多年來,物理學家最喜歡寫limericks這種5行打油詩,5行的尾韻為AABBA式。下面選譯三首哈佛大學物理學講師David Morin的5行打油詩。他在自己編寫的教材中會時不時地“穿插”一些打油詩。他已有4部教材問世:
Probability - For the Enthusiastic Beginner(概率:寫給熱情的初學者,2016年出版)
Problems and Solutions in Introductory Mechanics(入門力學習題解,2014年出版)
Electricity and Magnetism(電與磁,第三版,Edward Purcell與他合著,2013年出版)
Introduction to Classical Mechanics(經(jīng)典力學導論,2008年出版)
第一首
Always check your units!
Your units are wrong! cried the teacher.
Your church weighs six joules — what a feature!
And the people inside
Are four hours wide,
And eight gauss away from the preacher!
一定要檢查單位!
單位是錯誤的!老師高聲嚷。
教堂重6焦耳----這是怎么講!
又說教堂里的會眾
有四小時寬的陣容,
離布道者的距離有8高斯長!
博主:焦耳是熱量單位,高斯是磁感應(yīng)強度單位。
第二首
People tend to rely a bit too much on computers and calculators nowadays, without pausing to think about what is actually going on in a problem.
The skill to do math on a page
Has declined to the point of outrage.
Equations quadratica
Are solved on Math'matica,
And on birthdays we don't know our age.
現(xiàn)在,人們往往太依賴計算機和計算器,而不好好想想題目中的道理。
在紙面上演算的能力
衰退到哭笑不得的田地。
解一道二次方程的任務(wù)
也需要軟件程序的幫助,
生日那天都數(shù)不清自己的年紀。
第三首
The standard method for solving differential equations is to simply guess an exponential solution. It may seem cheap, but it works.
This is our method, essential,
For equations we solve, differential.
It gets the job done,
And it's even quite fun.
We just try a routine exponential.
解微分方程的標準方法,是提出一個試探性的指數(shù)解。此法似乎不怎么高大上,但很管用。
這是我們的解法,很簡單,
各種微分方程皆可把玩。
很容易完成任務(wù),
甚至還非常有趣,
只要拿一個常規(guī)指數(shù)去試探。
哈佛大學物理學講師David Morin的5行打油詩 |
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