Xueba's Sea of ​​Stars

Chapter 27 Gaining Knowledge
"I heard from Teacher Cai that this is your first time participating in a physics competition, isn't it?"

After getting to know Wu Bin a little bit, Bi Wanqing raised the core question of today with a smile.

"Yes." Wu Bin nodded.

"I believe Mr. Cai has told you everything you need to see and know. I won't say more. Today, I will tell you something interesting about the physics competition. Come with me."

After finishing speaking, Wan Qing took Wu Bin to an empty classroom, motioned Wu Bin to find a place to sit, and then picked up chalk and wrote three words on the blackboard.

[hodgepodge]

After writing, I clapped my hands and started talking.

"As for high school physics, no matter how you take the test, you will not jump out of force and electricity. It is easy to lock in the scope of study or review, so it is not very strenuous."

Hearing this, Wu Bin couldn't help complaining in his heart, "I'm afraid that those physics scumbags will vomit blood when they hear this sentence." '

"But the physics competition is completely different. It contains a lot of things. Some people can specialize in one item, but if there are more research directions, the brain will start to get confused, and the physics competition can only be played by those who can't be confused. game."

After Bi Wanqing finished speaking, he turned around and started talking while writing on the blackboard.

"The research scope of modern physics is really too big, and there are fewer and fewer points of communication between them. For example, those who work on condensed matter don't understand plasma, those who work on plasma don't know black holes, those who work on black holes don't know how to repair radios, and those who work on radios don't know how to repair radios." They can build houses, and those who build houses can’t launch satellites, but they all learn physics.”

Speaking of this, Bi Wanqing tapped the blackboard with chalk.

"As for the competition, you are required to know a little bit about everything."

"The purpose is to make us a black hole research expert who can repair radios?" Wu Bin couldn't help but get nervous when he heard this.

After hearing this, Bi Wanqing laughed, "Actually, that's almost the meaning. You don't need to be proficient, but you must have an understanding."

After laughing, Wan Qing asked Wu Bin: "Tell me, why do you want to participate in the physics competition?"

"Because it's very interesting."

"Hahaha, is it interesting? It is indeed a very interesting answer."

Bi Wanqing walked off the podium with a smile and looked at Wu Bin, "Many people think that the biggest help the competition gives them is to enter a higher school and recommend them. In fact, it is not the case. I think the biggest significance of the physics competition for you students is to let you have a framework and a system. Witness the whole of contemporary physics, including engineering and more.

After Bi Wanqing finished speaking, he walked back to the podium and continued to pick up the chalk and write while talking.

"If you can perform well and enter the semi-finals or even the national competition, then you will be able to see what physics research is like, what the papers are like, and by the way, how is your English score?"

"It's...not bad."

Faced with Bi Wanqing's sudden question, Wu Bin bit the bullet and answered.

"There is a document collection website called arXiv, you can visit it, it is a very interesting place, many foreign mathematicians, physicists and scientists are used to uploading their papers to arXiv first, and then submitted to professional academic journals."

"Why? Is this document collection website authoritative?" Wu Bin asked.

"This process is more interesting."

Bi Wanqing wrote his name on the blackboard as he spoke.

【Paul Ginsburg】

After finishing writing, Wan Qing tapped on the blackboard, "arXiv was established by this physicist in 1991. The original intention of the website was to collect preprinted papers on physics, but later, other fields such as mathematics and astronomy gradually became more popular. was extended into it."

"Oh~" Wu Bin nodded half understanding.

Bi Wanqing smiled slightly: "Do you know what kind of impact this website has caused?"

"I don't know." Wu Bin shook his head decisively.

"The existence of arXiv is one of the factors that created the so-called open access movement in the scientific publishing industry. Nowadays, mathematicians and scientists are used to uploading their papers to arXiv first, and then submitting them to professional academic journals. This trend has great impact on the operation of traditional academic journals. The pattern makes an objective impact."

"It's a bit like... a high-end version of Baidu Encyclopedia?"

"It's okay if you understand it this way, but this height is about as tall as Yao Ming." Bi Wanqing said humorously.

"Later, Paul Ginsbarger won the MacArthur Award in 2002 by relying on this website. This is a commonly known genius award in the United States. creative talent."

"It seems very powerful." Wu Bin, who didn't know what was going on, nodded.

Bi Wanqing nodded and continued.

"Now those scientists upload their papers to arXiv, one is to prevent their ideas from being plagiarized before the papers are included, upload them to it for pre-collection, and finally prove that it is his originality based on the upload time stamp."

"The second is for the above 'recognition' system. In plain English, it is peer review. After the paper you submit has passed the strict review of the manager, you will then have another person on the forum who has the qualifications to endorse it for you. But it is interesting. Yes, former Nobel Prize winner Brian Josephson’s papers were rejected by administrators because his papers contradicted the orthodox view of string theory.”

"Then is it a slap in the face for this big guy to win an award later?"

"Otherwise, why would I say it's an interesting thing?"

After hearing this, Wu Bin laughed, and felt that the teacher was very interesting.

"In short, what I want to tell you is that arXiv is a very interesting website, and you can learn a lot of knowledge that you can't get in school at all, such as Grigory Perelman's Poincaré conjecture. The proof has always remained on it as a preprint."

"Oh..." Although Wu Bin is not very familiar with these big guys, he has already ignited great curiosity about this website.

"So going back to the question I started asking you, is your English good?"

Hearing Bi Wanqing ask himself again, Wu Bin understood that the teacher must have seen his grades in other subjects, so he could only touch his nose and say, "It's not very good..."

"Hahaha, I'm not asking you this to embarrass you, but to let you understand that English is very useful for you to learn any science, so there is no need to be biased."

"English is also helpful for physics?"

This is really because ignorance limited his imagination. He can still understand mathematics, which is very helpful for physics, but English can also be involved?
Bi Wanqing smiled, turned around and wrote three words on the blackboard.

【knowledge base】

"Because the world's knowledge base is now mainly in English, such as textbooks, such as online knowledge bases, as well as the Baidu Encyclopedia you mentioned just now, and foreign Wikipedia, these are all knowledge bases shared by the world."

"Oh..." Wu Bin scratched his head, still a little confused.

"Don't understand, let me give you an example." Bi Wanqing said and picked up the chalk.

(End of this chapter)