"How long do you spend each day online?" Hearing this question, Yuan Lanfeng grabbed his own sparse messy hair and gave the answer: "Almost all the time." After thinking about it, he added: "Not in class, preparing for class, giving interviews, that is on the Internet." ”
It's hard to imagine that this answer came from a researcher. Yuan Lanfeng, born in 1978, is an associate researcher at the Hefei National Laboratory for Microscale Physical Sciences of the University of Science and Technology of China, from the appearance point of view, Yuan Lanfeng conforms to people's imagination of some scientific researchers who do not trim the edges, and when interviewed by reporters at home, Yuan Lanfeng wore a pair of pajama pants, and his hair was as disheveled as ever.
However, Yuan Lanfeng's study exposed another side of him. The tripod stacked on the balcony is to facilitate the video team's interview and shooting; the bookshelf is placed with a large number of history, social science and natural science books, a set of beautifully packaged "Twenty-Four History Full Translation", the bookshelf is also the video background where he often appears; another video background for selection is a "wall of honor", trophies and awards In addition to institutions such as the China Association for Science and Technology, there are many platforms such as Weibo and Watermelon Video, and various honorary titles are praise for his fan base and network influence. This study is also a workshop that he specially decorated to shoot popular science videos.
Yuan Lanfeng's other identity is the so-called "Internet celebrity", to be precise, a well-known science communication worker on the Internet. As of now, his online followers have approached 10 million, and last year, he posted 110 long videos and 377 short videos on the Internet, on average, at least one short video per day. In 2021, his popular science monograph "Quantum Information Shorthand" was officially published and distributed by the University of Science and Technology of China Press, less than a year ago, has been printed 3 times, the first time printed 3,000 copies, the last two times each printed 5,000 copies. Similar professional academic books rarely sell 1,000 copies, and such a printed number is very rare.
For Yuan Lanfeng and his own affairs, there is another school of view on the Internet. Some people think that he is neither a researcher involved in quantum science experiments, nor works for these companies that are mainly engaged in quantum technology, but as a scientific researcher, he is keen on science popularization. If you combine it with his genius growth experience - after completing primary school and junior high school courses in two years, entering the Department of Chemical Physics of the University of Science and Technology of China at the age of 14, obtaining a doctorate in chemistry at the age of 23, conducting postdoctoral research at Cornell University and Princeton University in the United States, and returning to work at the University of Science and Technology of China at the age of 28... Many people inevitably issued a sigh of "hurting Zhongyong".
From a scientific researcher to an Internet celebrity, what has Yuan Lanfeng experienced? Why did you make that choice?
The pictures in the article are all provided by the interviewees.
From scientific research to popular science
At the end of last year, Yuan Lanfeng moved into his new home in the Hefei High-tech Zone. Along the subway, his home is near the Quantum Science Center Station and HKUST Pioneer Research Institute Station. Even the billboards at roadside bus stations are showing the "ambition" of this area: actively creating a source of quantum innovation technology around quantum communication, quantum computing, quantum precision measurement and other fields. The back door of his community is close to Yunfei Road, which also has another name - Quantum Avenue, because on this road there are more than 20 enterprises and related enterprises that are mainly engaged in quantum technology, such as Guodun Quantum, Guoyi Quantum, Origin Quantum, and Zhongchuang Quantum. It's about an hour's drive from the East Side of the University of Science and Technology in China, where Mr. Yuan works, but close to his long-standing "quantum information."
Last semester, Yuan Lanfeng did not have many classes in school, and the place that made him most consumed was Weibo, Zhihu, Douyin, Watermelon Video, Today's Headlines and other online platforms. Today, Yuan Lanfeng has a long-term video team, including five or six people including choreographers, cameras, business and so on. The basic process of the work is that Yuan Lanfeng saw a piece of news in science and technology, wrote it down, checked the information himself, asked experts, did a good job of research, wrote a popular science article, and posted it on the personal social platform; after a period of time, the topic was selected to accumulate several, and the special video shooting team went to his home to shoot the material; the material was packaged and sent to the post-production team, and the production was completed and sent on the short video platform.
Yuan Lanfeng is filming a popular science video.
