【Scene】What is the development direction of the new collider? In which areas are it possible to make new and significant discoveries, this is my first question.

I do not know. It is very difficult to speculate about the future, didn't I just talk about a letter sent to me by Feynman (American physicist and Nobel laureate in physics), isn't it clearly written on it?

【Commentary】The elder who answered "I don't know" frankly in the face of young people's questions is Ding Zhaozhong, Nobel Prize winner in physics and foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. On May 5, Ding Zhaozhong attended the High Energy Forum of the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to share his experience from accelerator to space exploration.

As the world's top experimental physicist, Ding Zhaozhong once discovered that the electron radius is zero, and the discovery of "J particles" was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1976. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) project, initiated and led by him, whose main goal is to search for dark matter and primordial antimatter, and study the origin of cosmic rays, is currently operating on the International Space Station.

Ding Zhaozhong, Nobel Prize winner in physics and foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Charged cosmic rays have mass, and they are absorbed by the atmosphere at 100 kilometers, so there is no way to (precisely) study the properties of charged cosmic rays on the ground. It is more difficult to run a magnetic spectrometer in outer space, and no one has ever put a magnet in the sky. Because everyone knows the principle of the compass, put a magnet into the sky and quickly lose control. The Institute of High Energy of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is one of the initiating teams of AMS, and we designed a magnet that (it has no magnetic leakage and no secondary moment) that does not rotate in the sky, the first time it flew on the space shuttle for ten days, and the second time it was placed on the International Space Station from 2011 to 2030.

As the only precision detection instrument operating on the International Space Station, AMS has collected a large amount of data and produced many results that are inconsistent with existing theories, which is exactly what Ding Zhaozhong is happy to see.

Ding Zhaozhong, Nobel Prize winner in physics and foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Experiments are the basis of natural science, and theories are meaningless without experimental proof. When experiments overturn theories, we can build new theories. The universe is the most extensive laboratory, our understanding of the universe is very limited, and all our (AMS) observations are inconsistent with the existing cosmic ray theory, so it brings a new understanding of the universe.

In 1977, Deng Xiaoping met with Ding Zhaozhong, and the two sides agreed to send Chinese physicists to work in the Hamburg experimental group in Germany led by Ding Zhaozhong, which also became an important milestone in Sino-foreign scientific and technological exchanges. After working with Chinese scientists for more than <> years, Ding Zhaozhong was quite emotional.

Ding Zhaozhong, Nobel Prize winner in physics and foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

In 1977, Deng Xiaoping proposed sending 10 scientists to work with me each year, and since then, Chinese scientists have joined my team to make world-recognized contributions. Since then, fewer than a thousand (Chinese) scientists have participated in our experiments, and my half-century experience of working with Chinese scientists is that China has many world-class experimental physicists with imagination, experience and ability to develop new technologies and lead international cooperation, who can continue to make important contributions to human knowledge.

Today, Ding Zhaozhong is still engaged in scientific research. He revealed that in the future, AMS will continue to collect data and further upgrade to expand human understanding of the universe.

Ding Zhaozhong, Nobel Prize winner in physics and foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Scientific things cannot be solved by voting. Most of my experiments have been opposed by a lot of people. The biggest difference between humans and animals is that people are curious and do new things, and there are always people who have different opinions. It's not a bad thing to have different opinions, but I personally believe that you have to do the best, what others think is impossible, so that you can stand ahead of people.

Reporter Cheng Yu reported from Beijing

Responsible Editor: [Ye Pan]