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Guide
The best way to cultivate the spirit of science is to learn science, use science, and study science, rather than replacing it with something superficial.
What is the spirit of science, the scientific method, and scientific education? What do you think if someone tells you that observing the grass and trees around you and summarizing scientific principles from daily life is the scientific method?
In fact, this view is at least too low, if not completely wrong. Because real scientific research is not at all what it does, it is based on a deep understanding of scientific theories and the careful design of scientific experiments. The best way to cultivate the spirit of science is to learn science, use science, and study science, rather than replacing it with something superficial.
I read a very enlightening article, "Ye Qisun and the Core Problems of Chinese Science Curriculum Reform", written by Professor Zhou Yong of the Institute of Curriculum and Teaching of East China Normal University. This article reviews an epic and arduous journey of how science education has taken root in China.
Most people probably don't realize how backward China was in the late Qing Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. When the Republic of China was founded in 1912, China's educational circles could not find a scientist who could get close to the frontiers of the West, and it was a scientific layman who developed science curricula and textbooks. The textbooks and popular science magazines they compile are not only unable to learn reliable scientific and technological application knowledge for domestic students, but also go astray. Therefore, this article said that the reform of China's science curriculum at that time was "not even accurate to find the track."
China's first science education group in the modern sense, called the "China Science Society", was founded in 1914 by Ren Hongjun (1886 - 1961), who was studying in cornell university chemistry department, Hu Shi (1891 - 1962) of the department of agriculture, Hu Mingfu (1891 - 1927) of the department of mathematics, and others. However, they are all undergraduates, so they cannot optimize the science curriculum from the frontiers of science. The plan for the reform of the science curriculum that they were able to come up with was only to change Li Hongzhang's emphasis on translating and studying scientific and technological application knowledge to "introducing the whole of scientific thought" and "to become the so-called great cause of ideological innovation." This seems to be an improvement over the previous one, but in fact, it is also a blind person who touches the elephant and does not understand the point.
For example, Hu Shi, as the most influential new education leader, also regarded the so-called "sorting out the country's history" with the free scientific method of "bold hypothesis and careful verification", as a "science" like "Newton's natural science", and called on the educational community to vigorously develop. Think about the revolution in quantum mechanics and general relativity in the West at that time, but we don't even know the frontier of others, how big the gap is!
Hu shi
Unable to do first-class basic natural science research, and can only talk about the general free scientific method, it is the mainstream trend of Chinese science curriculum reform that has emerged since 1917. In 1927, Ren Hongjun finally realized that this was not possible, and someone must actually lead the education community to make first-class mathematical, physical, and chemical basic natural science research. So he began to invite the education community to discuss finding "leadership talents" for China's science education. "He can not only have special problems himself and put forward research, but also point out the path of development for disciplines similar to him. He can use his knowledge and experience to sort out a clue to his research career in a short period of time, create an interstitial frame, and let others slowly do the work of the bottom. ”
Ren Hongjun
However, Ren Hongjun felt that at that time, China could not find such a leader in scientific education, and could only go to foreign countries to ask for it. It's just that it's "not easy to get there", because "when you come to China, you have absolutely no hope of working on your own, it is purely a sacrifice." What a bitter despair!
Yet here the wheels of history begin to turn. Ren Hongjun did not know that two years ago, in 1925, the mainland science education community had ushered in a leading talent, he was Ye Qisun (1898 - 1977), a world-class physics doctor.
Ye Qisun
In 1918, Ye Qisun was admitted to the Tsinghua Academy's Gengzi Indemnity to stay in the United States as a publicly funded student and entered the University of Chicago. In 1920, he entered Harvard University to study for a doctorate. He once specially sorted out what disciplines the 283 international students sent by Tsinghua from 1909 to 1916 were in order: 38 people in financial management, 31 people in chemical engineering, 29 people in literature, 28 people in civil engineering, 22 people in law and politics, only 4 people in astronomical arithmetic, and only 2 people in physics. It can be seen that the quality of science education in China is not high, because few people are willing to study basic science, resulting in the reform of science courses is often dominated by laymen. From this story, it can also be seen that Ye Qisun has long been determined to make up for the lack of basic science in China.
In 1921, Ye Qisun used X-ray methods to obtain the most accurate measurement of Planck's constant at that time, which was used by the international academic community for 16 years. In 1923, Ye Qisun obtained his doctorate from the study of the effect of high voltage on permeability. If he had stayed at Harvard, he might have won the Nobel Prize for his contributions to high-voltage physics along with his mentor, Percy Williams Bridgman (1882-1961). However, when studying at Tsinghua University, Ye Qisun once criticized many students for ignoring the "motherland providing students with huge sums of money" and not knowing "seeking the blessings of the motherland", so even if he could not continue his research after returning to China, Ye Qisun still chose to return in 1924 to serve the country.
Percy Williams Bridgman
After returning to China, Ye Qisun first worked at Southeast University and then left due to political struggles. Just in 1925, Tsinghua School launched a trial university, and Ye Qisun returned to Tsinghua to take charge of establishing the Department of Physics.
