became a modernized country after their revival; why they produced countless outstanding thinkers, scientists, and artists like Marx, Einstein, and Mendelssohn during their wanderings; and 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