issue36 graduate06--Hamming组 自己的冲刺issue作业--第11篇

graduate06UID: 2223299

TOPIC: ISSUE36 - "The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries."
WORDS: 526          TIME: 45:00       DATE: 2007-1-26   错字：18
Outline:
1 在科学领域，确实需要后人来判定
2 在艺术领域，大多数不需要，但大人就可以
3 在政治领域，具体问题具体分析，但还是，当代就可以评价得多/

Admittedly, the statement has some merits in some cases. However, in different fields the situations are different. In the scientific area, the case just likes the statement asserted. However, in literature and arts, the statement is contrary with fact. And in politics, we should examine this problem case by case.

There is no denying the fact that in the sciences, the greatness of individuals can be decided only by the future generations. One telling example involves Fourier and his theory of series. In 1822, Fourier stated that any periodic function, no matter how complicated it is, can be represented with a sum of sines and cosines (we now call the sum a Fourier series). Now this is taken for granted, yet at the time it first appeared it was a revolutionary concept to which it took mathematicians over the world over a century to "adapt", and his ideas were met with skepticism for about one hundred years. Now Fourier series is an important and foundational theory of mathematics, physics and computer science. During the past century, especially the recent fifty years, many industries and academic disciplines such as digital signal and image processing flourished result from his ideas. From this example, we could see that the achievement of scientists cannot be decided by his contemporaries--only his latter generations.


However, in the contrary, the value of individuals in literature and arts indeed can be decided by the people who live with them. There are a lot of examples to support this viewpoint. For instance, Shakespeare's plays such as Hamlet and King Lear, not only won royal favor but enjoyed the public in his time. Beethoven became a famous composer and household man even during his lifetime. Leonardo da Vinci's paintings endeared him to the most people of his time. In short, the value of their works can be recognized by coevals, and these works have no need to be confirmed or reconfirmed in future.

In the field of politics, one's greatness can be recognized by their contemporaries in most cases, while in other cases it does not work. On the one hand, if a politician can lead his country from crisis to prosperity, from failure to success, no doubt the one is great. For example, Roosevelt helped the United States recovering from the Great Depression by adopting the New Deal and winning the Second World War, his greatness is recognizable immediately by his coevals. On the other hand, sometimes, the policy's effect cannot be proved in a short period time. For example, the planned economy of former Soviet Union, it accelerated economic development in the early time, yet, in the long run, it did much worse than good to the national economy. The contemporaries might regard Stalin, the policy-maker, as a great man because of his contribution of the planned economy. Actually, the policy was largely responsible for the collapse of Soviet Union.

Finally, the speaker's conclusion is applicable in the most cases of science and politics. However, the statement neglects in the field of literature and arts the value of the great works can be evaluated by coevals but not only by the future generations.

今天整理完这一类；

hugo010311UID: 2237388

总体很好，每段例子长度在平均一下。
加油！