text/ Liu Huan
After the announcement of the 2021 Nobel Prize list, Yan Bojun released a series of popular science videos on Douyin, explaining the science behind each Nobel Prize in a consistently humorous and easy-to-understand language logic.
"Listening to Lao Yan telling stories is interesting and knowledgeable." "Should I send the Nobel Science Prize to you" are straightforward feedback from fans. In fact, this is a point of knowledge that Yan Bojun is very familiar with. He had had a conversation with Wolfgang Ketterer, the 2001 Nobel Prize winner in physics, .
In the video, a pair of black-framed glasses, classic two-eight distribution type, ordinary people’s "one-of-a-kind" speed of speech, 2.5 times faster It is people's impression of Yan Bojun. In addition, the contradiction and controversy of may be his more prominent label .
On one side is popular science internet celebrity, physics master, Wenjin Prize winner, and the "interest mentor" in the eyes of parents and fans; on the other side is "Dr. Dropout", non-professional art students doing musical instrument science, popular science The content was questioned.
Faced with controversy and even sharp evaluation,Yan Bojun saw it very openly, and responded one by one, "I have never regretted dropping out", "The knowledge and procedure justice I have said is OK", "The professional or unprofessional of art depends on how you define it." The fact that he once launched the audio course "Yan Bojun · Western Art History" is priced at 199 yuan and the number of purchases exceeds 68,000.
As a popular science creator with nearly 4 million fans, Yan Bojun believes that we can use popular science videos to let people become interested in this knowledge, and then stimulate their curiosity and inspire them. People go to systematic learning, "This is the most important thing."
Reality and ideals, this shore and the other shore
Before, Yan Bojun was asked the most for his doctoral drop out.
This has to go back to 2013. At that time, Yan Bojun, who had been studying at Brown University for two years, described his Ph.D. life as "extraordinarily boring", "Going to the laboratory every day, watching a half-price movie on Tuesday, and discussing whether to climb the mountain on weekends, and occasionally complain about the boss. Recently, the pressure has been great." Such a repetitive and easy life of a Ph.D. was not what he had imagined at the beginning.
Before going abroad for Ph.D.Yan Bojun has the ideal vision to do pure theoretical research like the predecessors of physics masters in the early 20th century. This is his "private land" and "ideal country."
So far, Yan Bojun remembers one afternoon in July 2004, when the physics teacher of the Olympiad training class taught the students "extracurricular knowledge" on the blackboard, from Einstein's theory of relativity The most basic principle of , , the principle of constant speed of light, , began to push, using mathematical formulas to verify step by step logically "Why the speed of increases, and the flow of time slows down".
At that time, Yan Bojun's first thought was "Three Views Subversion", "I don't feel that I have learned some scientific knowledge, but have experienced a simple and ultimate beauty." This Just like a metaphor written by Kepler in the book "Harmony of the Universe", the ratio of the change in the speed of the earth orbiting the sun between the perihelion and the aphelion is like the earth singing mi- The tone of fa-mi. Profound physics suddenly becomes soft, giving people an emotional resonance and beauty.
Also from this afternoon, he almost immediately realized that "This may be what I want to pursue in my life." The student days are almost spent with the Physics Olympiads.I think it’s fun to brush the Olympiad questions, learn college calculus in a week, and complete more than 1,300 pages of puzzle collections. Because he won the first prize in the National Physics Competition for Middle School Students, he was qualified for admission to Tsinghua University's basic courses, but Yan Bojun finally chose , which is closer to his home. Double Bachelor of Mathematics and Master of Physics. Later, he went to study in the United States and studied for a PhD in physics at Brown University, a famous Ivy League school.
With his great interest and love for physics, Yan Bojun has "killed" from failing the first physics exam to the highest point of his degree. But as the prophet Krylov said, reality is this shore, and ideals are the other shore. From this shore to the other shore, there is a "turbulent river" in between, which is not easy to cross.
