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还有补充一下,说出 "Shall I refuse my dinner because I do not fully understand the process of digestion ?" 这句话的,是Oliver Heaviside;此人是近代一个自学成才的工程学家、科学家,正规教育只有小学水平,但成果却十分丰硕;可惜,其人生比较悲惨,究其原因,就是他采用的研究方法不能与同时代的主流科学家们形成一致。
他创立的方法、得到的结论,跟当前的EMD HHT的处境有些类似之处:海维赛德被主流数学家瞧不起的原因之一就是,他的方法缺乏数学上
的严谨(faulted him for lack of rigor);而被实际工程人员批判的原因又是使用了过多的数学。
现转载B.P. Lathi的经典教材《Linear System and Signal Processing》中对海维赛德的介绍,供大家参考。
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textbook today mentions his name or contributions. With the passage of time,
Heaviside becomes more distant, although his studies had a major impact on many
aspects of modern electrical engineering. It was Heaviside who made transatlantic
communication possible by inventing cable loading, but no one ever mentions him
as a pioneer or an innovator in telephony. It was Heaviside who suggested the use
of inductive cable loading, but the credit is given to M. Pupin, who actually built
the first loading coil. In addition, Heaviside was;
• The first to find a solution to the distortionless transmission line;
• The innovator of lowpass filters;
• The first to write Maxwell's equations in modern form;
• The co-discoverer of rate energy transfer by an electromagnetic fieldj
• An early champion of the now-common phasor analysis;
• An important cont巾utor to the development of vec!,or analysis. In fact, he
essentially created the subject independently of Gibbs.
• An originator of the use of operational mathematics used to solve linear
integro-differential equations, which eventually led to rediscovery of the ignored
Laplace transform;
• The first to theorize (along with Kennelly of Harvard) that a conducting layer
(the Kennelly-Heaviside layer) of atmosphere exists, which allows radio waves
to follow earth's curvature instead of traveling off into space in a straight line;
• The first to posit that an electrical charge would increase in mass as its
velocity increases; an anticipation of an aspect of Einstein's special theory of
relativity.7 He also forecast the possibility of superconductivity.
Heaviside was a self-made, self-educated man with only an elementary school
education. who eventually became a pragmatically successful mathematical physi-
cist. He began his careerωa telegrapher, but increasing deafness forced him to
retire at the age of 24. He then devoted himself to the study of electricity. His
creative work was disdained by many professional mathematicians because of his
lack of formal education and his unorthodox methods
Heaviside's misfortune was that he was criticized both by mathematicians, who
faulted him for lack of rigor, and by men of practice, who faulted him for using too
much mathematics and thereby confusing students. Many mathematicians, trying
to find solutions to the distortionless transmission line, fai!ed because 110 rigorous
tools were available at the tirne. Heaviside succeeded because he used mathematics
not with rigor, but with illSight and illtuition. Using his much-m叫igned operational
method、Heaviside successfully attacked problems that the rigid mathematicians
could 1l0t solve: problems such as the flow of heat in a body of spatially varyillg
cOllductivity. Heaviside brilliantly used this method in 1895 to demollstrate a fatal
flaw in Lord Kelvin's determillation of the geological age of the earth by secular
coolingj he used the same flow of heat theory as for his cable analysis. Yet the
mathematicians of the Royal Society remained unmoved alld were not the least
impressed by the fact that Heaviside had found the answer to problems no one
else could solve. Mally mathematicians who examined his work dismissed it with
cOlltempt, asserting that his methods were either complete nonsellse or a rehash of
already-known ideas.5
Sir William Preece, the chief engilleer of the British Post Office, a savage critic
of Heaviside, ridiculed Heaviside's work as too theoretical and, therefore, leading to
faulty conclusions. Heaviside's work on transmission lines and loadillg was dismissed
by the British Post 0fice; this work might have remailled hidden, had not Lord
Kelvin himself publicly expressed admiration for it.5
Heaviside's operational calculus may be formally inaccurate, but in fact it allticipated
the currellt operational methods developed in more recent years.8 Although
his method was not fully understood, it provided correct results. When Heaviside
was attacked for the vague meanillg of his operational calculus, his pragmatic reply
was, "Shall I refuse my dinner because I do not fully understand the process of
digestion ?"
Heaviside lived as a bachelor hermit, often in near-squalid conditiollS, and died
largely unlloticed, ill poverty. His life demonstrates the arrogance and snobbish-
ness of the intelllectual establishment,which does not respect creativity unless it is presented in the strict language of the establishment.
[ 本帖最后由 Robotech 于 2009-6-1 09:48 编辑 ] |
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