The story of how Yuan Lanfeng embarked on the road of science popularization began in 2015. This year in the field of quantum information, there was a sensational big news, and the pan jianwei research group of the University of Science and Technology of China made a major breakthrough in quantum instantaneous transmission technology. Many reports have described the effect of this technology as similar to the teleportation technique in the movie "Star Trek". "The most common comment from readers is 'unconscious.'" Yuan Lanfeng had the idea of letting more people "figure it out". However, his area of expertise is not quantum information, but theory and computational chemistry, but the theoretical basis of this field is quantum mechanics, and he is familiar with quantum information. So, he found some information, and then chatted with Pan Jianwei's colleagues in the research group for half an hour on the phone, and wrote an article that he felt was a very "title party", called "Popular Science Quantum Instant Transmission Technology, Package You Know!" " posted on a personal Weibo. After the article was issued, the response was unexpected, when Yuan Lanfeng only had more than 8,000 fans, and the forwarding and comments were like a tide, so that he looked at the speed of forwarding, and once could not catch up with the speed of forwarding.
Friends around him encouraged him to continue writing, and even immediately someone asked him to talk about quantum information. "What are you asking me to do?" I'm not specifically studying this. Yuan Lanfeng felt strange. Later, I learned that the professional had been invited, and the biggest problem was that the audience did not understand it. He thought that he only knew a scale and a half claws on quantum information, in order to give a lecture, he had to go to the system to study it again, and read the classic textbook "Quantum Computing and Quantum Information" in this field within 1 month.
Yuan Lanfeng soon found that his interest in popular science was much greater than that of scientific research. He was a man of many subjects. He liked literature, and the enlightenment reading was "Journey to the West"; in terms of social sciences, the most influential ones on him were Confucius, Russell, Lu Xun and others; when he was admitted to university, he chose the Department of Chemistry and Physics of the University of Science and Technology of China because he liked mathematics, physics and chemistry at the same time, which was the only department in the country at that time that attached equal importance to mathematics, physics and chemistry. A British philosopher said that scholars are divided into two categories, the "fox" type and the "hedgehog" type, the fox knows many things, and the hedgehog knows a big thing. "In hindsight, I was a super big fox." Yuan Lanfeng said.
On August 16, 2016, China launched the world's first quantum science experimental satellite "Mozi". This led to a stronger public interest in quantum information, and many journalists approached him, and he wonderfully became an expert in quantum information in the eyes of the media.
Knowledge in the field of science tends to form a misunderstanding in social dissemination. Yuan Lanfeng realized this, that is, after the launch of the "Mozi". Some media reported that quantum cryptography is realized through quantum entanglement, but Yuan Lanfeng found out after communicating with front-line researchers of quantum information that this is not the case, and quantum cryptography can completely eliminate quantum entanglement, and only send one photon at a time.
"There is a lot of popular science content on the Internet, and what it says is wrong. If you don't correct it, if you don't tell everyone what is correct, the impact can be very large. Yuan Lanfeng said, "But this matter of popular science is originally very difficult to do, first of all, the science popularizer must have a scientific research level, know what it is, and then have a language level to spread the truth." "There should be a bridge between true science and the public, but it is often the case that scientists may lack a simple expression, and the communicators facing the public may lack accurate and profound understanding, resulting in this bridge, often broken there."
He wanted to be that bridge.
Anxiety about traffic
To become this bridge, Yuan Lanfeng is talented. In the interview, he relayed what the video collaboration team had to say about him: "A rare, network-aware scientist." "Although I don't know what net sense is." Yuan Lanfeng laughed at himself.
Yuan Lanfeng's Internet experience can be traced back to 1997, when he logged on to the Hanhai Nebula BBS of the University of Science and Technology of China and registered the account "Hu Bu Gui" - "Return to Xi, The Pastoral Will Not Return", the online name comes from Tao Yuanming's "Return to Xi Ci". Because he posted frequently and of high quality, and was fair in his dealings with people while "arguing", he was elected as the deputy webmaster. He loves to share ideas, and on his personal social platforms, he still maintains at least 3 posts a day, and the basic format is related comments with links to tech news. He also likes to read the comments of netizens, "As long as I have time, I will read a few more comments, so that I know what they are thinking, and I can answer them in the future." Yuan Lanfeng explained.
Even so, the contradiction between scientific research work and network traffic naturally exists.
