Zhu Bangfen ｜ The 40th anniversary of the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University

Author: Zhu Bangfen

(Institute of Physics at Tsinghua University)

This article is selected from "Physics" No. 8, 2022

The Department of Physics of Tsinghua University was established in April 1926, and in 1952, the "Department of Department of Department" was implemented nationwide. Since 30 years, Tsinghua University has no physics department. In June 1982, Tsinghua University decided to resume the Department of Physics and has been 40 years. Forty instead of confusing, to chasing the past, it may be beneficial to future development.

1 recovery process

At the beginning of the establishment of the Department of Physics of the Tsinghua University, Mr. Ye Qisun, the director of the Department of Chuangchi, fully recruited the best physics teachers in China. Before the "July 7th Incident", there were Wu Youxun, Zhou Peiyuan, Samben Dong, Ren Zhi, Zhao Zhongyao, Huo Bingquan, Meng Zhaoying, etc. There are professors such as Wang Zhuxi, Peng Yanwu, Qian Jiaqiang, Lin Jiaqiao, Ge Tingyu, Fan Xuyu, Yu Ruizheng, Hong Chao Sheng and other professors. In terms of measuring the most important "gold standard" of the Department of Physics, the cultivation of talents, including Yang Zhenning, Li Zhengdao, Lin Jiaqiao and other international first -class physics masters, as well as Wang Yichang, Zhao Jiuzhang, Peng Yanwu, Qian Sanqiang, Wang Dazhen, Chen Fangyun, Chen Fangyun , Zhu Guangya, Deng Jiaxian, Zhou Guangzhao and other "two bombs and one star" Yuanxun, and a large number of pioneers, outstanding scientists and technical experts in various scientific and technological fields in China. It should be said that the Department of Tsinghua Physics was the best physics department in China before 1949. [1]

Most of the professors and students at the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University and students at the "Department of Department of Department" were assigned to Peking University. However, the revocation of the Department of Physics of the Tsinghua University has always made many Tsinghua students feel embarrassed. Jiang Nanxiang served as the president of Tsinghua University in November 1952. He once told Teng Teng in private, "How can the School of Engineering leave the Academy of Sciences? You should not divide Tsinghua University of Sciences." [1] Qian Weichang, who graduated from the Department of Tsinghua Physics, Publicly opposed to "science and engineering separation" and received the support of many Tsinghua students. The consequences were a group of outstanding students in the Department of Tsinghua Engineering Physics that supported science and engineering schools.

Like the revocation of the Department of Physics, the restoration of the Department of Physics of Tsinghua has never been a simple business problem. The end of the "Cultural Revolution" brought many "chaos anyway". In the second half of 1980, the consultant of the University of Hopkins University in the United States came to Tsinghua for 6 weeks at the age of 74. Ren Zhigong has been a professor of physics of Tsinghua University for many years. He is a physicist with a strong feelings and deep Tsinghua complex. He wrote a long letter to then Tsinghua President Liu Da, explaining the importance of science to engineering, emphasizing the significance of the long -term development of science to Tsinghua, and strongly recommended that Tsinghua restore the physics department. [2] Liu Da, who was the president of the University of Science and Technology of China, was determined to build Tsinghua a first -class university. He was very clear about the importance of science for the long -term development of Tsinghua and supported the restoration of the physics department. Jiang Nanxiang, then Minister of Education, was not very active at first, and he went to Jiang Nanxiang's house to visit the door. On January 24, 1981, Jiang Nanxiang set up a banquet to entertain his respect, "The times are different. In the past, we attached great importance to engineering technology. Now we should build the foundation of physics science. At most two years, we will restore the physics department." On February 21, 1981, Ren Zhigong proposed to Deng Xiaoping: "In Chinese universities, we must definitely combine natural science and engineering science as a whole. Ignoring the role and importance of basic science. "" The interests and knowledge scope of Chinese college students generally speaking, too narrow. "[3]

The Department of Physics of Tsinghua University in 1936, Huang Yan (Dai Zhongyu), also made a special contribution to the restoration of the Department of Tsinghua Physics. She and Qian Sanqiang, Wang Dazhen, He Zehui and others are classmates in the physics department. After graduation, they joined the Communist Party of China. They are familiar with many leaders. Through the contact and conversation between individuals, she has played a unique in the process of recovery. effect. [1]

Driven by Ren Zhigong and Huang Yan, such as a large number of alumni at home and abroad, Deng Xiaoping personally patted it and decided to restore the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University. The Tsinghua University School Affairs Committee made a resolution on June 24, 1982, and resumed the physics department based on the theoretical physics, solid physics, and nuclear physics teaching and research groups of the physics teaching and research group and the Department of Engineering Physics.