Ye Qisun formulated the policy of "heavy quality not weight", and the goal is to cultivate students into first-class scientific talents. Under such a goal, enrollment is difficult, the first class has only 4 students, the second class has only 2, and the third class has only 1. But the teachers are more difficult because the professor is only Ye Qisun. Ye Qisun only personally opened classes year by year, hoping to attract good students.
For example, Wang Ganchang originally studied chemistry, he was fascinated by Ye Qisun's general physics class, and changed physics under Mr. Ye's "follow the good temptation". Ye Qisun also took the time to give lectures to all students in the school. Ren Zhigong remembers that before he went to MIT for further study in 1926, he heard Ye Qisun give a speech, "predicting that 'wave dynamics' (a word that had never been heard at the time) would be the main driving force of theoretical physics in the future." Later, Schrödinger was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1933 for wave dynamics, and Ren Zhigong "often wondered how Ye Qisun could have foreseen the development of events so early." In fact, when Ye Qisun improved the experimental research of high-voltage physics and electromagnetic physics at Harvard, he was very clear about what new frontiers would be opened up if he continued to follow his innovative discoveries.
By 1928, the problem of teachers had finally dawned. Ye Qisun immediately found two world-class doctors of science to serve as professors, one was Wu Youxun, who was invited from Southeast University, and the other was Saben Dong, who had just returned from the United States.
In 1929, Wang Ganchang, Shi Shiyuan and other first students graduated and went to the University of Berlin, the University of Paris, and Princeton University to pursue doctoral studies, majoring in the most cutting-edge fields, such as radiation, atomic structure, and nuclear deformation. Previously, teaching assistant Zhao Zhongyao was also sent to the California Institute of Technology to pursue a doctorate. Since 1929, Zhou Peiyuan, Xiong Qinglai, Zhang Zigao, Ren Zhigong and other first-class doctors in physics, mathematics and chemistry have joined one after another. As a result, Ye Qisun was able to establish a college and various research institutes in 1929.
What is admirable is that Ye Qisun has not only the physics department of Tsinghua University in his heart, but also the physics cause of the whole country. In 1933, Shi Shiyuan returned from his studies in Paris, and Ye Qisun asked him to go to Peking University. Ye Qisun also took the initiative to "go hand in hand with Rao Yutai, who presided over the Peking University School of Science", and appointed Wu Youxun to "teach general physics" to Peking University students. In 1934, wang Ganchang returned from his studies in Germany, and Ye Qisun and Wu Youxun recommended him to support Shandong University, which was reorganized in 1932. Because Wang Ganchang was dissatisfied with the "expulsion of students from the anti-Japanese demonstrations" by Zhao Taiyou, president of Shandong University, he transferred to Zhejiang University to teach at the invitation of Zhu Kezhen in 1936. Wang Ganchang "stayed in Zhejiang for 14 years until the founding of New China." As a result, Zhejiang University has become an important town after the research and education of physics in China, and has trained outstanding physicists such as Cheng Kaijia, Qian Renyuan, Lü Min, and Hu Jimin.
Wang Ganchang
This series of stories is like "a spark that can burn the plains", which makes people tear up. The mainland was able to accomplish the feat of two bombs and one satellite in a short period of time thanks to the talent base laid by Mr. Ye Qisun and other predecessors. Only by understanding how backward we were in the first place can we realize what a great miracle this is.
However, we have two major regrets. First, the mainland has had a serious impact on Mr. Ye Qisun in many political movements, and this absurd history must not be repeated. Second, at present, the educational reform in many places has a tendency to change more and more backwards. Let's excerpt from professor Zhou Yong's original text:
The field of primary and secondary school science curriculum reform is also like in the past, the front-line leaders are often composed of scientific laymen, such as pedagogical experts or other experts, and even education market experts, so it is still easy to appear in the Ye Qisun era of primary and secondary school science curriculum reform trends and even movements, that is, first launch a set of different wording by the concept of children's center, free inquiry, scientific thought, scientific methods, problem solving and other concepts, and then design the primary and secondary school science curriculum into a variety of "children's life" science activities. Claiming that this will produce outstanding future scientists, they do not know that doing so may at most train children to scientifically understand and solve familiar daily life problems, rather than guiding children to understand the basic knowledge and experimental ability of the basic natural science itself.
Finally, not long ago, when I had a conversation with cao Zexian, my master uncle and researcher at the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, he said such a passage ("The lithography machine of the Chinese neck appeared in the Netherlands, and few people really know why |.) Technology Yuan Ren):
You will find that in fact, these specific things are probably the problems that we want to convey to the public what is the scientific spirit, and we cannot be vain. There are some people who are basically people who are nominally in the scientific community, but in fact, they have never done science in their lives, and then they go around telling the people, oh, we want to convey the spirit of science to you. You ask him what is the scientific spirit? He couldn't even give an example.
Cao Zexian
Now, do you understand what this means?
![Ye Qisun: He went to Tsinghua at the age of 13, became famous in the academic circles at the age of 23, and became a beggar in his later years[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)