Detecting gravitational waves, studying dark matter, and exploring cosmology. These cutting-edge scientific studies are not far from us. In the Xihu District, in the Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study (HIAS), UCAS, a group of physicists were planning how to create a gravitational wave detector in space with an arm length of 3 million kilometers.
Geng Chaoqiang, executive dean of the School of Fundamental Physics and Mathematical Sciences, HIAS, UCAS
Geng Chaoqiang, executive dean of the School of Fundamental Physics and Mathematical Sciences, HIAS, is one of the leaders of this group of physicists. Right now, he was busy recruiting talented students. Admission interviews for 2022 graduate students were underway. This reporter recently interviewed the theoretical physicist and heard about his legendary life. He had two respected mentors, one of whom was Tsung-Dao Lee, the first Chinese physicist to receive the Nobel Prize, and the other was Professor Marshak, who created the atomic bomb and is known for his discovery of the theory of weak interaction forces. Geng Chaoqiang, on the other hand, left his name in the textbook of particle physics.
He went to the University of Science and Technology of China at the age of 16.
His first choice was physics and chose the University of Science and Technology of China over Peking University and Tsinghua University.
Geng Chaoqiang was born in a well-educated in Beijing and later followed his parents to Baotou, Inner Mongolia. In Baogang Group, there were many iron and steel workers from Anshan as well as many engineers like his father.
Perhaps it is hard for students now to imagine that in the late 1970s, the highest ambition of a group of Baogang teenagers was to become physicists and win the Nobel Prize.
"Those with a good command of math and sciences will be professionally successful with great ease. That was the catchword back then." Geng Chaoqiang laughed, "Our highest ideal in those days was to do our part for the progress of the country. So the best-performing students in those days all went to study physics and math."
In 1978, he got the first place in the mathematics and science competition in Inner Mongolia. "I can choose a university I likeand I chose the physics program at UCAS as my first choice," said Geng Chaoqiang. In that year, a nationally renowned teenage prodigy, Ning Bo, aged 13, entered UCAS and was the idol of students nationwide.
In Geng's list of choices, the Department of Physicsof UCAS ranked first, the School of Mathematical Sciences of Peking University ranked second, and the engineering discipline of Tsinghua University ranked third.In the end, Geng Chaoqiang, 16, was accepted into the physics program at UCAS. He was surrounded by students who were all top scorers in the national college entrance examination in various provinces. The person living in the bunk above him is the nationally renowned genius boy, Ning Bo.
Since then, Geng Chaoqiang marched on the road of theoretical physics without any distractions, and "back then we, the spirited teenagers, even felt that the Nobel Prize was close at hand."
Sponsored by Tsung-Dao Lee, he went to the United States to pursue his studies.
He still keeps a card from his respected mentor.
The feeling of "being close to the Nobel Prize" came from the time when numerous names shining in the physics world were so close to them. In particular, several Nobel laureates of Chinese descent, such as Tsung-Dao Lee, Chen-Ning Yang and Samuel Chao Chung Ting, inspired countless Chinese scholars.
In 1979, Tsung-Dao Lee and the Chinese physics community co-founded the China-U.S. Physics Examination and Application (CUSPEA). Every year, the best 100 students from all major universities in China were selected to study in the United States. The program lasted for 10 years and trained a large number of top talents, including physics masters such as Wen Xiaogang, a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, and business talents such as Charles (Zhang Zhaoyang), CEO of Sohu.
Geng Chaoqiang took the 1982 CUSPEA exam, successfully passed the written exam and interview, and went on to study in the United States the following year. Not only did they cover all of our expenses abroad, but they also gave us each RMB 900 for the clothing budget. "That was RMB 900 in 1983!" sighed Geng Chaoqiang. Four years later, at the age of 25, Geng Chaoqiang received his Ph.D. in the United States.
"At that time there was no TOEFL or GRE test in China, so if it wasn't for this CUSPEA program by Mr. Tsung-Dao Lee, we wouldn't have had the opportunity to study in the United States. All the students in the CUSPEA program consider Mr. Tsung-Dao Lee as their respected mentor."
When teaching at Tsinghua University in Taiwan, China, Geng Chaoqiang had a pleasant academic exchange with Tsung-Dao Lee. "I even gave him an opinion on his article," said Geng Chaoqiang, "Mr. Lee wrote back to thank me for this". He still has with him the New Year's card written by Tsung-Dao Lee: "The loss of parity is a matter of eternity. People discovered it 60 years ago. Naturally, everything changes, and we build a new universe together."
The greeting card written by Tsung-Dao Lee to Geng Chaoqiang.
The Dream of Theoretical Physicists:
Leave Their Names in the Textbooks.
If his mentor, Tsung-Dao Lee, once made the young Geng feel that he was close to the Nobel Prize, an American mentor showed him how difficult the path of theoretical physics is: the famous American particle physicist Robert E. Marshak. He was a key participant in the U.S. Manhattan Project during World War II, and as Oppenheimer's assistant, arguably single-handedly developed the world's first atomic bomb.
