Did you know that Liu (劉/刘) is the 5th most common surname in the world? According to forebears.io, approximately 5.18 million people bear this surname; only Wang, Zhang, Li/Lee, and perhaps Patel are more common. “劉” is the family name of the Han Dynasty emperors, and over the course of the last two millennia many families adopted the name to gain an aura of respectability and authority. I am probably not related to anyone you know with the last name “Liu,” based solely on statistical possibilities. My Chinese name is 劉晰原, and everyone tells me that this is a weird name. I was born and raised in California by first-generation immigrants from mainland China, a long and interesting story if you ever want to ask me.

There are lots of other people named “Daniel Liu” in the world, and many of them can be found on the internet. Here are a few.

Above: Colloidal solutions of 0.005% gold, arrayed by particle size (from 2 nm in #0 to 150 nm in #6), with corresponding images as seen under the Zsigmondy-Siedentopf ultramicroscope. Richard Zsigmondy, Zur Erkenntnis der Kolloide: Über irreversible Hydrosole und Ultramikroskopie (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1905).