Academicians have published major achievements across borders, what do the academic circles think? | Image source: pixabay.com
Editor's Note
The classic of physics , The Maxwell Equation " , was expanded more than 100 years later? Recently, a "conference of important original achievements" held by the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Systems of the Chinese Academy of Sciences caused controversy. Around a paper published last year by Wang Zhonglin, director of the institute and foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, several scholars in the physics community pointed out three questions, and the Intellectuals sorted out the details of the controversy and sorted out the release. In addition, "Intellectuals" also received an exclusive written response from Wang Zhonglin, and the public account published two articles questioning and responding on the same day, giving science a space for contention. The more the truth is argued, the clearer it becomes.
Written by | intelligentsia
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Academicians cross-border publication of major achievements
In middle school, we all did this experiment: let a magnet pass through the coil, and the coil will produce an electric current. This is the most basic electromagnetics, which studies the interaction between electricity and magnetism. If electromagnetism is a edifice, maxwell's equations are its foundation. This system of equations, born in the 1860s, consists of four equations that describe the laws of electrostatic, magnetic, electromagnetic, and magnetoelectric.
Figure 1 Maxwell's equations | Image source[1]
Recently, a study led by Wang Zhonglin, a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has attracted domestic media attention. The study said it expanded the scope of application of Maxwell's equations, with reports[2] saying that it "laid the theoretical foundation for the electrodynamics of moving dielectrics", called it "an important contribution made by Chinese scientific research institutions to the innovation of classical physics basic theories", and has "huge potential application scenarios".
Group Photo 2 The press conference invited many media such as China Central Radio and Television Corporation, People's Daily, China Daily, China Science Daily, Beijing Daily, Beijing Radio and Television Station to carry out on-site reports[2]
The study was published in October 2021 [3] in the international academic journal Materials Today. On the afternoon of January 13, 2022, the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Systems of the Chinese Academy of Sciences held a press conference [2], inviting a number of government units and official media to attend, saying that Wang Zhonglin had successfully expanded Maxwell's equations after several years of research and experimental verification. Wang Zhonglin is the director and chief scientist of the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Systems, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Figure 3 Screenshot of the paper| literature[3]
However, as soon as the news was released, it was questioned by many parties.
The social platform knows the previous article about "How to evaluate Academician Wang Zhonglin's expansion of Maxwell's equations?" How valuable is it to the theory of physics? There were many skeptical voices under the topic, and one of the most praised answers clearly concluded that the expanded results were clearly wrong.
Figure 4 The paper was taken on social platforms to get a screenshot of the | web page
In response to the controversy of the paper, the digital physics professionals contacted by the Intellectuals generally gave two evaluations: some people pointed out that the application of Maxwell's equations in the moving medium has long been determined by the academic community, and the results are not the "important results" of the foundational formula; others point out that the derivations in the paper are wrong and the conclusions drawn are unreliable.
In addition, the controversy also involved Materials Today, which published the paper, which is reported to be an academic journal in the field of materials science, rather than a journal in the field of physics.
Points of controversy in the academic community
1
Does Maxwell's equations need to be "extended"?
The first sentence of the abstract of Wang Zhonglin's paper states, "Traditional Maxwell's equations apply to media with fixed boundaries and volumes. However, for cases involving moving media and time-dependent configurations, the equation must be extended. The subsequent derivations and conclusions of the paper have been developed from this point.
However, several experts in the fields of physics and materials science point out that this argument is inherently problematic.
"The electrodynamics of moving media is the problem that Einstein wanted to solve 117 years ago, and thinking and researching on this problem led to one of the greatest discoveries in the history of physics, the birth of special relativity," said Dai Xi, chair professor of the Department of Physics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. ”
Since then, scientists in the field of physics have also studied the application of electrodynamics of moving media in various systems, such as in 1976, the American physicists M. Lex and D.F. Nelson published a paper Maxwell equations in material form [5], carefully discussing Maxwell's equations in the problem of dielectric deformation. Theoretically, no matter what medium you are in, as long as you establish the constitutive relationship describing these media (Note: the constitutive relationship refers to the relationship between the physical quantities such as polarization and magnetization generated in the medium in electromagnetism and the strength of the electric and magnetic fields), and substitute it into Maxwell's equations, you can get the correct results, and there is no need to "expand" the equation system.
Dai Xi said that the flat motion discussed in Wang Zhonglin's paper is only a special case of the discussion in the above paper. Specifically, the translation of the rigid body is to keep the shape of the object unchanged, not deformed, not rotated, and moving straight.
