Mr. Qiu Chengtong, who saw on the tremor, talked about his difficult experience of proving the famous mathematical conjecture "Kabila conjecture", and he warned students with this experience: "We must have patience to learn."Mr. Qiu Chengtong is a mathematician, known as the winner of the Fields Medal of the Nobel Prize in mathematics, and his scientific research experience well illustrates the profound significance of a scholar's patience.If we want to really do a little "scientific research of our own", we must be patient to produce meaningful original innovative scientific results, in this sense, patience belongs to the precious quality of a scholar.
A blog post titled "Scholar's Patience" (January 11, 2022 Science Network) has previously published, mainly expressing that a scholar needs patience in the scientific research process, not just to complete the institution's regular performance assessment work.However, under the prevailing environment of impetuous utilitarian thinking in China's academic circles, we cannot afford to grind a sword in ten years, and some academic institutions are reluctant to provide room for those with patience.
Scholar's patience belongs to a scholar's extremely precious quality, which has far-reaching significance in the healthy and sustainable development of science and technology in our country.The public in our society has always complained about the huge investment of some universities and well-known professors in recent years, and the experimental conditions of the platform have reached or even surpassed some universities in developed countries in Europe and America.Some famous overseas returnees are now paid internationally.At present, we have made great progress in addition to the number of academic papers published, such as the recently released paper data list shows that China has a large number of "top scholars in papers", however, major original achievements are still rare.The reason, I think maybe academic management administration or "corporation" caused scholars to be impatient, impetuous, utilitarian.Some of our "successful" returnees are keen to deal with the media and rely on the media to embellish their academic reputation.Some of the "reward measures" issued by some of our academic units are attractive and irresistible, and these measures will lead to scholars constantly "creating" short and fast teaching and research results.
I was told a few days ago that a senior professor at a major university told a proud student of his who had just received a national academic honor (commonly known as a big hat) that you should now sit back and patiently do a little original innovation science.The senior professor's original intention is clear, the current impetuous utilitarian phenomenon in China's academic circles has led young scholars to publish some "short and fast technology achievements" with less gold content for some honorary titles.This is because when we evaluate various academic honors, some experts still value the number of results.Nevertheless, there are still some scholars in our academic circles who insist on their academic integrity.For example, I once asked a young professor: Your professional mainstream journals published a lot of academic papers, why don't you publish the papers of Nature, Science, PNAS and other universally recognized top journals as early as possible?He answered calmly, "Can it be urgent?The results of the papers in the top publications are urgent, and we need to calmly think about the selection of topics with major original innovations."I appreciate the patient scientific research qualities of this scholar.
Wang Guowei's three realms of scientific research were quoted in my Science and Education Chicken Soup report, "Do Your Own Scientific Research" (a brief description posted on Science Network on March 9, 2012).This means that after many twists and turns, after many years of training, they will gradually mature, and they will be able to see clearly and suddenly realize.This led to ultimate success.The so-called "stepping through iron shoes" is nowhere to be found, and it takes no effort to come.That's what happens when you do it naturally.Obviously, without the patience of scientific research, it is difficult to persevere to the "final victory" of the third world, "Fantasy" in scientific research, "Inadvertent discovery" and "Luck", Science Network, October 27, 2013.
The patience of scholars is not only reflected in learning, but also in doing people and things.In particular, in the face of the current impetuous and utilitarian environment in China's academic circles, it is not easy for a scholar to insist on being patient.For example, the scientific data falsification that academia has repeatedly discovered is a high-level propaganda that it is actually not an excellent achievement level.Due to the strict age limit set by some of our institutions, there is no such store after this village, so it is difficult for young scholars to sit on the bench and quietly complete their teaching and scientific research tasks.
Our society has a lot of phenomena that run counter to "patience."For example, our parents and teachers are impatient to educate their children, afraid of their children "losing at the starting line," and they, along with teachers whose interests are paramount, are fueling a large number of utilitarian training institutions.University education is impatient, for those who are not scientific "university rankings", against the law of educational development to merge universities, promoted to universities, relying on the size of teachers and students and the number of subjects and papers.
In fact, in our academic institutions, there have also been examples of willingness to sit on the bench and have scientific patience.For example, the famous mathematician Lu Jiaxi devoted himself to mathematical dreams with great scientific patience, and even though the relevant national academic journals did not publish his world-class scientific results in time.In the history of world science, great scientists have come of age because of their patience and persistence.Therefore, I hope that the government and the public, especially the national authorities and academic institutions, will create conditions for scientific patience to provide a talented environment and space.