Peng Huisheng, 1999, Bachelor of Polymer Materials from Donghua University, Master of Polymer Chemistry and Physics from Fudan University in 2003, and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and Biomolecular Engineering from tulane university, USA in 2006. He joined the Los Alamos National Laboratory of the US Department of Energy on June 5438+ 10, 2006, and started to work independently. June 5438+October 2008 10, he returned to work in Fudan University. He is currently a professor, doctoral supervisor, deputy director of the Department of Polymer Science and chief researcher (PI) of the Advanced Materials Laboratory. ?
Up to now, more than 60 academic papers/kloc-0 have been published, of which more than 70 have been published in six international authoritative academic journals, such as Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Photonics, Angew Chem Int Ed and Adv.mater. J. Am。 Chemistry. Socialist and physics priest Ritter. The research work was reported twice by Science magazine, five times by Nature magazine, and 10 times by Nature sub-publication, including 2009 and 201year, and was rated as "Top Ten Research Highlights in Asia-Pacific Region" by Nature Publishing House twice a month. 73 international and domestic invention patents were applied, of which 33 patents successfully realized technology transfer.
How important is the postgraduate stage? In an exclusive interview with Science, I took this opportunity to talk about the importance of graduate students to a person's development. There are several very recognized, graduate students are the watershed that determines people's future achievements. If graduate students do well in the exam, it is likely to decide that you will do well in the exam in the future. There is a proverb in the west that I have always admired for my students, and that is: Excellence is a habit. You did well as a graduate student and a doctoral student, and then you have been doing well.
As we all know, the world-class research results were all completed at the age of twenty. Everyone thinks that the creativity is the strongest in the twenties, and then it is almost the same in the thirties. I went to study it specially, but I didn't find that creativity was the strongest in my twenties. Finally, I found a sentence from Muming Poo, a neuroscientist. He believes that the reason why creativity will decline with age is because the older you get, the more information you receive, and a lot of information will constrain your creativity. That sounds reasonable, but it doesn't seem to matter if you think about it carefully. Because you need a lot of information to do anything, if the amount of information is small, it may be detrimental to your creative achievements. The relationship between age and creativity seems unclear.
So, what caused the great success to be completed in the twenties?
? How to do well from graduate school?
? Why are graduate students important?
I think: when you start to do research independently after graduation (usually in the teaching stage), most of your time will be occupied by projects, papers and filling out various forms, so it is difficult for you to have enough time to think about your research problems. So, what I want to say is: at this stage of graduate students, you can concentrate on one thing and think carefully about your research problems. Only when there are not so many chores bothering you can you make important research results. So the postgraduate stage is very important, which is the first point of my report.
The second point is what I have been thinking about, that is, what is the most important for graduate students? I think it is the ability to think independently. There are many examples of this. You can see what Einstein said, "It is more important to think independently and learn to work than to put professional knowledge first." Hua also has the same argument that "scientific inspiration does not come out of thin air." If I want to do anything, I need to think for myself. If you lag behind others, you can't do your best.
▌ Third, I want to talk to you about my graduate experience, which I did fairly well and which I didn't do well, and give you some inspiration. What I did well is worth learning:
●? The first one should work hard. When I was a graduate student, I worked hard and paid close attention. Xiaodong, who locked the door in Yuejin Building now, is still there. You can check with him. He closes every night 1 1, and the last person will always be me. I may not go the earliest in the morning, but I am the earliest. I'm basically here on Saturday and Sunday. I studied for a doctorate abroad, which is basically the same. I have three Christmases, two of which didn't rest, and one of them was called back by the boss while walking on the road. Basically, Christmas is effective. But no pains, no gains.
? ●? The second one needs to read a lot of literature. Only by reading a lot to understand the research background can we do it well.
? ●? Third, thick-skinned and extensive cooperation and exchanges. The platform in this area needs to be strengthened. When our teachers discussed it together, one thing bothered us, that is, experts were invited to give a report at last, but not many students listened. In fact, it is not easy to ask experts to give a report. It takes time and money, and the people we invite are all people who think it is worth inviting after consideration. I remember very clearly when I was a Ph.D. student in the United States. Once there was a report in the department, and all the professors who had no classes went. When I look at the first two rows, the professors are all full, and then the students are in the back. Everyone will take this time to listen to the report and continue to do experiments after listening to the report. I don't think our atmosphere in this area is strong enough. Of course, there are academic problems. I think some reports are far from my direction. You don't have to listen to general remarks that are far from your own direction. But you still have to listen to the master's report and listen to other people's ways of thinking. If you think people can do this, they must have their own uniqueness, and different disciplines may inspire you. There are many examples of this.