The total number of faculty members during the re -departure of the Department of Tsinghua Physics was 197, including 7 teaching and research groups including basic physics, modern optics, atomic molecular physics, low temperature physics, nuclear physics, solid physics, and theoretical physics. The director of the department is Zhang Li.

2 Review of the "Revitalizing Glory"

For 40 years of resumption, several generations of teachers and students worked at the goal of "rejuvenating glory" to measure from several aspects of talent cultivation, scientific research results, academic atmosphere, and teachers. One of the good university physics departments. Only a few cases. In 2021, Tsinghua University ranked first in Tsinghua University in the international ranking of QS and U. S. News in the physics discipline; in 2015, the "National Key Laboratory of Low -dimensional Quantum Physics" was rated as "Excellent Laboratory" by the Ministry of Science and Technology; Xue Qikun, Wang Yayu, etc. "Experiment of the Quantum Expulsion Hall effect" was found to be the only National Natural Science Award in 2018. After the resumption, the graduates of the Department of Physics of Tsinghua have already issued 6 academicians of the two Chinese houses, and the 20 Slong Awards winners (known as the Vane of the Nobel Prize, of which 3 are doctors cultivated by themselves). The first 18 undergraduates of the Tsinghua Academy Physics Class have just graduated for 10 years, and half have received teaching positions from first -class universities such as California Institute of Technology, Princeton, Tsinghua, and Peking University. Not only in physics, but also many graduates in computers, neurosciences, molecular biology, mathematics, chemistry and other disciplines, but also a group of graduates in high -tech fields to achieve world -renowned achievements. For example Dr. He Kaiming in the field. There is no doubt that the progress of Tsinghua Physics is first attributed to the "reform and opening up" of the country, thanks to the development of my country's economy; on the other hand, compared with the physics department of the same type of university or other science departments that are restored at the same time, Tsinghua University The pace of progress of the Department of Physics seems to be greater and faster, and it may help to build or reconnect a system in the future. Looking back at the 40 -year journey, I think that the reason why the Department of Physics of Tsinghua Physics has developed faster is because it is not limited to the following 5 factors. 2.1 Inherit the scientific tradition of Lao Qinghua Physics

I wrote an article in 2005 to celebrate Mr. Wang Mingzhen's birthday, emphasizing the importance of the scientific tradition. [4] Scientific tradition can be roughly divided into tangible and intangible traditions. The tangible scientific traditions include the relationship between teacher inheritance, teaching research experience and data files, various Know How, various teaching and research rules and regulations, as well as oral history that is difficult to find in various books and papers. The intangible scientific traditions include scientific spirit, academic norms, academic style, scientific research results evaluation standards, "hidden rules" and so on. These subtle and invisible traditions play an extremely important role in scientific progress and talent.

In 1952, a group of physics masters including Ye Qisun and Zhou Peiyuan left Tsinghua University. Friends, more or less retained some traditions of Lao Qinghua's physics, but after all, the Department of Physics of Lao Qinghua "does not exist in skin", and the scientific tradition "Mao will be attached"?!

Mr. Yang Zhenning's handwriting "Revitalize Glory"

In 1982, after hearing that Tsinghua University's restoration of the physics department, a large number of old alumni at home and abroad went to tell each other and actively called for "to assist the alma mater to reconstruct the physics department in all aspects." [1] In 1984, the school hired 1951 undergraduate graduation and teachers. Zhou Guangzhao, who was admitted to the Tsinghua Graduate School of Tsinghua University as the director of the Department of Modern Applied Physics of Tsinghua University. In the mid -1980s, a large number of old friends at home and abroad such as Wang Yichang, Wang Dazhen, Qian Weichang, Li Zhengdao actively promoted Mr. Ye Enterprise Sun completely rehabilitating, and completely wiped the dust on the glory of the Lao Qinghua physics department. In the 1980s and 1990s, the leaders of the physics department regarded the construction of the teachers as the focus of work. On the one hand, they paid attention to the training of young teachers in the department. On the other hand, they actively introduced talents from the outside, and the focus of introducing teachers was friends. In 2002, Mr. Yang Zhenning's international assessment, masters such as Yang Zhenning and Lin Jiaqiao returned to Tsinghua at the beginning of this century, further improving the level of Tsinghua Physics and Research. In 2006, with the 80th anniversary of the Department of Construction of the Tsinghua Physics Department, the entire department further summarized the successful experience of the Lao Qinghua Department of Physics: First, to make every effort to build a first -class teacher team; The leaders led by Mr. Ye as the high wind and appeal of the career at the expense of personal interests. We summarize and practice the "Master of Cultivating Masters" -We Ye agencies Sun's teaching ideas, reiterating to cultivate outstanding talents in the country is the primary responsibility of all teachers of the Tsinghua Physics Department, revisit the atmosphere of a family of teachers and students in Tsinghua University. Return to school, hold a series of activities of "face -to -face", and so on. All these quickly filled Tsinghua's lack of 30 years of physics, making a 40 -year -old physics department that continued the historical heritage of nearly a century.

