(Associate Professor, Department of Ocean Science)
劉振鈞教授
（海洋科學系副教授）Prof. Stanley Lau earned his bachelor’s and PhD degrees from the HKUST. He is now an associate professor at the Department of Ocean Science.
劉振鈞教授於科大取得其學士及博士學位，現在為海洋科學 系副教授。
By Chih-yu Lee 李致宇
23 23 Whose thesis/scientific work would you like to
read? Could you please tell us more about the scientist and his/her work?
Prof. Gyu-Boong Jo:
Because I am a physicist, of course, I read papers and theses related to my field. However, before I started my academic career, I really loved to find some very old papers or those written by very famous people. I cannot point out only a single person, but, for example, I tried to read some articles written by Einstein, and Paul Dirac, a famous guy who developed the quantum theory in the old days. At that time, I couldn’t fully understand those papers and especially because some were written in German. Although there were English versions, I couldn’t fully understand the work. Nevertheless, it was still fascinating to find out how the quantum theory was conceived a hundred years ago. I really enjoy knowing how those people developed “new” concepts in the old days. If you just read the latest textbooks, they sometimes don’t explain that well what happened a hundred years ago about the same topic.
Prof. Stanley Lau:
I am an environmental microbiologist, and I am interested in water pollution issues. When the water is polluted by sewage, it will become a carrier of pathogens. People who are in contact with the water, either by drinking, swimming, or other recreational activities will have the chance of getting waterborne diseases.
The work that I really like to read about is John Snow’s because he was the first one who investigated the epidemiology of waterborne diseases. His research was conducted in the 19th century even before the germ theory of diseases was proposed in 1850 by Louis Pasteur. The germ theory of diseases states that we got diseases by the infection of microorganisms such as bacteria and virus. John Snow came up with the hypothesis that the main culprit of a massive cholera outbreak in London was the sewage contamination of groundwater. At that time, people thought that diseases are caused by breathing “bad air”, but they didn’t even know what were actually in the air. They thought it was something transmitted in the wind, but, obviously, it was something transmitted in the water. They didn’t have the knowledge of disease transmission and bacterial contamination of food or water, so this kind of ideas were really common, until John Snow’s investigation. Therefore, for a person working on water pollution and the microbiology of pollution, I really like to read about his work.
您希望閱讀哪位科學家的論文或著作？能否介紹一下這 位科學家及其研究？
曹圭鵬教授：
因為我是 一 個物理學家，我 通常閱讀與我 領域相關的 論文。但是在我開始我的學術生涯前，我十分喜愛找一些非常 舊，或是由知名的物理學家們所寫的論文。我很難只指出一個 人，但舉例說我會試著閱讀 Einstein（愛因斯坦）與另一名研 究量子理論的物理學家 Paul Dirac 的文章。當時，我無法完 全地理解那些文章，因為有些論文是以德文書寫的。就算是有 英文版本，我還是無法能夠完全了解透徹，但能得知物理學家 們如何在一百年前構想出量子理論還是非常吸引的。我真的享 受了解前人如何在當時發展出「新」概念。畢竟如果你只閱讀 現時的教科書，它們很多時都不會深入地闡釋一百年前在那個 課題上發生過的事情。
劉振鈞教授：
我是一 個環境 微 生物學家，而我對水污染的議題感 興 趣。當水被污水污染時，它便成為了病原體的載體。那些因 為飲用、游泳或進行其他休閒活動而接觸到污水的人便有機 會得到一些由水傳播的疾病。
我喜歡閱讀 John Snow 的作品，因為它是研究水媒病
（經水傳播的疾病）流行病學的第一人。它的研究在十九世紀 進行，甚至比在 1850 年由 Louis Pasteur 提出的「病菌說」
還要來得早。「病菌說」指出得到疾病的原因是因為受到微生 物（細菌或病毒等）感染。而 John Snow 提出的假說是指當時 在倫敦爆發霍亂原因是地下水受污水污染。在當時，人們認為 得到疾病的原因是因為呼吸到「壞的」空氣，然而他們卻甚至 不知道那空氣中實際上含有什麼。他們認為那是由風傳遞的，
但事實上它是藉由水來傳播的。他們沒有足夠關於疾病傳播及 細菌污染食物和水的知識，因此那種說法在當時十分普遍。因 此，身為一個研究水污染和與污染相關微生物學的科學家，我 真的喜歡閱讀他的作品。
23
with HKUST Scientists
Is there any particular experience in your childhood or other reasons that make you love science?
