Let’s get together
We’re hosting a new event, and we’d love to see you there. Join us for The Cloud Chamber of Chinese Poetry: Verses That Shape a Civilization, 20 August 2022 at 13:00.
A cloud chamber: a particle detector used for visualizing the passage of ionizing radiation
A Chinese poem: verses written within a delicate set of rules for evoking meanings and emotions
How could classic Chinese poetry be possibly related to modern-day subatomic particle physics?
Tim Clissold – the Cambridge physics graduate and successful businessman in China – has the answer. In his new book Cloud Chamber (published by The Commercial Press), Tim observes Chinese poetry, history and culture with his unique physicist’s eyes. Just as the quarks can only be inferred by watching the behaviour of their combinations, Chinese poetry cannot be fully understood unless studied in a wider context. Just as the movements of the short-lived particles eventually brought an endless time and space before our eyes, the tens of thousands of poems scattered in China’s long river of history has altogether become the defining art form that shapes the characteristics of the whole country’s civilization.
Selecting 70 poems mostly from the Tang and Song dynasties with his own original translations, Tim arranged them in six categories used to describe the six flavours of quarks, namely Up, Down, Strangeness, Charm, Beauty and Truth. This creative arrangement gives his poetry collection “new flavours” and a fresh interpretation.
Do the six flavours of quarks sound poetic to you? Perhaps it’s not a coincidence. Despite working in very different realms, physicists and poets could sometimes find commonalities in their own quests for the beauty of truth. Join Tim’s talk on his new book and discover how physics and the Chinese poetry meet and relate, and how this unique combination helps with our understanding of the Chinese culture.
About the speaker:
Tim Clissold studied Physics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University before moving to China and studying Mandarin Chinese. In the early 1990's, he co-founded a business that invented over four hundred million dollars in China. His first book, Mr. China, was called “an instant classic” by Time Magazine and was translated into 14 languages. He then co-founded a second business that originated carbon offsets in China and currently runs another involved in dispute resolution.
Register soon because space is limited.
We hope you’re able to join us!
Saturday, 20 August 2022 13:00
The Cloud Chamber of Chinese Poetry: Verses That Shape a Civilization