In addition, in the 1984 textbook Continuous Dielectric Dynamics, which physics undergraduates are exposed to, there is a subsection devoted to this issue. "The applicability of equations to moving bodies is evident," writes a textbook written by the soviet physicist Lev Landau.
In fact, "a good college or graduate student, as long as he has read Landau's 'continuous dielectric electrodynamics', will not regard this thing as a great contribution, but only make some approximations to the generalization of Einstein's 'electrodynamics of moving body' medium." Sun Changpu, an academician and theoretical physicist at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said.
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Liu Wandong, Professor of the University of Science and Technology of China and Head of the Department of Modern Physics:
Looking at his (Wang Zhonglin)'s equation, it only divides the electric displacement vector into two parts, and the time partial differentiation becomes a full micro-quotient, which is just a natural result of putting the reference frame on the moving fluid element, so there is no theoretical contribution. This equation is the Maxwell medium equation in the moving medium reference frame, and there is no novelty.
Of course, refining the polarization model in the electrical displacement and considering the non-polarized part is more innovative for engineering applications, but that's about it.
Wang Zhonglin said his achievement was to expand Maxwell's equations. This expansion is natural, not innovative, much less innovative in the field of theoretical physics.
Dai Xi, Chair Professor, Department of Physics, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology:
Wang Zhonglin's article wants to solve the problem, the electrodynamics of the moving medium, is the problem that Einstein wanted to solve 117 years ago, and the thinking and research on this problem led to one of the greatest discoveries in the history of physics, the birth of special relativity. Teacher Wang Zhonglin is worthy of being a "world-class scientist" with a high starting point, but this problem has been completely solved by Einstein, and it does not need to be solved in theory, but when it is applied to various special material systems, it is indeed necessary to solve some problems in engineering calculation.
The electrodynamics of moving media have long been written into textbooks, such as in Landau and Lifshitz's "Continuum Electrodynamics" there is a special chapter on this issue. Later, in the 1970s and 1980s, with the rapid development of various technical fields such as optics, nano, and microwave, many new problems were raised for the application of motion dielectric electrodynamics in various systems, and the development of this research direction was also promoted. On this point, Wang Wenyu, a teacher at Beijing University of Technology, wrote a very good introduction article in Physics and Engineering in 2018, "Lorentz Covariate Electromagnetic Theory of Moving Medium", which is easy to find on WeChat.
Teacher Wang, who has achieved great success in the field of nanoscience, became interested in this problem, which was a good thing, but unfortunately he did it wrong. His problem is that he wants to make non-relativistic approximations of electrodynamics in a medium, which requires great care, because in this problem there is the motion of matter in the medium and the motion of the electromagnetic field, and the laws of motion of matter (such as the electrons and ions that make up the medium) have non-relativistic limits at low speeds, while the laws of motion of the electromagnetic field are always relativistic and must satisfy the Lorentz transform instead of the Galileo transform. Yesterday, I also read Wang Wenyu's article to thoroughly understand this. Teacher Wang Zhonglin's "Extended Maxwell Equations" is precisely obtained by making Galilean transformations of the real Maxwell equations, destroying the most basic principle of relativity, which cannot be correct.
The road of science is arduous, as long as people are not gods will make mistakes, this is nothing, what really bothers me is that no one can remind him of the Institute of NanoEnergy of the Chinese Academy of Sciences? Before such a big publicity was promoted to the public media, why didn't the Academy of Sciences consult the relevant units in the academy, such as the Institute of Theoretical Physics or the experts of the Institute of Physics? Without an effective error correction mechanism, how to ensure that the scientific research funds invested by the state every year are put into good use? These questions deserve the deep consideration of the management of the Academy of Sciences.
Finally, A little other impression, about many details of this issue, I have a more careful discussion with a few children on the knowledge, interested colleagues can go to see. In the discussion, a Princeton classmate broke through a sentence and grasped the key point very accurately, he just graduated from a domestic university (in order to protect him, hide the name of the school), non-clear non-north but electrodynamics is really learned, let me suddenly feel that the future is terrible, the future can be expected. At the same time, the review article of Teacher Wang Wenyu of Beijing University of Technology is also very clear, which is very helpful for me to understand this problem. Thanks to these lovely young people, I saw the hope of Chinese science.
2 Is there a problem with the derivation in the paper?
In addition to pointing out that the starting point of his research is wrong, other scholars have pointed out that the paper itself has problems in the derivation.
