Every Monday Mine - Black Tourmaline

When I was a child, I read an article in which the author studied an object called "Pixia" in Eileen Chang's novels.

This object first appeared in a prose called "Aunt's Quotations", saying that my aunt had sold a lot of jewelry, and there was only one piece of pink Phi Xia left. The author looked for a lot of allusions, and finally understood that Pixia is a kind of mineral.

At the end of this article, it is not clear what kind of mineral "Pixia" actually is. The author believes that perhaps Pixia simply refers to a "red gemstone", and in ancient China, gemstones were identified by color. There is no precise numerical value to define quality or anything.

But I personally feel that the so-called "Pixia" should be tourmaline.

Tourmaline is the name of tourmaline mixed with gemstones. The tourmaline family is very large, and its chemical formula is generally written as XY ₃ Z ₆ (T ₆ O ₁₈ )(BO ₃ ) ₃ V ₃ W. The "X, Y, Z, T, B, V, W" in the chemical formula may be composed of more than one chemical substance. Therefore, light can be divided into three groups according to the different elements in the X position: " Alkali metal tourmaline (X position is alkali metal, such as sodium, potassium, lithium, etc.) calcium tourmaline (X position is calcium), lattice vacancy (X position is vacant).”

Among them, the alkali metal tourmaline is the largest and most diverse. For example, the black tourmaline in the picture belongs to the iron tourmaline in the alkali metal tourmaline. This tourmaline is the most common type of tourmaline, accounting for about 95% of all tourmalines. The pale red "Phixia" mentioned in Zhang Ailing's aunt's quotations is presumed to be the most colorful lithium tourmaline that is most often used as a gemstone.

It wasn't until more than ten years later that I learned that it was Ye Qingcheng's "Piaxia Tracker".

And now, more than ten years after reading this article, I have my first tourmaline.

But what impressed me most about the article was his ending: "I told another friend about my research, and he listened to me very patiently, and asked, "Knowing this...is it useful?" "I was dumbfounded.

Of course it didn't work, but, knowing how happy it is. It was like eating a big peach with honey, so I squatted down and planted the peach pit in the soil. I wanted to know how the peach blossoms will bloom next year. There are a thousand chances that it will not grow and bear fruit, but there is also a chance that it will. This is the charm and expectation. The joy of life is that you don't have to do all the good things. "

Perhaps in this world, human beings are the most useless creatures. Use precious energy to develop a brain that cannot be used to escape for food and reproduce, and put this brain in a weak body that cannot lift its shoulders or legs.

But it is this brain that has developed the most splendid and spectacular civilization on the planet.