After starting his Ph.D., Yan Bojun discovered that because purely academic research in physics is "empty", it is difficult for the professor to get financial support and he could not be accepted as a doctoral student. On the contrary, a lot of money flows to the field of application engineering, which is not his interest. Therefore, without discussing with his parents, Yan Bojun decisively dropped out of school.
After dropping out of school, Yan Bojun did not have mature entrepreneurial ideas at the beginning. He thought at that time, Since academic research is constantly subject to economic constraints, can it find a direction to accumulate certain commercial resources, and then feed back to academic research? With the goal of "returning to academia in the end", after returning to China, Yan Bojun successively founded an O2O Internet company focusing on music education, and "debuted" by teaching art classes on the "Get" platform.But it wasn't until the end of 2018 that he settled on Douyin and became a popular science blogger, that his ideal path began to be illuminated.
seizes the trend
Billion people, a year-on-year increase of 115%.
In the same year, at the "Get" 001 knowledge conference, Yan Bojun and Xue Zhaofeng and Luo Yonghao became the first artists to appear on the platform together. The lecturer of "Western Art History" was also the youngest lecturer at the time. The
course became a hit, and he was also named one of the "Top Ten Internet Instructors of 2018" in the second year. However, from a crossover in physics to an art lecturer, Yan Bojun also faced the question of "why a PhD in physics engages in art".
"I don't think these two things are particularly far away." Yan Bojun thinks that he was shocked by the theory of relativity for the first time, and what he felt was "a sense of beauty". He believed that from the aesthetic point of view, Whether it is physics, mathematics, philosophy or art, they are actually interlinked. Just like if you want to listen to Wagner 's opera, you must learn the philosophy of Nietzsche ,Or like Einstein himself is an excellent violinist, quantum mechanics founder Planck also talked about piano well, and there is no lack of touching intersection between physics and art.
For Yan Bojun himself, since he was 13 years old, he liked the violin and kept the habit of practicing for 2 hours a day. He was not only a physics master, but also the principal violinist of the school symphony orchestra. And was introduced to the Chinese University of Hong Kong Symphony Orchestra to participate in the performance. In Yan Bojun's view, from physics to art, it is not so much a crossover, but the same goal.
At the same time, Yan Bojun is actually concerned about another issue.
"At that time, I was doing Western art classes, I hoped to be able to do it in the form of video, because compared to audio, video is a more diversified channel of knowledge transmission." Yan Bojun said, for example. Like a Western art class, the presentation combined with pictures will give a more in-depth explanation. If it is in the form of a video, animation, film, and various materials can be added, and it can even be calculated on the blackboard. The efficiency can be more in-depth. Understanding is more efficient.
In Yan Bojun's Douyin video, visual materials will be added to assist knowledge understanding
At the end of 2018,When a friend asked, "Should I try to teach scientific knowledge on Douyin", Yan Bojun was moved. But since Douyin could only send a 1-minute short video at the time, he chose more interesting scientific content such as "How to understand what a black hole is in 1 minute" and "How to make an atomic bomb" and recorded it in one go. 7 posts to friends to publish.
Yan Bojun was on a business trip at the time. After getting off the plane and turning on Douyin, his fans grew by 300,000, and his views surged to more than 10 million. Unexpected enthusiasm, Yan Bojun's entrepreneurial road began to shift to short videos.
At that time, there were still relatively few people doing knowledge videos on Douyin. There were less than 18,000 knowledge creators with over 10,000 fans, and more than 3 million knowledge short videos were published. This number, as of June 2021, has increased to over 320,000 and 150 million respectively. "Yan Bojun" has also grown into a leading account in the field of knowledge popularization.
Only last year, Yan Bojun released more than 300 popular science videos, and successfully transformed from a video blogger to a popular science writer, and published the first book of his life "Six-pole Physics". In May of this year, this book also won the Wenjin Prize for Popular Science Books, and it is also the only physics book awarded.
"Getting this award actually symbolizes that I have completed my life from 0 to 1." Yan Boyjun said that the traditional academic path is to read a doctorate, issue a thesis, and be a lecturer. , After getting tenure, even if it goes from 0 to 1. Now relying on the Douyin short video platform,What he is doing now is still related to academics, science popularization, education, and knowledge services. This is a different path, but it is still a path toward academics.
