If we want cultural self -confidence in China, we must first have scientific confidence

China has an excellent traditional culture. Why is there no strong scientific self -confidence? One of the important reasons is because of some key technologies. In fact, when we are studying basic science, we don't have to ask "value is not worth it" ...

Produced: Gezhi Tao Dao Dao Dao Dao Tao

The following is a lecture record for Zhang Shuangnan, a researcher at the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

I am Zhang Shuangnan, from the Institute of High -Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and I am an old friend of the Study Seminar. The topic brought to you today is "Cultural Confidence Requires Scientific Confidence". We need strong scientific self -confidence, and this is based on our ability to make important contributions to basic research.

Why is there no Chinese scientist in textbooks?

This story starts from an interview in 2012. At that time, when I returned to work in China from the United States for 10 years, a reporter from the American "Science" magazine gave me an exclusive interview. Of course, in accordance with our management regulations, foreign media interviews need to be reported in advance, and the interview outline must be given to us in advance, and then he interviews according to the outline of this interview.

At the end of the interview, he said: Teacher Zhang, I have a problem, but it is not on the interview outline, and I remembered during the interview. But if possible, I hope you can give me an answer. The question he asked was: I have investigated the relevant situation before I come to interview you. I learned that when you were in the United States, you were already a university professor, and it was also worry -free. I was strange to see these things when you returned to China. Why did you decide to return to China? It seems that what is done after coming back is very different from abroad?

The answer I gave him was: Even if this question is not on the outline of the interview, it belongs to the question of "not talking about martial arts", but I am also willing to give you a reply.

I said good, I was a professor at a foreign university, and then I had to teach lessons. The teaching materials had to be written. Of course, the textbook was written by foreigners. I found that in the textbook I used, almost all important scientific discovery of the following names belonged to foreigners; even if there were individual Chinese, they made such scientific discoveries in the United States or Europe. In other words, in my textbooks, there is no scientific knowledge that we have produced in China.

I said that it was a huge shock for me at the time. Because as a Chinese, before going abroad, I was deeply proud of the 5,000 -year -old civilization history in my country, and I was very culturally confident. After going abroad, I found that I had been from childhood to childhood, from my graduate student to my teachings, and the scientific knowledge in the textbooks did not come from China. This was a very shocking and exciting for me. So I said: I and many of our generations want to return to China, maybe we can change this situation in the future.

I said "these scientific knowledge is not from China". In fact, some people have studied it. It is called "Lee Joseph's problem". Joseph Joseph is an expert in science and technology history in the UK. He specializes in research on Chinese science and technology and has sufficient research. He wrote a book about the history of Chinese science and technology, and finally raised a question: ancient Chinese culture and technology were once very developed, and many aspects exceeded the West. However, why did not produce what we learned and used today Modern science and technology? This is the same as the "knowledge in the textbook" I mentioned earlier.

"Is it worried about the sky" ridiculous?

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Why is this? Let's see how we Chinese people think of nature in ancient times, what we think of things we think are scientific today.

Everyone knows that such a fable story may not happen real, called "Qi people worry about the sky". Qi Guo is alone, worrying about whether the sky will fall, whether the ground will be trapped, and the stars in the sky will fall down and hit us. He thought about these problems every day, so that he had depression, could not eat well, and could not sleep well, so the expression on his face was like the "blue thin shiitake mushroom" displayed on this picture.

He has a friend who is a psychological counselor in today's words. After knowing that he has depression, he comes to enlighten, saying why you worry about the stars in the sky falling? Will the air fall? You see you walk freely in the air all day, nothing. What are you worried about these things? What are you worried about what is doing in heaven?

Then the Qi people said, so don't worry if you don't worry, how can you explain it? Friends said, if you stomach hard, you will find that this place is very strong. Why do you worry about it? Don't think about these things that are not marginal and separate from reality. As soon as the old man heard it, I would understand that you said this.