One of Yuan Lanfeng's videos has been viewed more than 20 million times, but the video is only 48 seconds long and is not elaborate. It was his online live broadcast on a science day, talking about a short paragraph of "why there is a solid in the world", and the video production unit with which he cooperated intercepted it and put it on the Internet, and he did not expect it to become a "blockbuster". Yuan Lanfeng knows that his speed of speech is 300 words per minute, "The content of this video is less than 300 words, what can you say?" He asked rhetorically. He is more accustomed to producing long content, whether it is video or text, and sometimes speaks in front of the camera for half an hour or even longer. "A reporter used to say I was a short video producer, and I asked him, have you ever seen a short video for half an hour?" In 2018, the British mathematician Michael Atia proposed a "simple idea" to prove the Riemann hypothesis, which shook the mathematical community, which was proposed by the German mathematician Riemann in 1859 and has been plaguing the world for a century and a half. Yuan Lanfeng made great efforts to investigate, read a lot of materials, wrote out the content that he could understand and was worth disseminating to the public, filmed 6 episodes of long videos, and wrote more than 30,000 words in the manuscript prepared in advance. So well-crafted, but the number of plays is not high.
However, Yuan Lanfeng found that there are still people who benefit from it. After the 6 videos about the Riemann hypothesis were launched, one of his sisters who was an assistant professor at the Shanghai University of Science and Technology "specifically ran to me and told me that I didn't understand the Riemann conjecture at all before, and after watching my video, I now understand more than 99% of the people." Yuan Lanfeng was very happy, he thought about it carefully, and then defaulted to the object of his popular science as a professional who has a certain mastery and interest in science-related fields.
Yuan Lanfeng introduced his new book at the event.
In the fast-paced era, fewer people can afford to read long articles and watch long videos, and even fewer are willing to buy books to read. However, Yuan Lanfeng still published a book. The reason he gave was that quantum information is a very large field, and every article and video can only be said piecemeal. When the editor came to the manuscript, it was very urgent, only 2 weeks before the deadline, and the other party suggested that Yuan Lanfeng sort out the articles that had been written in recent years, and then make a little modification to publish it. Yuan Lanfeng thought about it and wrote a new one. "Books can tell everyone what each chapter is talking about according to the system, there is a logical relationship between each other, and how the knowledge in the book is arranged is very technical." Yuan Lanfeng said.
In the preface to this "Quantum Information Jane's Word", Yuan Lanfeng has given reading suggestions: if you can't understand it, please don't be discouraged, and skipping it completely will not affect your understanding of the context. From the order of the chapters, we can see Yuan Lanfeng's intentions. Ordinary textbooks usually talk about the principles of quantum mechanics first, but Yuan Lanfeng brings the relatively easy-to-understand quantum precision measurements to the front, and then talks about principles, quantum computing and quantum communication. The book also sets up optional reading content, which is more professional.
He could not predict who was watching his popular science works, and sometimes the effect was unexpected. A few days ago, he harvested a experience that he described as "very magical" - when participating in a youth science and technology innovation activity, a fifth-grade child in primary school asked him a question, asked a bunch of questions about quantum information, and asked very professionally, and the children said that they had read and understood "Quantum Information Jane".
Without an audience, it is certainly not good to do popular science. In order to cooperate with the law of transmission, Yuan Lanfeng is also trying to change. The language style of the article is different, from the initial formal content of the paper, it has become more and more colloquial; the video footage taken not only shortens the length, but also often uses the most popular "memes" on the Internet. However, he sometimes deliberately avoids the somewhat "hype" editing method, demanding that the video be gentle and polite, and often gives the production team advice on punctuation, such as using full-width symbols, and each mathematical operator must be spaced before and after.
In the world of traffic, Yuan Lanfeng still maintains the rigor of scientific researchers and the high requirements for quality. Fortunately, he has found a way to survive - the short video platform signed a 3-year agreement with him, and every year allocated a fixed amount of money to buy out the right to publish his popular science videos - which allows him not to worry too much about traffic.
Popular science became a profession
Putting all your energy into the cause of science popularization means that scientific research work has to be completely stalled.