Yu Yue, former deputy director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and professor at Fudan University:
At the first sight of Academician Wang Zhonglin's extended Maxwell equation, my first feeling was that there was a problem. In fact, I saw at first glance that the third equation of the extended equation was wrong, and it was derived from the modern field theory of Maxwell's equation. The derivation of Maxwell's equations is divided into two parts, the dynamic equation and the topological constraint.
Specifically, starting from Wang Wen's comic propaganda map, equations 1 and 4 on the left side of the figure can be obtained from the corresponding equations of motion of the Abel Yang-Mills, and the coupling to the material field (including charged particles and dielectrics) is in these two equations. Equations 2 and 3 are identities, not derived from the Yang-Mills equation, but rather topological constraints that any gauge theory, including non-Abel Yang-Mills theory, satisfies, called the Bianchi identity. To modify equations 2 and 3, one can only be a topological object, which in electromagnetic theory is a magnetic monopole and its flow. Academician Wang's expansion is obviously not a magnetic monopole. I know that Academician Wang is wrong.
Figure 5 | Academician Wang Zhonglin published the paper illustration | Literature 3
But is there a more physical explanation? The reason for my physical understanding of the error was that it was only clearly seen in the WeChat group through discussions with peers, especially inspired by Professor Dai Xi and Professor Jin Xiaofeng. Daisy said that a Galileo transformation of Maxwell's equation would yield The King's extended equation. That's where the mistake lies. The Galileo transform is a non-relativistic approximation of the Lorentz transform when particles with rest mass are moving at low speeds, and applies to the laws of motion of the material field, including the medium, studied by Academician Wang. Maxwell's equations study the laws of motion of electromagnetic fields, and currents and charges are only introduced as exogenous sources. According to the principle of invariance of the speed of light, the electromagnetic field is certainly not a "low-speed" moving particle, nor does it have a stationary mass, and the Galilean transformation of Maxwell's equation destroys the relativity of the electromagnetic field. Moreover, using the medium as the reference frame for the motion of the electromagnetic field is not exactly the rebirth of the "ether" that Einstein abandoned in 1905? People who were struggling to find the aether also knew that the aether identity was "noble", not ordinary dongdong, but something else. Academician Wang said that the emperor will be a general, and ning has a kind of hu? Anyone can be Ether. It's ridiculous and tasteless. Stop there.
3 Scientists "cross-border" research, what do you need to pay attention to?
This is not wang Zhonglin's first "crossover" publication of Maxwell's equations. The Intellectuals search found that in addition to the paper presented at the press conference, earlier, Wang Zhonglin's similar paper On the first principle theory of nanogenerators from Maxwell's equations was also published in The Nano Energy [6]; Triboelectric Nanogenerator (TENG) — Sparking An Energy and Sensor Revolution was published in The March 2020 issue of Advanced Energy Material [7] et al.
Born in 1961 in Pucheng County, Shaanxi Province, Wang Zhonglin went to the University of Arizona in 1982 to study at the University of Arizona through the Sino-US Joint Physics Graduate Program (CUSPEA), and received his Ph.D. in physics in 1987. After two years of postdoctoral research at the State University of New York and the University of Cambridge, he began independent research in the field of nanoscience at oak ridge national laboratories in the United States,[8] and became an associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1995.
According to the official website of the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Systems of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wang Zhonglin's research group focuses on the research of applied foundations, functional devices and integrated systems such as piezoelectric/frictional nano-generators, friction motor theory and piezoelectric (opto)electronics, including nano-energy devices, quantum electronic devices, active micro-nano sensors, self-driven nano-devices and systems, and explores its applications in the fields of energy, sensor networks and human-computer interaction in the new era.
His pioneering work in materials science, especially in the field of nanoenergy, is known to Wang Zhonglin's academic community, he has won the Eni Award, the world's highest award in the field of energy, and became the first Chinese scientist to win the Albert Einstein World Science Prize in 2019, at the same time, he is also a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, an academician of the European Academy of Sciences, a foreign academician of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and a tenured professor of the Georgia Institute of Technology, and is also a well-known international journal in the field of nano energy, Nano Energy (Latest IF: 17.88) was the founding editor and current editor-in-chief.
Despite the high citation rate in the field of nanomaterials, Wang Zhonglin's practice of publishing papers related to basic physics in materials science journals has been questioned by peers, and some commentators believe that if it is an important physics progress, it is more common sense to publish in physics academic journals and be reviewed by physicists.
