冰激凌的温暖

馨莹在Santa Barbara 拍的让我一眼看到觉得感动的照片。下午太阳将要下山的时候，在海边的橡木桩上坐着，冰激凌吃到心里暖洋洋，好像时间停止，明天再也不会来到的寂静和狂欢的美感，多好啊。

Lijingjing's post on thermo-economics

Hi, this is Jingjing. Forgot my ID and password so i'm doing anonymously. My Statistic Mechanics knowledge is still in the level of undergraduate so dont laugh on me if common sense mistakes happen.

" Can relations found in individual decision maker be linearly zoomed to explain the behavior of a complex system? What kind of interactions we should consider when individuals are put into a system?"

I think the answer is "no". Actually, this is the key issue that we can make the resemblance between economics and thermodynamics. Considering a real thermodynamics system consist of a huge amount of particles. We have enough powerful tools to discribe the individual behavior of each particle: Newtonian low, quantum mechanics, relativity. Howerver, if you want to descripbe the whole system by solving the coupled equations discribing each single particle, it just becomes a mission impossible. Even in case as simple as 3 bodies, it has been proved more than one hundred years ago that there exist no analytical solutions to it(by Poncare, I believe). If numerical simulation approach used, it's a common sense that there is no way to predict the behavior of it by solving the dynamic equations of each particle numerically because of the calculation precision problem. That's why we need another angle of view to discribe such a system--and then thermaldynamics, a "statistic" method, was born.

Back to the economics system. The ability of micro-economics is more or less like those basic functions describing single partics (Newtonian funtions, Schindinger functions, or Eistein functions), while milions and milions people make an ensemble whose behavior can not be discribed by combining their personal decisions together, which is out of the ability of any person or computer. From this point of view, at least for me personally, it is no strange that we can find a lot of similarity between an economic system and a thermodynamic system. BTW: I don't think the difference of Fuling's and Xinyhn's behavior will be a difficulty for discribing the economic system. They are just different particles. Imagine how different the electrons, the mu particles, and the quarks are, but they are all in the frame of quantumn mechanics.

However, there may be a fetal drawback in the attempt of discribing the economic system by thermodynamic method, that is, the "rational decision" assumption as a principle of any economics theories. Such assumption equal to the argument that at least we can have, before even we can "find", a full "determinant" functions to describe single person behavior. However, human can never be absolute, and always, rational. What's worse is such un-rationality not only plays a role of minor correction to the behavior of the whole system, but sometimes determines a lot of major phenomenas. What's more pessimistic, the un-rationality origines not only from the less of education and training, but also from thermodynamics itself. Imagine how un-euqilibrium a thermodynamic system it is the human body itself, and how could you predict the behavior of such an un-equilibrium system determinantly, which has been proved to be impossible. (It worth noting that, actually there are two meanings when talk about "uncertainty". One is in the context of quantumn mechanics when talking about the uncertainty of quantumn particles. You can never determine the coordinate of a particle precisely which is the nature of the world, but you can still describe the behavior of the particle determinantly, only in a way different than our classical experience. The other is in the background of describing a complex system. The behavior of the system it self is "determinant" thanks to the basic equations behand each single unit. However, we can never find out the original conditions precisely enough, nor can we do the calculation precisely enough, so that the behavior of the system is out side of our ability of prediction).

Nevertheless, I still believe doing economics research thermodynamiclly can give a lot of help for us to describe the system better. After all, we're still in the stage of trying to understand what's going on to our society yet, far away to the level of finding out the final push behind everything. In this sense, thermodynamics will shine a lot insights into economics. It is just surprising imaging that a (huge) group of human bodies, who themselves are un-equilibrium thermodynamic systems, behaves so likely to a low-level thermodynamic system. Thermodynamics is displaying itself in different levels.

Well, like it or not, I'm putting so much into an old topic that maybe no one will notice anymore, but actually I'm feeling this is the most interesting one I had here, :) Let we PhD students talk more about philosophy...

cool cold chilly

Winter comes so early this year. and by taking Hotplay's nice suggestion of dressing up not so sporty, I wore fancy thin knitted sweater...and it turned out no fun at all :( Now I have to turn the A/C to 80F and put on a lab coat to keep warm...

taking about cool dressing, I remember two costumes in the Halloween Parade. One short guy wore a white lab coat and a big goggle covering all his tiny face. Another guy was dressed in a wrinkled shirt with blue grids pattern, and carrying a fat "Eastpak" backpack, (sigh, very much like mine!). I really doubted they were just Caltech guys sneaking out of labs and libraries without change. but they became really creative in the party :D