Prof. Gyu-Boong Jo:
There is no particular reason why I like science, especially physics. But I know that, at a certain point, I thought about the possibilities of studying different subjects, such as physics, mathematics, life science and chemistry. However, I knew that I don’t like that much about life science. It doesn’t explain why I like physics, but, generally, I really enjoyed the scientific process – defining some problems, trying to solve them and explain them in principles, rules and laws. I like the problem-solving process in physics and mathematics.
I don’t have a particular experience in childhood, but I remember I really liked to try to explain how things work in the world – that is probably why I like physics. Nevertheless, my motivation was quite simple – I just wanted to understand what’s going on in the world, and I tried to find the subjects that seems the best to answer my questions. It turned out that either math or physics fits well for my curiosity. In my case, I just keep pushing and doing in the field.
Prof. Stanley Lau:
There was not a particular experience. But I was always interested in breaking things at home. I was not breaking them for the sake of breaking but just curious about the inside and how it works. Sometimes I broke some relatively expensive things and got blamed by my father, but that never stopped me from being curious. When you were a kid, you were unable to ask fundamental scientific questions.
What you could do was to observe and find something that make you curious. The simplest question that you would have is how it works, which was always something coming to my mind, so I just broke things open to find the answer.
The curiosity was the main reason why I studied in science.
是否因為在童年時有特別的經歷，或其他原因令您愛上 科學？
曹圭鵬教授：
對我來說沒有特別的原因使我喜歡科學，尤其是物理。但 我知道我曾經在某個時候想過修習一些科目的可能性，像是物 理、數學、生命科學或化學。可是我發現我並不是那麼喜歡生命 科學。雖然這也沒有解釋為什麼我喜歡物理，但是一般來說，
我很喜歡整個科學過程：定義一些問題、試著解答並以定理、
規則及定律來解釋它們。我喜歡在物理和數學中解決問題的過 程。
雖然我童年時沒有什麼特別的經歷，但我記得我很喜歡嘗 試去解釋這世界是如何運轉的，這或許就是為什麼我喜歡物理 吧。儘管如此，我的動機還是挺簡單的：我只是想要明白這世界 發生著什麼，所以試著找一個最能解答我心裡問題的科目，最 終我發現只有物理和數學能夠滿足我的好奇心。在我來說，我 只是持續努力地推動及研究這些科目而已。
劉振鈞教授：
沒有一個特別的原因呢！可是我小時候一直以來都對於拆 解物件很有興趣。我不是為了破壞而拆解，而是好奇物體裡面 的構造以及它是如何運作的。有時，我會因為拆解了相對較貴 重的物品而受到父親責備，但這並沒有阻礙我對事物的好奇。
當你只是一個小孩的時候，你無法真的去問一些基礎的科學問 題，唯一你能做的只有觀察和找一些讓你好奇的事物。其中最 簡單你會想到的問題便是它是如何運作的，而這也是一個總是 在我腦中出現的問題，因此我會透過拆解物體來找出答案。那 份好奇心便是為什麼我會學習科學的主要原因呢！
Could you offer some advice to secondary school students who are interested in pursuing education in science?
Prof. Gyu-Boong Jo:
I know in Hong Kong, there are many students who are interested in science. But at the same time, I realized there are many other possibilities that they can take for their life.
My advice is that choosing the subject(s) in a particular stage (e.g. college) is important but that may not be your final destination. Eventually, it doesn’t matter what you studied in your secondary school or college, but it’s all about how you are educated and how you solve the problems you face in your field. Studying science is one of the good and efficient ways to train and educate yourselves that improves your problem-solving skills.
My advice is very simple: please do whatever you want, and if you find science interesting, please pursue your interest and push the limits of your skills. At the end, even if you find that you are more interested in other fields, you can easily move on.
Prof. Stanley Lau:
Don’t be afraid! It takes a lot of efforts because there are so many distractions around you. Don’t be afraid to sacrifice;
to study science, you have to sacrifice a lot of your time from other things. You need to be prepared for that and strike a good balance between different aspects of your life. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes too, which is a part of the journey.
If you are able to “make use” of the mistakes in a correct way, you would actually learn something so that the mistakes are the stepping stones to your success. That is all of my advice.
25