My elder brother Steve, in the absence of my father who died when I was six, gave me important lessons in values that helped me grow into an adult.

    For instance, Steve taught me to face the results of my behavior. Once when I returned in tears from a Saturday baseball game, it was Steve who took the time to ask me what happened. When I explained that my baseball had soared through Mrs. Holt's basement window, breaking the glass with a crash, Steve encouraged me to apologize to her. After all, I should have been playing in the park down Fifth Street and not in the path between buildings. Although my knees knocked as I explained to Mrs. Holt, I offered to pay for the window from my pocket money if she would return my ball. I also learned from Steve that personal property(财产) is a sacred thing. After I found a shiny silver pen in my fifth-grade classroom, I wanted to keep it, but Steve explained that it might be important to someone else in spite of the fact that it had little value. He reminded me of how much I'd hate to lose to someone else the small dog my father carved from a piece of cheap wood. I returned the pen to my teacher, Mrs. Davids, and still remembered the smell of her perfume as she patted me on the shoulder. Yet of all the instructions Steve gave me, his respect for life is the most vivid in my mind.

    When I was twelve, I killed an old brown sparrow in the yard with a BB gun. Excited with my skill, I screamed to Steve to come from the house to take a look. I shall never forget the way he stood for a long moment and stared at the bird on the ground. Then in a dead, quiet voice, he asked, “Did it hurt you first, Mark?” I didn't know what to answer. He continued with his eyes firm, “The only time you should even think of hurting a living thing is when it hurts you first. And then you think a long, long time.” I really felt terrible then, but that moment stands out as the most important lesson my brother taught me.

    On October 31st, 2009, Chinese famous scientist Qian Xuesen, died in Beijing when he was 98 years old. He is famous as “the country's father of space technology and king of rocketry”.

    Qian was born in 1911 in Hangzhou. He left for the United States after winning a scholarship to graduate school in 1936. He studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later at the California Institute of Technology.

    Qian began his career in the US and was regarded as one of the brightest minds in the new field of aeronautics（航空学) before returning to China in 1955.

    After he returned, Qian set up the first missile（导弹）and rocket research institute（学院) of China. The institute later helped start Chinese space program. He led the development of China's first nuclear-armed ballistic missile (弹道导弹) and worked on its first satellite.

    He retired in the year before Chinese manned space program was launched in 1992. But his research formed the basis（形成基础）for the Long March CZ -2F rocket that carried astronaut Yang Liwei into orbit in 2003.

    In August, 2009, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Qian and praised him for devoting his life to Chinese defense technologies. Qian told him, “I'm trying to live to be 100 years old”.

When I was nine years old, I loved to go fishing with my dad. But the only thing that wasn't very fun about it was that he could catch many fish while I couldn't catch anything. I usually got pretty upset and kept asking him why. He always answered, "Son, if you want to catch a fish, you have to think like a fish." I remember being even more upset then because, "I'm not a fish!" I didn't know how to think like a fish. Besides, I reasoned, how could what I think influence what a fish does?

    As I got a little older I began to understand what my dad really meant. So, I read some books on fish. And I even joined the local fishing club and started attending the monthly meetings. I learned that a fish is a cold-blooded animal and therefore is very sensitive to water temperature. That is why fish prefer shallow water to deep water because the former is warmer. Besides, water is usually warmer in direct sunlight than in the shade. Yet, fish don't have any eyelids(眼皮) and the sun hurts their eyes…The more I understood fish, the more I became effective at finding and catching them.

When I grew up and entered the business world, I remember hearing my first boss say, "We all need to think like salespeople." But it didn't completely make sense. My dad never once said, "If you want to catch a fish you need to think like a fisherman." What he said was, "You need to think like a fish." Years later, with great efforts to promote long-term services to people much older and richer than me, I gradually learned what we all need is to think more like customers. It is not an easy job. I will show you how in the following chapters.

    Bill Bowerman was a track coach. He wanted to help athletes run faster. So he had learned how to make running shoes. He had also started a shoe company with a friend. It was 1971. Running shoes at the time were heavy. They had spikes (鞋钉) on the sole (鞋底). The spikes tore up the track and slowed down runners.

