The other day, I came across a writing entitled "地球科學的革命者" in the recent issue of "建中校友會刊".
In that article, 劉玲根, a Taiwan Geophysicist/Mineralogist, shared his academic "心路歷程" and told the story about his discovery of "玲根石", or "Lingunite".
It reminds me of "建中高中四班".
Over half a century ago in Taiwan, there was a high school entrance examination called "高中聯考", which was the only single test conducted each year that would decide your fate and place you in a school according to your choice of priority.
And every year there was a so called "狀元班" at 建中. Our class "高一四班" was the one in the year of 1958, when we entered the high school.
Not surprisingly, the students graduated from this class have done quite well later in their lives. Among many of the outstanding achievers, "劉玲根" and "廖國男" have been well known internationally for their works and accomplishments in the field of Earth Science”.
劉玲根 paid his interest to the mysteries of the deep layers beneath the earth surface, the "deep interior". He discovered a new mineral there and he made a name for himself, "玲根石", officially "Lingunite" by the International Mineralogy Society. (see comment below)
Photo Image of K N Liou Homepage
廖國男 found his fun place in the airy layers and floating clouds surrounding the earth, and from there he had done his numerous research works on "Climate Modeling", "Green House Warming"……….. . Among the countless recognitions and awards he has received, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize bestowed upon the intergovernmental panel on climate change for his substantial contribution to the work of IPPC, 2007.
While Liou (廖) was 雲遊天際 doing his climate study, Liu (劉) 攢透十八層地殼 and found a precious rock.
I am proud of being one of their classmates, and one of the formal students in the 建中高中四班 class (1958-1961) as well.
Yeh Tze
"....... In 1974 a second high-pressure discovery revolutionized geologists’ understanding of deep-earth mineralogy when Lin-gun Liu of the Australian National University used a diamond-anvil cell to synthesize silicate perovskite, a dense form of the common mineral enstatite, MgSiO3. Subsequent studies by Liu revealed that many of the minerals believed to constitute the deep interior of the Earth transform to the perovskite structure at lower mantle conditions—an observation that led him to propose that silicate perovskite is the Earth’s most abundant mineral, perhaps accounting for more than half of the planet’s volume."
ReplyDelete(Encyclopaedia Britannica)