2.2 The attention and support of school leaders

In the university with an absolute advantage in engineering, the development of the Department of Physics is absolutely inseparable from the understanding of the importance of the school's leadership and the support of policies. Due to the successful experience of a group of emerging disciplines such as the glory of Tsinghua Physics in the history of Tsinghua Physics and the newly -built engineering physics department in the 1950s, the successful development of Tsinghua leaders from Jiang Nanxiang attaches importance to the development of physics. Of course, the resources at that time were often "more than enough." In the early stage of the recovery, the physics department was poor and poor, and there was no museum, known as the "eight places". The leaders of previous departments one step at a time have driven the whole department to go to a new level year by year. Beginning in the 1990s, with the implementation of the "211 Project" and "985 Project", the country has increased the country's investment in universities, Tsinghua University has begun to transform from high -level engineering universities to first -class comprehensive universities, and formulated the "three three The strategic plan of the first -class university in the construction of a first -class university in the nine years and three steps. The accelerated development of the Department of Physics of the Tsinghua Physics has finally been put on the agenda. With the strong support of school leaders, Mr. Yang Zhenning's Higher Research Center, the establishment of the Nano Center and the Celestial Physics Center, the completion of the science building, the introduction of a batch of physics talents, and the Tsinghua Physics Department can finally propose "no first -class physics department. There is no slogan of "first -class universities", which marks the beginning of the "renovation of glory" in the Department of Tsinghua Physics. In May 1992, an expert in physics and graduate students took a group photo in front of Tsinghua University Science Museum

2.3 Adhere to reform

Physicists who like to ponder and innovate, and innovation in systems, policies and management is reform. In the context of reform and opening up, with the support of school leaders, the 40 years of Tsinghua Physical Reunion is the 40 years of reform, and the reform has greatly promoted the progress of the physics department. For only a few examples: In 1997, under the leadership of Mr. Yang Zhenning, a new scientific research center model was opened in accordance with the high research center established by the Princeton Higher Research Institute. The establishment and exploration of the Tsinghua Academy Physical Class, which aims to cultivate the outstanding talents of basic disciplines, and cultivate a large number of outstanding talents; two international assessments in 2002 and 2010 to help Tsinghua Physics Department diagnose their own problems and clarify the direction of development; 2003 At the beginning of the year, the pilot of the professor of the Department of Physics has mobilized the enthusiasm of teachers to participate in the construction and management of the Department of Physics, and created an environment of "fairness, fairness, and openness"; Reform measures in the evaluation of talent results are conducive to further improving the quality of teachers. These reform measures, especially the exploration of outstanding talents, have greatly promoted the development of Tsinghua Physics Discipline, and also expanded the influence of the Tsinghua Physics Department in the country.

In April 1999, Mr. Yang Zhenning participated

2.4 Always place the first place to cultivate outstanding talents in all jobs

Mr. Wu Dazhen wrote, "What standards should we use to evaluate the contribution of an institution or some people to the development of Chinese physical development? It is mainly based on whether they have established traditions within a few years, including people, equipment and stability. There are three aspects of the atmosphere; how many students can attract or incentive and evoke (INSPIRE) can continue to do physical research in a few years. "[5]

As the product of Gengzi compensation, Tsinghua Academy is known as the "National Shame Monument". Inheriting the tradition of "education and saving the country" and "scientific saving the country" for teachers in the Department of Physics of Lao Qinghua, it is the mission of “consistent” for several generations of faculty members of the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University (even in the period of the physics and staff of the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University is also like this). The Department of Tsinghua Physics claims to be the "idealist base camp" and is willing to contribute all his efforts to become first -class talents. Driven by a strong sense of mission, the teachers of the Department of Physics of Tsinghua Physics dedicated to cultivate talents. Many old teachers and old workers who worked in the Department of Physics of Tsinghua Physics for a lifetime have eaten grass and squeezed out milk. They are willing to be a ladder. It laid the foundation for the growth of students.

