Last week, the 2022 Nobel Prize in Natural Science was announced. Several Nobel Prize in Physics winners this year caused a great sensation in the Chinese academic community. One important reason is that they have close ties with Chinese scientists.
After learning that the French quantum physicist Alain Aspect won the award, Chang Hong, a researcher at the National Timer Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was very excited. As Asper's first Chinese postgraduate, Chang Hong, like many scientists in the academic circle more than ten years ago, hoped that Asper would one day win the Nobel Prize for .
's pure love and pursuit of science
"As one of the most respected scientists in the fields of quantum optics and cold atomic physics, Aspe won the Nobel Prize is a consensus in the academic circle. He had already made a world-sensation experiment in his 30s, verified the Bell inequality , and the experiment verified the basic principles of quantum mechanics . I was also very fortunate to join Aspe's laboratory more than ten years ago and became his first Chinese postdoctoral fellow." Chang Hong said in an exclusive interview with the First Financial reporter.
Chang Hong recalled that in 2005 Aspe came to China to attend the International Conference on Quantum Optics. It was also after that conference that Chang Hong went to the Institute of Optics, the National Research Center of France, to work as a postdoctoral fellow, and learned the knowledge of cold atoms there. Chang Hong returned to China in 2007 and has been working at National Timer Center , conducting basic research on optical atomic clocks.
The deepest impression that Aspe gave Chang Hong was his passion for science, and he himself was deeply infected by this passion. "Before I went to France to study in 2005, I didn't know what world-class research was. Until I joined Aspe's laboratory and came into contact with scientists from all over the world. I was moved by their pure love and pursuit of science, and I also learned to reflect on the world and cultivate an interest in pure science." Chang Hong told the First Financial reporter.
According to Chang Hong, Aspe's research group is a very diverse and highly international team, including Dutch , Italians, and French. After joining, he became the first Chinese in the team. "Aspe's research team has 4 or 5 laboratories. Although he was already very famous at the time, he had a lot of social affairs and had to give lectures around the world, every week he would attend regular meetings and ask us some very detailed academic questions. I think he is not only a very pure scientist, but also a good team manager, who can make good use of world-class talents." Chang Hong told the First Financial reporter.
In addition to receiving academic guidance from Aspe, Chang Hong is also influenced by his enthusiastic and extroverted personality charm. Aspe has a signature mustache, which looks very much like the character in "HTM1 Three Musketeers" written by Dumas . He speaks in a southern Gasco accent, and he is also a proud "Dixin God".
"Aspe is a very typical Frenchman, very talkative, good at expressing his views on various things. He also invited students to visit his home. He loves red wine and can taste the aged red wine he collected every time." Chang Hong recalled.
"If everything is destined, why do you still need a physicist?"
After returning from studying, Chang Hong was introduced to the National Timer Center from " 100 People Plan " of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to engage in basic science and applied research in the field of time frequency. He still often wrote emails to Aspe to report on his scientific research progress after returning to China, and he received feedback and encouragement from his mentor every time.
Chang Hong has established a strontium atomic light clock research platform of the National Timer Center and successfully developed my country's own high-performance light clock to deal with the change in the definition of "seconds" of the international time unit , ensuring that my country's time benchmark is independent and reliable operation. He also undertakes the key technologies of major special projects for China's second-generation satellite navigation, and as the deputy chief designer of the high-precision time-frequency cabinet of my country's manned space station, he leads the team to develop the world's first space station "light clock".
In 2018, Aspe was invited to China again after many years to attend the Quantum Information Technology Conference hosted by Shanghai East China Normal University . When recalling the interview on the banks of the Liva River, Professor Wu Li from the National Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy Science and Technology of East China Normal University still remembers it vividly. It was a grand gathering in the field of quantum technology before the epidemic, bringing together the world's top quantum scientists. At that time, Aspe reviewed the milestone scientific breakthroughs of the second quantum technological revolution in his conference report.
Wu Ze once studied at Aspe's alma mater, ENS-Cachan, France, as a doctoral student in joint training of Sino-France. He and the French team jointly completed a single-photon delay selection interference experiment under the guidance of Aspe. The signed article was published in the journal Science. At present, Wu Yi's research institute gathers experiments in the fields of quantum optics and atomic physics to carry out research work such as quantum information, atomic photoclocks and nanoquantum science.
Aspe's pursuit of pure science and his French humor infected a large number of young Chinese scholars. , Professor of the National Key Laboratory of Optoelectronics, Shanxi University, , Zhang Tiancai, told the First Financial reporter: "Aspe is humorous, passionate, approachable, talkative, and has a love for science beyond words; he is a bit stubborn and loves dancing on the needle tip, showing great love for useless and abstract things, just to pursue the truth." Zhang Tiancai is currently working with the French quantum physics research team.
In Zhang Tiancai's view, this characteristic of Aspe is a sign of a real scientist - science itself is constantly developing and requires a certain sense of doubt and adventure. Aspe once said in an interview: "If everything in the world had long been decided, why do we still need physicists?"
It is the persistence of useless science that makes great scientists successful. When evaluating the work of Aspe and others, the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics Serge Haroche said: "This is a wonderful example of the practicality of useless science."
Nowadays, more and more young Chinese scientists are also using this idea of "useless science" to basic scientific research, using pure hearts to feel the strange beauty of the scientific world, and using passion to convey and sow human wisdom.