From then on, the story of "Qi Ren worry about heaven" has been passed down in our culture. Today we use "Qi people to worry about the sky" to describe people like me: doing something that does not seem to be practical, has nothing to do with life, nothing is useful to be useless, nothing is useful Things are worried about those distant and unbound things.

This is our attitude towards nature, so we Chinese do not seriously think about it. In fact, there is a deep scientific significance behind the "worrying of the sky". Why won't the stars fall? Why won't the atmosphere be smashed? Why won't land fall? If we seriously think about these issues and ask the truth behind them, then it can develop very well science, but we did not do it.

▲ Left: Ptolemy 90-168 Earth Heart-In this round: Copernicus 1473-1543 said

Right: Cair Popler 1571-1630 three laws

Since ancient times, people have thought about the same problem, and Westerners have been worried about thinking: Why don't the stars fall from the sky? Why do some celestial bodies seem to move around the earth, and some people say they are moving around the sun? Such thoughts made Po Toli realize that the earliest geocelling might have some problems, so he amended the formation of the round.

This round is very accurate and can describe the movement of celestial bodies in the solar system, which is very good. However, Copernicus felt that the doctrine was too complicated and did not meet his understanding of nature. He believes that the theory of science should be more concise, so he puts forward the heart.

Capeler believed that the Hexin said, but he found that the news and observation data did not correspond well, so he proposed the three laws of Cairple. However, Cairpler does not understand why the operation of the celestial body follows the laws of Capeler. In other words, he still doesn't understand why the stars will not fall.

▲ Left: Galileo 1564-1642 astronomical telescope

Right: Newton 1643-1727 Modern Science

Then Galileo invented the astronomical telescope and carefully observed it. He finally proved that Ri Xin said that it was correct, and the earth heart was wrong. However, Galileo still doesn't understand why celestial bodies exercise like this.

Until Newton, as a master, combined the awareness of the former person with his innovation, and proposed Newton's three laws and the laws of gravity.

At this time, people finally understood: why the stars are not falling, why the atmosphere does not collapse, why the earth is so solid, it will not crack, and it will not be trapped -understanding these issues, we have modern science. Therefore, Westerners look up at the starry sky to bring us modern science, that is, the scientific knowledge we learn in textbooks.

With modern science, what did it bring to us? At that time, Newton was good, Galileo, or Copernicus. Studying these questions was to understand why the celestial bodies moved like this. However, with such science, there is a scientific revolution; with the scientific revolution, according to these scientific principles, it has created very powerful machines and has the industrial revolution; after the industrial revolution, the economy develops rapidly, and then the economy develops rapidly, and it will develop rapidly, and then develop rapidly. With capitalism.

The developed countries in the world today or power are the products of this era. During the western development of the scientific revolution, we were victims. With two opium wars, then China entered the era of semi -colonial and semi -feudal society, and it was almost dead.

Look at our neighbors Japan. At that time, Japan realized the importance of science and technology, with the Meiji Restoration, and then there was an industrial revolution, which made its military power very developed and arising from militarism. This directly brought disasters to China, brought us the Sino -Japanese War, and then there was a War of Resistance Against Japan. Until modern times, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, we started the process of national rejuvenation.

So we can see that the impact of the scientific revolution on the West is completely different from Japan and the impact on China. It can be said that in that era, we were victims of the scientific and technological revolution brought about by basic research results.

Do we have cultural confidence?

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Let's look back at the relationship between ancient civilization and modern civilization. Here I explain four pictures.

This one in the upper left corner is an ancient civilization, everyone knows at a glance. Today we have high -speed rail and planes. With mobile phones, astronomers have also observed photos of black holes. We even have a special new form like Yuan Universe. Perhaps it is called social concept. When it comes to the difference between ancient civilization and modern civilization, I think the main difference is the productivity brought about by the development of science and technology and the progress of human understanding of nature.

Especially for us Chinese, this is very obvious. We Chinese can still read ancient words today. We also like Tang poetry and Song poetry very much. However, our reading tools have changed, and we have changed these civilization methods. Therefore, modern civilization is mainly scientific and technological civilization. Of course, our current civilization has both the traditional civilization and the part of modern civilization, but the modern civilization is mainly scientific and technological civilization.

