地震和地震灾害是全世界共同关心的问题。 公元132年,东汉的张衡(公元78～139年)发明了世界上第一架地震仪——候风地动仪,用以测量地震发生的方位(图1)。这一测量本身包含着一个本质性的观念,即地震是沿一定方向从远处传来的地面震动。直到18世纪和19世 Earthquakes and earthquakes are issues of common concern throughout the world. In 132 AD, Zhang Heng (78--139 AD) of the Eastern Han Dynasty invented the seismograph, the first seismograph in the world, to measure the location of an earthquake (Figure 1). This measurement itself contains an essential conception that earthquakes are ground vibrations transmitted from afar in a certain direction. Until the eighteenth and nineteenth