The practice of taking the lead in publicizing academic achievements through the mass media has also been hotly discussed. On January 13, the Beijing Institute of NanoEnergy and Systems of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with Wang Zhonglin as the director, held a "major original achievements conference", inviting many mass media such as China Central Radio and Television Corporation, People's Daily, China Daily, China Science Daily, Beijing Daily, Beijing Radio and Television Station to attend and report on the spot.
Professor of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering of a university in China:
Breakthroughs or major discoveries in physics are only qualified by physicists to comment on. The best place to publish this work is the Physical Review Letters, where the Nobel Prize in Physics has been published for the past 11 consecutive years.
Why don't you put your work that you think is important in a physics journal and publish it after rigorous peer review by the physics community? I've heard a lot about this kind of claimed breakthrough/expansion of physics over the years, but none of this work has been published in a physics journal. It is often published in a non-physical magazine, and then the author holds a press conference himself/ or publishes a manuscript in the self-media, claiming to have made a major breakthrough/expansion.
Sun Changpu, academician of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and theoretical physicist:
After the basic scientific research work is published in scientific journals, it should not claim its importance and major breakthroughs through media publicity, and it should not be tested by the academic community for a long time and recognized by many peers, and it is only academic style to rely on media communication to speak. In the past few years, some basic research work has only relied on CCTV and what media to say about a major breakthrough, so-and-so is the father of XXX, these practices are not uncommon, but they cannot stand in scientific norms! Today it is impossible to say that a breakthrough in Maxwell's equations is impossible. In order to be truly scientific, everyone should calm down and really do original innovation. In fact, there are not many opportunities to really make special original, particularly significant results, and you can't surpass Einstein for a while, surpass Heisenberg for a while, and surpass Maxwell for a while. I think it's an academic impetuousness. The angel particles that have been hyped up in recent years, and the artificial manipulation of data, are not what a serious academic community should do.
In 1953, the famous chemist Irving Langmuir proposed the idea of pseudoscience on such problems (Academician Hao Bolin, a professor at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, translated it as "pseudoscience"). This kind of thing usually happens to some of the more well-known scientists, he said, who usually do things outside of their field. Perhaps he was devout to science itself, but his personal will drove himself to some misunderstanding, wishful thinking that what he did was a major creation. However, without discussing and communicating with professional peers, and waiting for mainstream recognition, it is necessary to go through the media to publicize their achievements. There are many people in history, including great physicists like Heisenberg and Pauli, who in their later years made great unified theories, and this is also the case. For fake science, scientists who have made certain achievements in their own fields, if they lack scientific spirit, or even are driven by various interests, it is easy to take such a road of no return. Therefore, I think that successful scientists should pay more respect for the profession, especially the profession of others.
This time, the media release of a research institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on "Chinese scientists successfully expanding Maxwell's equation" is very unprofessional. I read the article and thought it was just a discussion of the Equations of Maxwell's equations in the medium, about the relationship between E and D, B and H in moving media. In the 1950s, Mr. Huang Kun, a famous physicist in mainland China, studied the correction of maxwell's equations in the medium from a microscopic point of view. In the 1970s, M. Lax had a more detailed systematic analysis. However, the release of "extensions" and "breakthroughs" does not cite these famous works, as if they did not know these. Major breakthroughs cannot be based on "ignorance."
Discussion
What do you think of the work of academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in expanding Maxwell's equations? What issues are you more concerned about this paper controversy and subsequent follow-up? Welcome to write to The Intellectual (Email: [email protected]) or leave a comment.
bibliography:
[1] https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2174943
[2]https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/AvCHUPaMXU3xF6WNZqmgLA
[3]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S136970212100359X
[4]https://www.zhihu.com/question/511590823
[5]https://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.13.1777
[6]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/22112855
[7]https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/aenm.202000137
[8]http://news.sohu.com/20091207/n268727637.shtml
[9]https://books.google.com/books?id=VyNYDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA306&lpg=PA306&dq=%E8%B5%9D%E7%A7%91%E5%AD%A6&source=bl&ots=yDMMIQjIKM&sig=ACfU3U36jDmllFlBHE-LF_Q8BFgH-jZoyg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiBjbavjjj1AhWzJDQIHUPKDGsQ6AF6BAgdEAM#v=onepage&q=%E8%B5%9D%E7%A7%91%E5%AD%A6&f=false
Plate editor| Lucas