If you look up the records of Yuan Lanfeng's papers, you will find that the most recent one was published in 2019, and he is one of several co-authors after the graduation of the doctoral students he tutored. To this day, Yuan Lanfeng's title still stays in "associate researcher". There are many people talking about this matter on the Internet, and some people question Yuan Lanfeng's scientific research ability. To this end, he personally answered a zhihu question: "How to view yuan Lanfeng, who was once a 'genius prodigy', and now he is only doing simple science popularization work?" ”
What should we think of "simple science popularization work"? As far as the general environment is concerned, people's contribution to science popularization work is not recognized. There are people in scientific research units who want to do science popularization, the leaders do not support, and arrange a lot of work that has nothing to do with science popularization to him; there are doctors working in hospitals who are ranked last in the year-end performance evaluation because they are enthusiastic about doing science popularization; and some people are talked about behind their colleagues because they are happy to do science popularization. In addition, in the market competition, the science popularization work is relatively "gold-absorbing" ability is not strong. Professional science popularizer Wang Jie, quit his job as a programmer, and a friend started a company, he used knowledge to pay, write popular science works, do radio programs, but because the popular science audience is relatively small, Wang Jie sold the best paid programs only sold 25,000 copies, while similar programs in the economic and psychological categories sold hundreds of thousands of copies at every turn.
Yuan Lanfeng gave a popular science lecture.
Yuan Lanfeng was more at ease with this. The University of Science and Technology of China has a very positive attitude towards his science popularization. The article he wrote, the leader saw that it was very good, and did not think that he was not doing the right thing. He opened a WeChat public account, wrote popular science articles on it, and the school also helped recruit students to be editors and work-study. The biggest support is the school's relatively relaxed assessment system for him, "it is not said that if you do not publish a paper this year, you will be fired." Yuan Lanfeng felt that this was very reasonable, "There are thousands of people in our school who have published papers, is it not the same as me?" ”
In the matter of science popularization, the University of Science and Technology of China has certain advantages. Founded in 2001, the Department of Science and Technology Communication of the University of Science and Technology of China is the first such department in China. Probably due to Yuan Lanfeng's "achievements" in related aspects, he served as the deputy director of the Department of Science and Technology Communication in 2021. The newly established Science Communication Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is located in the University of Science and Technology of China, with Yuan Lanfeng as deputy director.
Although he became a deputy director, in terms of professional titles, Yuan Lanfeng still failed to "turn positive". In the current system, neither scientific research institutions nor universities have full-time science popularization jobs. "We must maintain the seriousness of professional title qualifications, according to the current standards, whether it is to evaluate professors or researchers, mainly to look at scientific research achievements, most of my time in these years I have spent on science popularization, and indeed should not solve problems through this channel." Yuan Lanfeng explained. However, the dawn has emerged, and last year Beijing took the lead in introducing senior titles in science communication, and many regions are also advancing research.
"There is a little girl who has just been researched in the Department of Science and Technology Communication, transferred from the Department of Chemistry, filmed a popular science video in 2020, won the award of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Science and Technology, and she wants to become a popular science writer in the future." Yuan Lanfeng told reporters with great interest about his students. He has established a very important goal this year: before, it was just a single person to fight alone, and now, he hopes to cultivate more science popularization talents and build up the entire cause of science popularization. Although the Department of Science and Technology Communication is classified under the category of communication science when enrolling in graduate school, most of the students are liberal arts students of undergraduate science communication, and it takes great effort to learn the hard knowledge of science and technology.
Yuan Lanfeng said that his mentor at Cornell University in the United States, Professor Luo Ald Hoffman, is a Nobel Prize winner and a popular science writer. His popular science TV film "Chemical World" and the popular science book "Same and Different" are quite influential. Yuan Lanfeng remembers that at a group meeting, Professor Hoffman took out a slide with a certain chemical formula written on it and told everyone that someone had come to ask what the nature of this thing was. From the perspective of ordinary researchers, Yuan Lanfeng was very surprised, why should he ask this question, how could he ask such a question, why should he answer it? Subsequently, he saw Professor Hoffman drawing a picture on the blackboard and deducing the properties of the substance based on only a chemical formula.
"No matter how difficult the scientific truth is, it can be clearly explained to ordinary people." Yuan Lanfeng said.
The original manuscript of Jiefang Daily and Shangguan News is strictly prohibited from being reprinted without authorization
Author: Gong Zhiping, Chen Shuyi
WeChat Editor: Antong
Proofreader: Tynie