We have advanced technology today. Where did this advanced technology come from? Taking our studio as an example, there are many advanced technologies in this venue. It can be said that all advanced technologies are based on basic research that seemed useless yesterday. Based on yesterday's mechanics, quantum mechanics, and information technology, all these yesterday created us today. This is the role of basic research on human civilization and the role of modern civilization. All the technologies used by modern civilization come from basic research.

Next, talk about cultural self -confidence. I mentioned earlier that when I was a professor at American universities, my cultural confidence was shaken because I saw the names of foreigners in the textbooks. So at that time I had realized that if we want to have solid cultural self -confidence, we need scientific confidence.

Cultural self -confidence is very important for a country and a nation. It is the soul of a nation. What does cultural self -confidence include? I just said that modern civilization is mainly scientific and technological civilization, and modern culture is mainly science and technology culture. Then our cultural self -confidence must include scientific self -confidence and technical self -confidence. Simply put, it is technology self -confidence. There is another very simple relationship between scientific self -confidence and technical self -confidence: Since science is the foundation of technology, science confidence is the basis of science and technology self -confidence. Therefore, scientific self -confidence is the foundation, and technical self -confidence is a manifestation. It is technology, but the foundation behind is science.

However, the ultimate goal is that we must have true cultural self -confidence. This is the soul of a nation and a country. So I said that our most fundamental cultural self -confidence requires science and self -confidence.

Do we have cultural confidence today? Look at a simple example.

The above is the name of high -end real estate in a third -tier city. This is what I have experienced in person. If you want to buy a good house, you can see that those real estate or community names are all: Spanish town, blue sky British town, Vienna Garden, Tangning Street, Luofu Palace, Paris XXX,, XXX, Paris, XXX, Paris, XXX,,, XXX, Paris, XXX,,, XXX, Paris,, XXX, Paris, XXX,,, XXX, Paris, XXX,,, XXX, Paris London XXX and the like, we can't see a name of our Chinese native. The high -end communities you are pursuing are named after the West, that is, the best name we think. After living here, what cultural confidence do you have?

In our language, there are words such as foreign fires, houses, cars, foreign wines, foreign wines, dresses, and foreigners. All these "foreign" characters represent high level in our opinion. Of course, there are "foreign spirit", especially in my hometown. The highest level we praise for anything is "foreign spirit." If you say "foreign spirit", it is very good, and it feels like it is completely out of reach.

We especially care about the evaluation of us foreigners. When the foreigner said with a word of praise, we are ecstatic, headlines on major media, all places to broadcast. When the foreigner criticized, we immediately became angry, and all kinds of counterattack came. If there is such a situation, where is there any confidence? Real self -confidence is a broad mind. You evaluate me, I haha, whether it is praise or criticizing me, I say "thank you", so far.

This is true self -confidence, but we don't have this self -confidence today. We think that our traditional culture is very good. However, in history, during the Opium War, some people couldn't wait to destroy all our ancestors' things in the later May 4th movement. At that time, there was no self -confidence in traditional culture, let alone the self -confidence of modern culture.

Why is we lacking in cultural self -confidence? Let me show you another example.

Everyone looked at this stock, and suddenly fell sharply on April 16, 2018. What happened that day? The US Department of Commerce announced sanctions against ZTE, and ZTE's stocks fell. After that, such examples frequently occurred, the reason is very simple: the sciences we learned from childhood to Da have come from the West, so it is easy to be "stuck neck". In this case, where is the confidence? Therefore, if we want to be confident, we must fundamentally solve these problems.

My "envy, jealousy and hate"

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However, our culture is full of science. Also give you an example, we have risen all the good, reasonable, and reasonable aspects we think. For example, we say that this will be very scientific; we eat and chat at noon today, and talk very scientificly; this matter is very scientific and scientific.

