Towards a comprehensive and cross cutting force, driving innovation and accelerating progress
2024-10-21
Combining artificial intelligence with life sciences to efficiently predict protein structures and assist in the development of new drugs; The cross integration of materials science, clinical neuroscience, and engineering technology is expected to bring new breakthroughs in brain computer interface technology; Quantum computing integrates physics and information science, driving the transformative development of computing science... In recent years, scientific research has been increasingly interdisciplinary, and interdisciplinary integration has become an important driving force for accelerating technological innovation. Strengthening interdisciplinary integration has become an important way to promote technological innovation, and is expected to generate more disruptive technologies and leading original achievements. What is the connotation of "scientific research towards extreme comprehensive cross force"? What impact will it have on scientific research? The reporter interviewed relevant experts. Scientific problems are no longer limited to a single discipline, and solving them requires the collaborative support of multiple disciplines. What is highly comprehensive and interdisciplinary scientific research? In the view of Professor Wu Kai from the School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering at Peking University, the core of highly integrated interdisciplinary research is that scientific problems are no longer limited to a single discipline, and solving problems requires the collaborative support of multiple disciplines. The scientific community generally believes that highly integrated and interdisciplinary scientific research aims to utilize knowledge and methods from multiple disciplines to achieve deep integration and extreme intersection in solving scientific and technological problems, promote research paradigm changes, and open up new disciplinary directions and research fields. The highly comprehensive and interdisciplinary scientific research has some significant characteristics. Extremely comprehensive interdisciplinary scientific research often has a certain scientific problem orientation. That is to say, its research mode usually revolves around a complex central scientific problem, requiring multidisciplinary and multi perspective solutions, "said Wu Kai. When scientific research develops to a certain stage, breakthroughs in certain single disciplinary dimensions will become extremely difficult, and there is an urgent need for cross disciplinary integration and collaborative exploration to achieve twice the result with half the effort Zheng Huilong, a researcher at the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said. Zheng Huilong is mainly engaged in scientific research on intelligent flight control, and he takes his own research as an example. Originally, the team needed to develop more than 40 parts for a key component of the aircraft engine. Thanks to 3D printing technology, many parts can be designed and manufactured in an integrated manner. Now, only 7 parts need to be manufactured to achieve the same performance, greatly improving efficiency. If 3D printing technology is combined with composite technology and carbon fiber materials are woven into equipment, it can not only improve the wear resistance and lightness of the equipment, but also be more conducive to designing sensors and enhancing equipment intelligence, "said Zheng Huilong. For example, research in the field of traditional aircraft control mainly relies on the coupling practice of fluid mechanics and control theory. The Zheng Huilong team is working hard to empower flight control with artificial intelligence technology, helping aircraft shape an "intelligent brain" for self-learning control of flight attitude and trajectory planning, thus achieving autonomous flight of aircraft. This may be the development direction of the future patrol industry. The potential released by interdisciplinary integration is enormous. Nowadays, more and more scientific breakthroughs and technological changes are achieved through interdisciplinary integration. The intersection of scientific research is not limited to the fields of natural sciences or engineering sciences. Experts believe that the highly integrated intersection should also accommodate the "cross-border" integration of natural sciences and social sciences. Xu Feng, a researcher at the China Institute of Science and Technology Information, stated that with the development of artificial intelligence, its scientific research is no longer just a matter of technology, but also involves ethical, moral, and cultural concepts. It is necessary to ensure that values, moral values, and legal regulations that are beneficial to humanity are integrated into the products and services of artificial intelligence. To this end, it is necessary to establish interdisciplinary cooperation, strengthen the participation of scientists, engineers, policy makers, and the public, and jointly explore the development direction, application areas, and ethical issues of artificial intelligence. How to understand the "extreme" of extreme synthesis and intersection? The interviewed experts stated that the "intersection" of cross fusion is not simply a "1+1", it is not simply piecing together two disciplines, but rather finding internal logical connections with other disciplines on the basis of meticulous cultivation of existing disciplines, even between different dimensions and levels, and cultivating new academic growth points through interaction, creating the effect of "1+1>2". Therefore, when engaging in cross disciplinary research exploration, one must be cautious of crossing over for the sake of crossing over, otherwise they will only wander repeatedly on the edge of innovation, wasting resources and energy. The highly comprehensive and interdisciplinary scientific research promotes the solution of cutting-edge scientific problems and produces significant scientific achievements. Physicist Schr ö dinger used quantum mechanics and thermodynamics to explore the essence of life, giving birth to molecular biology; Tu Youyou extracted artemisinin from traditional Chinese medicine, opening up a new path for human anti malaria... All of these demonstrate the interdisciplinary innovation power. The highly comprehensive and interdisciplinary scientific research is not only a key way to promote basic scientific research and solve complex technological problems, but also a driving force for promoting economic and social development. Surface and interface science is the intersection of disciplines such as chemistry, physics, nanomaterials, energy and environment, and even life and health. In recent years, the Wu Kai team has developed the national major scientific research instrument "Ultra High Space Resolution Ionic Chemistry Research