Wang Weisong: From “Granny Physics” to Science Popularization Advocate

Recently Wu Yuren, Professor of Physics at Tongji University, has become known as “Granny Physics” since her interesting short videos popularizing physics have gone viral on the internet. Prof. Wu said, “As a country would not grow without the overall improvement of its people, it is desirable to push for more and deeper learning and instructive popular science.” In the past, Children’s Palaces and Teenagers’ Science and Technology Stations used to be the major theatres for science popularization among youth, while numerous bestsellers, newspapers and magazines served as the main vehicles of popular science. Both those facilities and publications were able to arouse children’s intellectual curiosity about the world, about the unknown. Now we have Granny Physics. But we need more, much more.

The Chinese society right now needs to provide more resources for the improvement of its people’s physical and mental strength and, in particular, for its children’s intellectual growth. For that purpose, how shall we encourage a variety of social forces to come to play? I venture to point to three trends that might be promoted.

First, encourage short video platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Little Red Book to develop special columns and sections for science popularization. Thanks to their powerful platforms, a whole variety of short videos are reaching far and wide. If we make this popular medium a vehicle for demonstrating and displaying the splendour of science and technology, children, and the public in general, will be informed with interesting topics, develop desires for knowledge, grasp learning techniques, expand scientific thinking capabilities, and enjoy scientific exploration. In current circumstances, it’s especially important to promote and popularize scientific facts and healthy common sense. For example, amidst the fight against COVID-19, science popularization has been playing an important role at critical moments in reassuring public emotions, appeasing panic behaviors and guiding social customs.

Secondly, integrate and leverage the organizing and coordinating functions of Shanghai Federation of Social Science Associations, Shanghai Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and Shanghai Association for Science and Technology. Members of these organizations boast numerous senior experts like Granny Physics, who are specialized, experienced, and still very energetic, and willing to contribute. They should be encouraged and mobilized to transmit knowledge not only of natural sciences, but also of all fields, including the Party’s history, humanities and social sciences, art, sports and hygiene, and so on. It is a fine tradition in the publishing circle that great scholars write easy-to-understand books on apparently obscure topics. Among them are The Language of Mother Nature written by Zhu Kezhen, Classics Explained in Simple Terms by Zhu Ziqing, and Classical Chinese Readings by Ye Shengtao, all of which have appealed to readers of many generations. To promote such a fine tradition should become a common pursuit among all academic, cultural, scientific, and social circles.

Thirdly, accelerate legislation for popularizing science, including social sciences. As a cosmopolitan city, Shanghai should continuously improve its citizens’ scientific literacy and cultural quality. In fact, in legislation for broad-sense science (including social science) popularization, the city is a bit lagging behind some provinces and municipalities. We already have Regulations of Shanghai Municipality on Promoting the Construction of Science, Technology and Innovation Center, and Regulations of Shanghai Municipality on Scientific and Technological Progress. Similar legislation for social science should be done in such a way that a synergy might be achieved between it and the above-mentioned two sets of regulations for natural science and technology and a complete legal system supporting scientific, technological and cultural innovations might be established. Such legislation requires breakthroughs and extraordinary intellectual power. But we must make it, in order to increase the city’s soft power by means of institutional construction.

(The author is the Secretary of the CPC Members’ Group, Dedicated Vice Chairman of Shanghai Federation of Social Science Associations, and a Shanghai NPC Deputy)