"I choose to go this route is regarded as came out."
always walk in
"Teacher Yan, is human consciousness truly random or pseudo-random?" At the reader meeting, a fifth-grade elementary school student asked Yan Bojun a question. Yan Bojun was very surprised, but he was relieved in his heart. Because this is a question he hasn't talked about, "but I mentioned every piece behind this question. He connected these questions together and formed his own thinking."
this It is Yan Bojun's goal to make everyone interested in knowledge. Among his backstage fans, many are elementary school students, and parents often give feedback: "My child starts to love physics after watching your video, and then he will start to find a lot of related books to learn."
Yan Bojun and the readers and fans were at the reader meeting.Picture/Respondent provided
Not only that, he and his fans also love to discuss issues. Seeing someone discussing various interesting and interesting scientific issues in the comment area, Yan Bojun will reply and even trigger intense discussions . Sometimes when the comment area is not clear, Yan Bojun will call directly and have to explain the problem to others.
His second new book "Amazing Physics" is based on feedback and discussions with fans to expand and explain in detail the 100 interesting physics problems that are of most interest to everyone.
"In the era of no Internet and no short videos, we often think that scientific knowledge is very far away from us, and it is put on the shelf. But in fact, we can also take the particularly interesting points of this scientific knowledge through Simple and straightforward language hits more people's hearts." Yan Bojun thought, to be able to light him up at that moment, make him interested in this matter, and then start to delve into it by himself. This is the most important role of short videos. .
Knowledge needs to be popularized. If it is said that the spread of knowledge may be limited to the upper limit of time and space by 100. With short videos, especially live broadcasts, knowledge dissemination can completely realize the fission-type dissemination of "1 to 100 Nth power". These emerging carriers can lower the threshold of transmission to the greatest extent.
In addition,For example, the Douyin platform, whether it is inviting famous people to settle in, or taking the initiative to create "open classes" and other initiatives, is actively contributing to the inclusive of knowledge and enhancing the level of national knowledge and culture. This is also a testament to the value of short videos in promoting the popularization of knowledge.
This is what Yan Bojun likes popular science creators. Speaking of future plans, Yan Bojun mentioned that Douyin now allows longer video permissions, and will try to make ten episodes of systematic knowledge content in ten minutes. On the other hand, he also believes that short videos provide a channel to shorten the distance between people and knowledge, but this is far from enough.
In the next step, he hopes to continue to return to school to finish his PhD, and then strive to engage in first-line teaching activities for undergraduates. "I will be different from the current teaching methods and return to more original content. At that time, I will broadcast every lecture on the whole network, so that it may have a deeper impact on the dissemination of more in-depth knowledge."
From physics to art, from traditional school to video science, or to return to school in the future, it seems that Yan Bojun’s life is "too frustrating." But he felt: "No matter writing books, recording videos, practicing piano or anything else, I only do one thing from beginning to end, and it is related to knowledge."
this year In May, less than a year after the first book, his third book "The Beauty of Opposites: 500 Years of Western Art" was officially published, which was recognized and praised by professionals and fans. Perhaps it can be said that Yan Bojun is steadily walking on the path of his ideal in this matter related to knowledge.
In the traditional context,Books and classrooms allow knowledge to be passed on. In the era of nationwide video, knowledge is fluid and trendy. It reflects social problems and seeks answers to questions.
When more and more people are getting used to speaking and learning knowledge on the video platform, an era of universal knowledge has come. Under this [new wave of knowledge], China News Weekly chatted with 6 knowledge experts in different fields. You will see their perseverance and perseverance, and you can feel their thinking and breaking under the video traffic. These stories make us believe that knowledge will always be our strength to resist the unknown.
This is the third story of [New Trends of Knowledge]. There will be more stories of knowledge masters coming online in the future. Let’s look forward to it.
This article only represents the views of the author, not the position of this journal.
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