System", which integrates knowledge and technology from multiple disciplines such as surface chemistry, condensed matter physics, ultrafast optics, electronic information and engineering. This system is capable of accurately soft landing a single metal or non-metal ion onto a specific migration medium surface, and monitoring in real-time the migration kinetics, solvation process, charge transfer, and energy transport of the single ion at different interfaces Wu Kai introduced that people are able to conduct comprehensive research on the physical and chemical properties of ions from macro to micro, from static to dynamic, directly providing strong technical support for industrial needs such as safe disposal of spent fuel, ion batteries, and resource recovery. Through deep interdisciplinary integration, China has made many breakthrough achievements in recent years. In the interdisciplinary research of low dimensional materials, surface physics and microscopic characterization, Xue Qikun, a professor of Tsinghua University and an academician of the CAS Member, discovered the "quantum anomalous Hall effect", which broke through people's physical cognition of quantum systems, demonstrated a new paradigm of highly comprehensive cross research, and highlighted the novel physical properties of the surface and interface of low dimensional materials. This scientific research achievement won the first prize of the the State Natural Science Award in 2018. Benefiting from the highly cross integration of quantum chemistry theory and calculation, catalytic chemistry, chemical engineering and other disciplines, the team of Li Yongwang, a researcher of Shanxi Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has developed a complete set of intermediate temperature indirect coal to oil technology with completely independent intellectual property rights. This technology not only has important strategic significance in ensuring China's energy security, but also provides a new way for the efficient and clean utilization of coal resources. This research achievement won the first prize of the 2020 National Science and Technology Progress Award. These cases demonstrate that highly integrated interdisciplinary research can integrate theoretical principles and methodological techniques from multiple disciplines, promote the resolution of cutting-edge scientific problems, and produce significant scientific research achievements. Promoting interdisciplinary integration is a consensus in the global scientific and technological community. Experts believe that the trend of scientific research towards "extremely comprehensive cross cutting" originates from the profound changes in the contemporary global technological development trend, as well as the complexity and diversity of scientific problems. Nowadays, countries around the world are actively promoting interdisciplinary research, broadening scientific horizons, generating new opportunities for innovation, and bringing new solutions. The highly integrated and interdisciplinary scientific research model has a unique driving force for innovation, making it easier to generate disruptive technologies and leading original achievements. Many original major scientific discoveries and technological advancements come from the collision of ideas and the fusion of principles between disciplines. In recent years, a significant portion of the Nobel Prize in Natural Sciences has been sparked by interdisciplinary research. For example, this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three scientists who made outstanding contributions to protein structure prediction, which is another representative achievement of comprehensive scientific research. What aspects do we need to focus on in order to create a cross disciplinary, open, and shared operating mechanism, vigorously cultivate comprehensive interdisciplinary scientific research talents, and do a good job in highly comprehensive interdisciplinary scientific research? Wu Kai suggested that in terms of hardware, we should accelerate the independent development of major high-end scientific research instruments. The interdisciplinary integration of scientific research cannot be separated from the innovation and breakthroughs of major high-end scientific research instruments. The independent research and development and creation of major high-end scientific research instruments are also products of highly comprehensive interdisciplinary scientific research, relying on the full chain innovation from basic principles, advanced materials and processing, core components, key electronic technologies to system integration. At present, China's scientific research system is still mainly based on traditional disciplinary classifications, with resources such as faculty, talent, funding, and even research instruments mainly revolving around a single discipline. This often leads to awkward situations for interdisciplinary researchers in the application and evaluation stages of research projects, which affects their enthusiasm for scientific research. Xu Feng suggested that we should gradually change the current situation of disciplinary differentiation in China, create a set of cross disciplinary, open and shared disciplinary operation mechanisms, and deeply promote more refined reforms in project application and evaluation stages. In November 2020, the National Natural Science Foundation of China established the Interdisciplinary Science Department, which is responsible for coordinating the overall funding work of the National Natural Science Foundation in the field of interdisciplinary science, which is an exploration. In addition, it is necessary to vigorously cultivate talents for comprehensive interdisciplinary scientific research. Zheng Huilong introduced that although the team mainly engages in engineering applied science research, in recent years, the team tends to recruit members with interdisciplinary backgrounds, and will also discover and cultivate outstanding young talents in interdisciplinary science research in a targeted manner. Currently, many universities and research institutes have established interdisciplinary and integrated teaching models, offered general education courses, with the aim of strengthening the cultivation of composite innovative talents, and have also achieved certain results. Natural sciences are dedicated to revealing natural laws, while social sciences focus on the development of human society. Wu Kai believes that the cross disciplinary integration of natural sciences and social sciences should also be actively promoted. The cross disciplinary integration between the two will contribute Chinese wisdom and strength to enhancing China's scientific and cultural innovation capabilities and promoting the sustainable and healthy development of human civilization. (New Society)
Edit:He ChengXi Responsible editor:Tang WanQi
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