    To make a lighter shoe, Bill tried the skins of fish. To make a better sole, he wanted to replace the spikes. Bill dug through his wife Barbara's jewelry box. He hoped to find a piece of jewelry with an interesting pattern. He would then copy the pattern onto the new soles. Nothing worked. Bill was defeated.

    Then, one Sunday morning, Barbara made Bill waffles (华夫饼) for breakfast. Bill watched her cook.

    He studied the criss-cross pattern on a waffle iron.

    Inspiration struck. The pattern on the waffle iron was just what Bill was looking for. The squares were flatter and wider than sharp spikes. The pattern would help the shoes hold any surface without tearing into it.

When Barbara left the house, Bill ran to his lab. He took the liquid chemicals that, when mixed, would harden into the sole of a shoe. He poured the mixture into the waffle iron—and the Waffle Trainer was born.

Bill's company put the Waffle Trainer on market in 1974. It was a huge hit. Maybe you've heard of that company—it's called Nike. And today it's worth around $100 billion.

It was the waffle iron that had changed the course of Bill's life—and helped turn Nike into a well-known name. Today, the waffle iron is kept at Nike headquarters. It serves as a reminder that if we keep trying, we can find a solution to even the most difficult problems. And those solutions can come from unlikely places, even the breakfast table.

    Donna Strickland is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Professor Strickland is one of the recipients(受领者) of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 with Gérard Mourou, her PhD supervisor at the time. They published this Nobel-winning research in 1985 when Strickland was a PhD student at the University of Rochester in New York state. Together they paved the way toward the most intense laser pulses ever created.

    Professor Donna Strickland is only the third woman ever to have won a Nobel Prize in physics. She and her fellow winners were honored for what the Nobel Committee called ground-breaking inventions in laser physics. Professor Strickland devised a way to use lasers as very precise drilling or cutting tools. Millions of eye operations are performed every year with these sharpest of laser beams.

    "How surprising do you think it is that you're the third woman to win this prize?"

"Well, that is surprising, isn't it? I think that's the story of Maria that people want to talk about — that why should it take 60 years? There are so many women out there doing fantastic research, so why does it take so long to get recognized?"

    Physics still has one of the largest gender gaps in science. One recent study concluded that at the current rates it would be more than two centuries until there were equal numbers of senior male and female researchers in the field.

    The last woman to win a physics Nobel was German-born Maria Goeppert-Mayer for her discoveries about the nuclei of atoms. Before that it was Marie Curie, who shared the 1903 prize with her husband, Pierre. This year's winners hope that breaking this half century hiatus will mean the focus in future will be on the research, rather than the gender of the researcher.

    Thirteen hours later we just arrived in Paris after many dramas (戏剧性事件).

    I rented a car, filled it up and moved ahead to Bristol airport that morning. We set off at 8:00 a.m. and all was going well until we got to the turn for Bristol airport. The airport sign (指示牌) suggested we went out from the M5, but Suri asked me to continue going straight ahead, so against my better judgment, I let the airport turn pass us by.

    Next we left for South Wales, the car was back and we had a plane to Paris to catch in a couple of hours. It was about then that I realized we were heading for Wales on a six­road highway. I felt very bad. We turned off the highway and turned into a country road, as directed by Suri and there was a sign saying that the road to the airport was closed. I saw a lady watering her garden and asked her about the best way to the airport. She said we were at least 30 minutes from the airport, but she couldn't help us with the right directions (方向).

    I was so worried as we really were out in the country without any guidance. All I could think of was to turn Suri off and follow the signs myself.

    Then finally after many butterflies in the stomach and feeling like my heart was going to burst (爆裂) out of my chest, there was a proper green sign to the airport and we followed it with so much joy.

    Driving from the airport into Paris was a shock, Lots of homeless people were sleeping under the highways with rubbish everywhere.

Anyway we're now in Paris. The experience of getting lost is now almost laughable. In another 24 hours will be my 50th birthday. I have a big party planned for myself in Paris.