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Issue36
539 words
------题目------
The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries.
------正文------
The greatness of individuals is highly affected by the way of people's consideration toward it. In the history, some individuals' greatness was immediately recognized by the comporaries, while some were not fortunately enough to be recognized in a short time, but was highly phraised by those who live after them. Therefore, I disagree with the speaker on the claim that only those who live after the great individuals can decide the greatness of them.
Whether an individual' greatness can be recognized by his or her contemporaries or those who live after them, is decided by limitation of the knowledge at that time and people's ability to receive it. Fortunately, Newton's achievement like, theory of gravitation, discovery of calculus, and so forth, are accepted and he was highly phraised in his time. While some scientists' greatness are hiddened in their time, but finally deserve their value for a long time. The famous subject--Quaternions in discrete mathematics put up by Hamilton, was not reputably commended by people in his time. Not everyone found Hamilton's quaternions the answer to everything they had been looking for. Thomson even wrote that:"Quaternions came from Hamilton after his really good work had been done, and though beautifully ingenious, have been an unmixed evil to those who have touched them in any way.
In addition, the art an individual has created whether can be appreciated by contemporaries was often limited by the angle people used to see it. As we know, many artists have already well-known in their life, like Vinci, whose famous art is "Mona Lisa", Michelangelo, whose famous structure is David, and so forth. However, there still some artists not recognized by their contemporaries, but well known to those who live after them. The best example is Van Gogh. In his life, nobody has appraised his work, and even received taunt from people. During his time, he had just sold only one work. It is because nobody in his time are able to see his work in an new angle. But his works are finally highly exalted by people afterward, and also set a new notion to describe the elite of Van Gogh's art--Synthetism.
Besides these two aspects, sometimes, the greatness of individuals often suppressed by the governors in their time. As we all known, Copernicus' heliocentric theory was heavily suppressed by the monarchs to maintain their authority. Similarly, Turing's greatness to the foundation of computer science was concealed by the government in his time. His unique status in Anglo-American secret communication work meant that there were pressures on him of which his contemporaries were unaware. To keep the secrets, governors confined him to publish his work. As a result, much of Turing's work was not published in the formal sense of appearance in a scientific journal in his days. And nobody in his times, knowed what greatness he had done, may even few knowed there was such an excellent scientist in their time. So government, more or less affect the greatness of individuals.
Therefore, the factors to discovery the greatness of individuals are various, like limited knowledge in a time, contemparies' ability on understanding or angles toward them, the restriction from government to them and so forth. Not just comtemporaries or those who live after them can decide these greatness.
[ 本帖最后由 ChunyanLi2005 于 2006-2-14 22:33 编辑 ] |
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