Book Review| When Ancient Poetry Encounters "100,000 Whys"

□ Feather Sound

The ancients wrote poems and often had accurate accounts of natural objects. As stated in the Analects, the study of poetry can be "more knowledgeable than the names of birds, animals, plants and trees", which shows that poetry and naturalism are very closely related and have a long history. There is also no shortage of amazing natural phenomena in ancient poems, such as "flying birds and returns", "the desert is lonely and straight", "Hu Tian and August are flying snow"... Most are unknown to readers accustomed to modern city life.

There are many special records of natural science phenomena in ancient poetry. Carefully studied, the questions arise endlessly: "Qingquan Stone upstream", where does the spring water gush out? "Yunsheng Jiehai Lou", why does the illusory mirage look so real? "Dissolve the three autumn leaves, can bloom February flowers", why does the wind have so much power? The ancients failed to give an answer. In ancient China, "scientists" were mostly part-time, engaged in "scientific research work" is also to apply to specific affairs, there are few abstract theories and logical reasoning, many times, our ancestors do not want to and can not explain the principles behind these phenomena.

Scientific Phenomena in Ancient Poetry

Code: Oyama by Zhonghua Bookstore

"Scientific Phenomena in Ancient Poetry" focuses on these ancient poems, starting from the many scientific phenomena recorded in ancient poems, first appreciating the literary beauty of poetry, and then telling the scientific principles involved in the poems. The knowledge in the book is very wide, astronomical geography, physical chemistry, the evolution of life, the mysteries of the human body... Many areas of knowledge are covered. From the microscopic structure of dewdrops, the process of floral fragrance being perceived by people's noses and brains, and how mountains and rivers are shaped by crustal movements and water flows, all give corresponding explanations.

But the authors didn't stop there. Knowledge is networked, and everything in the world has universal connections. Taking the seasons as an example, ancient poets often used fine pen and ink to depict the "four hours", which fixed the reader in the time and space that the poet wanted to express: the peach blossoms in early spring bloomed at Dali Temple, the thunderstorms in summer tore apart the sky, the falling wood Xiaoxiao made the poet sad in autumn, and the cold river fishing alone showed the unique tranquility of winter... Whether the world is chaotic or chaotic, the seasons still flow, which seems to reveal a hidden line behind those splendid verses, which is a theme that the book repeatedly touches on—the "flow" and "circulation" of matter shape everything we see.

The book mentions that we live on the earth, under the influence of the sun, there are day and night, four seasons, and under the influence of the moon is to know the synodic and tides. The matter above the earth begins to circulate under this "initial setting": the air flows on the surface of the earth according to the seasons and becomes a monsoon; the water in the sea becomes rain and falls on the ground, seeps into the ground, and then gathers from the ground and finally returns to the sea. The Jiangnan plum rain of "yellow plum season family rain" and the "north wind blowing off the horse's hiss" of the northern Saibei cold current are all products of this cycle. Even the most inconspicuous element, carbon, is flowing and changing, and it is sometimes an organic nutrient that "turns into spring mud to protect flowers", and sometimes it is an inorganic element that "cuts and burns charcoal in the South Mountain", which dominates the birth and death of sentient beings on the earth in the dark.

Sometimes, the scale of circulation transcends people's senses. The book describes the "Snowball Earth" of the Great Ice Age, during which the entire earth fell into a cold winter and its surface was covered with ice. The white earth becomes a vibrant green earth, which is related to the small molecules in the chloroplast. On the one hand, the sun, moon, and stars, which are millions of times larger than humans, and on the other hand, the basic laws of physics and chemistry that cannot even be seen by the naked eye, have jointly shaped the world in the eyes of the ancients and the present from both macroscopic and microscopic aspects.

Therefore, it is precisely by relying on the material cycle that the scenery we see can echo with the scenery written by the poet, so that we can empathize with the poet and give birth to the feeling that "today's people do not see the ancient time and the moon, and this month once looked at the ancients". I think this is the most "scientific" and "romantic" part of the book.

This book combines the rigor and interest of popular science reading with the artistry of literary reading, and can make people truly perceive the beauty and interest of science. Each article in the book is accompanied by elaborate illustrations, including detailed illustrations of scientific principles, which are more helpful for readers to understand and grasp. When reading this book, I felt that even dissecting these poems with a scientific "scalpel" would not affect the beauty of the poem, but would bring a rational romance to the poem. After reading the scroll, and then looking back at the spring flowers and autumn moon around me, I already had a different feeling.

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