The Tsinghua Physics Department actively explores the cultivation of outstanding talents. At the same time, the mathematical and physical foundation of low -grade students is strengthened, allowing students to choose the research direction according to their own aspirations, and the senior grade offers Seminar courses to allow students to study the "penetration" learning method in the study. Tsinghua Academy Physical Class strives to create a "good environment" (including the independent loose space of excellent students, excellent learning style, good teacher personalized education, students with in -depth thinking, international perspectives, and good software and hardware conditions). The potential students are easier to stand out. Our teaching -the better the students who are better, the larger the autonomous space, the complex of the comprehensive implementation of the mentor system, encourage students to be courageous to ask questions, solve problems, cultivate critical thinking ability, and strengthen students climbing the world's peak of science and technology in the world. Mission. Under the careful nurturing of the teachers in the department, the exploration of the KOCS class for more than 20 years and the school class has achieved some preliminary success. [6]

2.5 Unity and work together

The ancients said, "Those who want to be the same as the same desire, the storms and the storms are flourishing." A significant advantage of the Tsinghua Physics Department is that everyone cherishes the unity in the department, and the leadership collective is always united. In 1982, the teachers were mainly from the Tsinghua Physics Teaching and Research Group and the Department of Engineering Physics. Many of them have different experiences, different graduates, and their views on teaching and scientific research are not completely consistent. The newly joined teachers after the recovery are even from "overseas overseas" and "five lakes and four seas". The tradition of the Department of Physics, dedicated to reunifying glory, and to make students stronger than themselves. The Department of Physics is like a "melting furnace". Everyone comes here and works together to do their own job. After Tsinghua's resumption, many colleges and universities gave us selfless help. Our foundation class once circulated: "Choose the world's talents and cultivate it, and find the world's high talents." Without many part -time jobs, the tirelessness and selfless dedication of the first -class teachers at home and abroad, our teaching and scientific research cannot quickly reach the current level.

On the eve of the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the Department in 2006, 9 academicians in the Department of Tsinghua Physics took a group photo in front of the science building

3 Thinking about further development

The university has three major functions of cultivating talents, researching innovation and serving the society. Compared with the 40 years ago, the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University has made great progress; but compared with the world -class physics department, the gap is still obvious in the cultivation of top physics talents in scientific research. The standing out of the top talents and the major achievements of scientific research have a strong connection between the two: they depend on a good academic environment, researchers' personal talents, and the degree of effort, and the country's investment in science and education, which is also related to opportunities.

At present, there are two main factors to restrict us to cultivate top talents and achieve major scientific research results. The first is the lack of world -class teachers, and the role of world -class masters is the most important thing is its "academic taste", "thinking style", and insight into the selection of research fields and directions; the second is our scientific spirit and scientific soft environment. There is a lack of, and it is extremely difficult for a major basic research to achieve original achievements in an environment with a shortage of success and lack of academic integrity.

At present, although Tsinghua Physics has a world -class master such as Mr. Yang Zhenning, there is only one after all, and it is old. In the absence of the world -class master, individual geniuses are "coming out", but it is a small probability event; the probability is very small to let top talents continue to emerge in batches. Similarly, if the opportunity is better, it is possible for Tsinghua Physics to make one or two important original results in the next few years, but to achieve a number of major breakthrough results in a few years, the possibility will be very small. How to do? I think that a group of young teachers in our existing batch of young teachers are very good, have received good scientific research training, and have achieved good research results. It is a good expert in its familiar small areas, but the disadvantage is that Sten, lack of its own distinctive research style, and the judgment of the development direction of the field is relatively low. In order to rush to achieve results, they are often unwilling to involve other new fields and new directions. If you are young, it also belongs to this category). The history of the world's science and technology shows that new major breakthroughs often occur in new and new directions. To this end, if we are the second and third -class teachers in the world, under a good system, in a good soft environment, a strategic partner, tranquil and long -distance, sincere cooperation, and exchanges may continue to achieve major original results; and This eclectic cross -crossing and exchanges are also beneficial to the cultivation of students. Of course, the premise of doing this is that we need to improve our scientific culture, form an excellent scientific soft environment, learn and carry forward the tradition of the physics of Lao Qinghua, including the fine tradition of the "two bombs and one star" Yuanxun.

references

[1] Zhu Bangfen compiled. Tsinghua Physics 80 years. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2006

[2] Professor Ren Zhigong came to pick up.

[3] Jen C k

[4] Zhu Bangfen. Physics, 2005, 34 (12): 934

[5] Wu Dazhen. Physics, 2005, 34 (4): 236

[6] Zhu Bangfen. Physics and Engineering, 2018, 28 (5): 5

(The article is reproduced from the China Physics Association Journal Network, the author is Zhu Bangfen)

- END -