时间倒流的一小时

“我或可试图说服自己，永远不回俄国，但此念头一出犹如死亡般可怕。千万不可让我在有生之年永远不再看到我出生的土地：童年时代的桦树和天空。”


太平洋时间10月31日凌晨2点，时针倒转的一个小时，你在干什么？

我在喝很热的茶，看清冷的电影到快要睡着。

安德烈•塔科夫斯基，乡愁。

很少音乐，一个长镜头接一个长镜头的电影。有很多次我想我或许已经睡着了，梦的形状没有边界、慢慢摊开，渗入意大利温泉小镇清冽的剪不断的雨声，敦儒的俄语，略点焦躁的意大利语。有时候我以为我睁开了眼睛，因为每个印入眼帘的画面如此鲜明有如蚀刻，然而身体裹紧毯子竟不能移动，房间也渐渐清冷，令我怀疑或许还在被梦桎梏。


（诗人梦中的俄罗斯，雨雾笼罩的原野，着火的童年房子，母亲和小孩。）

安德烈•戈尔恰克夫，影片中游荡在意大利小镇间采风的俄罗斯诗人，似乎和寂静美丽到骇人的亚平宁半岛的田野和树木，风情的女翻译，喧笑的温泉游客，总是有一种格格不入的疏离感，犹如身处玻璃罩子中，行止缓慢，带着无言的沉重。那种无法向人启齿的悲伤，或许就是导演自己在《雕刻时光》中说的，“一种深沉的、渐次疲软的生离死别”吧。他的玻璃罩子慢慢向当地被人视为疯子的多梅尼克打开，他们用简练的言语交谈，或许前后不搭却相互了解。我的眼睛半闭半开，错过了他们大段的关于人生和世界的对话，却记得从乡间教堂的圣母像座中飞出犹如护拥天使诞生的大群鸽子，似乎把潮湿的空气带着霉味扇到脸上；多梅尼克在破蔽的大房子门口踩着没有轮子的自行车时难得的阳光和干香的天空；戈尔恰克夫在破屋中倘徉，精灵和小女孩在水雾中出现，诗稿在水中燃烧。。。最后把我完全惊醒是贝多芬的欢乐颂，好像还是这部片子里第一次出现音乐的配音，眼前是多梅尼克在广场上熊熊燃烧，他刚作完了一生最大声的一次演讲，昭告世人奋起抵抗冷酷无情的世界，维护大难临头的人类命运，然后在全身浇上了汽油。疯子多梅尼克。殉道者多梅尼克。

然后我看到的是诗人双手护着蜡烛倘过温泉的水，似乎还是破屋的场景，但是四周突然长出了俄罗斯的树木和房子。他正在回乡和逗留中挣扎，收拾好了回俄罗斯的行李，来这里完成多梅尼克交托的拯救世界的心愿：
“这个世界怎么让你发疯了？”
“比如这支蜡烛，这个世界总是让它熄灭，我不想看到这个，我想让它一直亮着，所以我疯了。。。。要拯救世界。。。”
“怎么可以拯救世界呢？”
“很简单，护着蜡烛倘过热水，不要让它熄灭。。。”

所以有了长达快十分钟的镜头，蜡烛熄灭，回到原地重新点燃，再熄灭，再点燃，有很久画面就只是小心翼翼伸出的一双手，之中火苗在微弱地摇动。而我从来没见过一双手可以这样地表情万千，谦卑，翼求，和挣扎，似乎每一个关节的弧度、每一根暴起的青筋都需要被命名，才可以表达其庄严的万一；而你知道这些名字在你嘴边，却永远无法被说出。就这样镜头跟着手慢慢移动，终于把蜡烛送到对岸。诗人也心脏病发作倒下，意大利和俄罗斯的风光交错重叠，不能分辨。


（影片最后：意大利教堂中的俄国房屋）

我得承认我最近有滥情和容易流泪的倾向，在这个时钟走回清晨两点的时刻，我不能自已，泪流满面。好像这一双手和我说了无数的话，好像电影里连绵不断的雨声一直下在栏杆外，再慢慢下到心里也清澈一片无比安宁了。是陀思多耶夫斯基卑微而庄重的救赎的力量，和屠格涅夫忧郁而干净的气息，还是加州最近连绵不断的雨呢？

这个世界如此脆弱，连时间也不再是上帝的法则，可以让我们轻易拨回。难道真的只有回忆，才是我们和他的唯一联结了吗？

Happy Halloween

Fuling and I at West Hollywood Halloweeen parade... Scary Monster



Guess who are guys and who are gals?



Xin and I with gay couple