Prof. Marshak is well-known in the academic world for his theory of weak interaction. The 4 fundamental forces of nature are gravitational force, electromagnetic force, strong interaction, and weak interaction. The improvement of the weak interaction was crucial to theoretical physics, an achievement that allowed Marshak to win all the prizes, but for some reason, he didn't get the Nobel Prize.In fact, this is not uncommon in the history of physics; after all, Einstein's theory of relativity didn't even get a Nobel Prize.
The professor, who normally did not accept students, had his eye on a group of young students one year. So he came up with a batch of questions and asked them to give the answers the next day. The question that Geng Chaoqiang got was of the Nobel Prize level and was related toSamuel Chao Chung Ting's discovery of the bound state of the 4th quark in 1974. "What my mentor was looking at was actually our thinking. He asked me to think about why Samuel Chao Chung Ting was able to make this discovery. I thought about it all night, and the next day the answer satisfied him." So he became Marshak's "last disciple".
Under this mentor, Geng Chaoqiang constantly challenges his thinking. Marshak's academic forums were packed with scholars who talked about the most important questions in science and never about politics. His mentors gave him the ultimate questions to study, such as "Why is the electron mass so large?" "Why are there three quark generations?"
Theoretically, these questions are about as difficult as how the universe originated.
With such mind training, Geng Chaoqiang has made outstanding results in the field of particle physics. "Even secondary school students know that the charge of an electron is -1, the charge of a proton is +1, and a neutron has no charge. But why? I solved this problem theoretically."
This achievement was included in the physics monographConceptual Foundations of Modern Particle Physics written by Marshak. It also became a textbook for particle physics in many universities.
Conceptual Foundations of Modern Particle Physics by Professor Marshak
What is unforgettable to Geng Chaoqiang is that his mentor died on Christmas Eve in 1992, and the manuscript of this book was sent to the publisher just a few days before his death.
"The path to theoretical physics is arduous, and many of my classmates couldn't stick it out and switched to industrial circles, or Wall Street." Geng Chaoqiang said, "People who study theoretical physics are top-notch smart, with extraordinary thinking skillsand problem-solving abilities. Students who have switched careers are reigning in the business world, but they still sometimes feel regret that their original scientific dreams did not come true."
It is the ultimate dream of theoretical physicists to find answers to ultimate questions and to leave their names in the history of physics.
Geng Chaoqiang
Detecting Gravitational Waves in Hangzhou.
Taiji Program is Waiting for You.
In 2019, academician Wu Yueliang, a well-known theoretical physicist, sent an invitation to Geng Chaoqiang. UCAS was to move to Hangzhou. Academician Wu Yueliang asked Geng Chaoqiang to build the School of Fundamental Physics and Mathematical Sciences. Therefore, he returned to the Chinese mainland from Taiwan and started the demonstration and preparatory work in his rented room in Cloud Town, Hangzhou.
"I officially started on New Year's Day 2020." He smiles and shows his work badge, "06, a 'founding member'."
The most important scientific research project at HIAS, UCAS is the "Taiji Program", an ambitious project to detect gravitational waves. It will launch three satellites, forming an equilateral triangle with an arm length of 3 million kilometers in space, to spy on the vibrations deep in the universe.
Gravitational wave detection plays a crucial role in the exploration of theoretical physics, "What is a black hole? Could there be dark matter in the earliest black holes? All these questions can be answered in gravitational wave detection." Geng Chaoqiang said, "Currently, humans have only detected gravitational waves on Earth, with ground-based probes that have an arm length of only 4 kilometers, while the probes in our Taiji Program have an arm length of 3 million kilometers!"
Taiji Laboratory
Now that Taiji-1 has been launched, the second phase of the Taiji Project is about to start, for which Geng's School of Fundamental Physics and Mathematical Sciences will make many theoretical preparations. In the laboratory of HIAS, several huge vacuum tanks are used to simulate the space environment to test the load the satellites will bear when they are launched into deep space in the future. In addition, there are large computers that are used to do theoretical research and calculations.
"The Taiji Program will certainly attract and train a large number of relevant talents," said Geng Chaoqiang. At present, the School of Fundamental Physics and Mathematical Sciences has more than 10 post-docs doing related research. Geng Chaoqiang said he will also recruit more graduate and doctoral students. "This year we plan to recruit 20 students for academic master’s degree in theoretical physics." He laughs, "we provide high-quality accommodation with high student subsidies."
After more than 40 years, the wind of the times is blowing again. "The country is now vigorously promoting basic science research. Hangzhou is very forward-looking in its investment in basic physics. I hope that more students who are interested in this and have aspirations will join us."
Geng also wrote a special blessing for the youth of Zhejiang.Implicit in his passage is the philosophy that led Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang to win the Nobel Prize: the discovery of the symmetry breaking in the universe.
"Symmetry shows the beauty of the universe, and symmetry breaking generate the reality of the universe. May the young people of Zhejiang learn about the beauty and reality of the nature of the universe in their wonderful youth."
