topic:Anyone can make things bigger and more complex. What requires realeffort and courage is to move in the opposite diretion–in other words,tomake things as simple as possible.
To make things simple means to have the profound understanding of the wholematter,to discriminate between essence and peripherals,and ultimately torefine piles of information and phenomenon into principles. For instance,ifnot for the theory of relativity,Einstein would not been venerated by thewhole world. The simple fomulation “e=m(c^2)”looking so easy andunderstandable ,however,is the very core of the theory ofrelativity. See,for every scintific system and classic principles,tens ofthousands of information,data,caculation,and phenomena lies behidethem. Faced with piles of such things,the great scientists who devoteprecious time and labor pick up the essence and damp the others. Just likesifting gold from mountains of sand.
The gold is sifted principles and thesand is the phenomena, however,the process of systematical is never a easyjob. More surprising is that simplication even requires courage and patience aswell. At least three facts are involves. Firstly the diversifiedideas,phenomenon, information,data and presumptions all togother will be anightmare to one who attempts to work out something clear and logical. Secondly,not every one facing so many such things is confident enough togarantee ‘gold’ could be sifted out.
The more challege is that whoprepareto simply things are always in risk of total lose, because any newdiscovery conflicting their theory,once testified,will probally nullifytheir efforts. So,anyone who is will to devote to the process ofsimplification not only needs the talence,but also courage and patience. As we all know,to make things as simple as possible is veryimportant. However,it is not always the case. Sometimes we DO NEED to makethings bigger and more complex.
For instance,to build up a database incomputer,such as the national demographic database,it should be as thoroughand complete as possible. The bigger the database is,the more helpful willit be. At the same time,the design of the stuctrue of the database should beas simple as possible. The function of software developed to utilize thedatabase should be as complex and versatile as possible,since everyoperator would expect it to be as easy as possible to use. Every ramification of science and technology is similar to that procedureof the example above.
The first step is to accumulate as much observation aspossible with endeavors,and then with hard working of reasoning,maybeadding a little inspiration. Laws and rules are often found in this way. Soboth simplification and complexing are invovled in the process. The latteris also worthy attention.
To sum up,in this era of rapid development of industry and computer,so muchinformation rashes into our daily life,reseach field and so on. We shouldhave the ability of simplification. And the precondition lies in that wehave ability of complexing,which is the fundmental base of simplification.