But can we translate these things into English "It is very scientific"? cannot. Obviously, these "science" we are talking about and the "science" we know are not the same thing, so our knowledge of science is distorted. We see all the knowledge say that we are scientific science, and we even think that our ancestors' things are very scientific, although there are no such in our scientific textbooks.

We also support foreigners to do science, and I also give an example.

For example, not long ago, the American James Weber telescope launch. On that day and after a period of time, the news about the launch of the Weber telescope was completely swiped. This was what I found on Baidu, with about 30 million. After a few days, I wrote an article. I said that everyone was launching cheers for Weber, but I was stimulated.

Let's share what I am stimulated. Simply put, "envy and jealous."

I envy them to explore the mystery of the universe. The universe knowledge and all modern knowledge we know today comes from the exploration of Western astronomers. This is a large part of our culture, and they continue to explore. So this will further enhance their cultural self -confidence and make us even more envious.

I am too jealous. The development of Weber telescope has gone through 25 years, and the budget has increased by 20 times. It has disappeared from multiple presidents and directors, and has hosted countless questions and oppositions. I am very jealous of their culture and can allow them to do such things.

Of course, if it was not for the United States' sanctions, restrictions and suppression on our China, we would have the opportunity to participate in such humans to explore the universe plan. However, we can't do it, I can only look at it, so I also hate the United States' blockade, restrictions, and suppression of our Chinese -this hate is endless until China leads. When is the lead? Until our basic science can give us cultural confidence. I later wrote: Everyone praised the beautiful photos of Weber, but I felt very sour. Why do you feel sour? Weber telescope costs 10 billion US dollars and 60 billion yuan. What is the use of building this thing? I'm afraid I can't even do the weather. However, the Americans did not ask these questions and did it. Because humans need to explore the universe, they represent human exploration of the universe. He has this cultural self -confidence: We can understand the universe on behalf of humans and let all humans enjoy, appreciate, and understand the universe. This cultural confidence makes me feel sour, I don't think we have.

From the relationship between scientific and self -confidence and cultural self -confidence, we can see that Americans feel that they are for granted on behalf of humans, because the knowledge in textbooks is made in Europe and Americans. And we also feel that Americans represent the universe on behalf of humans, because they have always done that. The textbook we read is the knowledge of others, and when we want to do it ourselves, we must answer what the actual use of these things is to do, and it is not worth the money to spend these money.

Why is this? I want to ask. It's simple, they and we both are used to creating knowledge from them. Basic studies are done by them, the most beautiful cosmic photos are taken by them, and the most important scientific progress is what they have achieved. We have been studying, appreciating, and applied science, but we don't seem to think that we should do it in textbooks to create science, discover science, and write knowledge.

Therefore, less scientific and self -confidence is difficult to have cultural confidence. They are accustomed to their self -confidence, and they should be confident when they are used to them.

How to get scientific self -confidence?

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Finally, how to establish scientific self -confidence? The core competitiveness of the country must rely on basic scientific research. Only the foundation is solid to the original innovation, and there is a world -class achievement. Only when we achieved world -class achievements, only the knowledge in textbooks was discovered by the Chinese and we wrote it. At this time, we have scientific confidence. Therefore, I said that only by doing scientific research and doing our own scientific research and their basic scientific research can we bring us scientific confidence.

I am very honored, and I also participated in the basic research of our country. I am very proud of our country in recent years, especially after the reform and opening up, have done many important basic scientific research.

The General Secretary mentioned the "Huiyan" satellite to travel space in the 2018 New Year's congratulatory word. The "Huiyan" astronomical satellite was developed and launched by the team of the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Of course, there are not only the "wisdom" satellite, but we also have "Tianyan" -the the largest radio telescope in the world. So far, it has achieved a lot of important scientific achievements. Even if I did not participate in the scientific research of "Sky Eye", I was proud of the scientific achievements of "Sky Eye". Here I feel cultural self -confidence.

We also have "Mozi", "Goku", "Zhu Rong" and "China Space Station", all of which will strengthen our scientific confidence. The establishment of Chinese science and self -confidence will definitely bring us modern cultural self -confidence.

thank you all!

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