? ●? Fourth, when doing research and cooperating with others, don't haggle over every ounce, for small losses make big gains. Because everything is always difficult to be absolutely fair, there will always be a slightly disadvantaged party in cooperation. It is important for us to consider how to do things well. Also, be thick-skinned, so you can avoid detours. When I was a graduate student myself, I always asked questions. In the first year, the teacher felt very good and praised you; In the second year, the teacher was still enthusiastic; In the third year, the teacher began to be afraid and said, "Don't ask me if I am busy now." But I think in this case, my work efficiency is very high, because my problems can be solved at any time.
The above is what I think I did, but I didn't do well?
? ●? First, the development goals are unclear. I want to go to industry for a while and academia for a while. This won't work, because you go to different places and have different development priorities, so you will waste a lot of time and energy. Moreover, my research direction has also changed. One moment this and the other, although I did a lot of work in the end, I didn't have enough depth.
? ●? Second, the development is not comprehensive. I have always attached great importance to doing experiments because we are experimental science, but other aspects are not developed enough, such as writing papers. In retrospect, the importance of writing a paper accounts for at least 50% of an article, which is more important than doing experiments. If you want to sell something, writing a paper is very important. You should consciously cultivate your writing ability at the graduate stage. There is also a report, which is too important. As we all know, graphene won the Nobel Prize, and the winner (Geim) was very ordinary when he was young. Later, he may often go out to give reports, and his ability to give reports is very great. On the eve of winning the prize, he was invited to give a lecture in Sweden. Later, many comments from the award Committee came from his report. These abilities and habits need to be cultivated in the postgraduate stage, and you will benefit from them.
? ●? Third, lack of independent thinking. I feel that I am poor in this respect. Why is my research direction unclear? My tutor told me to do whatever I wanted. I did a lot, but it was not deep. The main reason is that I lack independent thinking and have not dug deep. ?
Finally, I want to talk about your four aspects from graduate school to graduation, which may be a quick statement for your reference.
I. Objectives
If you have a clear goal in everything, you can do it well, just like shooting a target. If you go in the wrong direction, you will go further and further and miss the goal at all. What is the goal of postgraduate study?
Figure: Four stages of learning
I quoted a foreign professor as saying that a circle is drawn here. Humans are such a circle, in which the known is represented and the unknown is represented outside. You learned a little in elementary school, a little more in middle school and a little more in college. Then you have a professional direction. When you get to graduate school, you have to read a lot of literature. You have to drill deeper in this direction, and you have to get in touch with the most cutting-edge things in this major. This is the limit known to mankind at present.
So, what do graduate students want to do? You must choose a point here, which needs to be discussed with your tutor. This is your research direction. What do you need to do in this direction? What did you do? Three or five years, you need to think about this, because the tutor doesn't know. Finally, one day you broke through this point, and the size of breaking through this point is related to personal cultivation. At this time, you push human knowledge one step further, and you will graduate at this time.
So graduate students need to break through this point. Break through this point and graduate. The bigger this point is, the more successful your research will be. When you graduate, think about whether you can do this. I think this is the goal of graduate students.
Of course, graduate students have many goals, but I think this is a core point. The most important thing for graduate students is to do research, and the tutor only plays a protective role in the back. You should really take the lead. In your graduation defense, you should know more about your research than all the people who are doing it, because this is your pioneering point. Finally, people should have self-knowledge and correctly position themselves. Don't forget the overall situation because of this. In fact, everyone's contribution to the progress of human knowledge is very limited.
Second, research ideas and attitudes.
1.？ Don't let the tutor lead you by the nose? Take the initiative to do research.
Research is like the Long March. The instructor gives you a direction, and the instructor may not be able to eat accurately. Your food must be very average. The more uncertain, the more important it may be. No one has done it. This may make this direction not necessarily feasible, so you should be flexible. At this time, you can't follow the requirements of the tutor step by step. You really need to think for yourself. After thinking, you can find out whether your direction can be done, whether it needs to be adjusted, and sometimes even a big adjustment. This is the first similarity with the Long March. The second similarity is that you need to adjust your goals, but you must be clear. You need to know what is the result of your adjustment and why. Then you must have the belief of winning, especially in an unknown direction, and you will certainly encounter many difficulties. If you believe that your business is good, you should stick to it.
I want to tell the story of the Long March, Sidu Chishui. From a military point of view, I think this is a very important battle. The transformation from being led by the enemy to being led by the enemy has been realized. This may also be the case when doing research, because one thing has to be repeated several times. It is important that you don't let your tutor lead you by the nose, because you are doing research, and your tutor only knows some aspects, so he can't know better than you. In other words, you need to take the initiative to do research.
In this regard, I want to tell you a few stories. The first is Einstein's report card. You may have heard the legend of Einstein's three small benches. According to my research, this is a complete fabrication. Einstein lived a good life from childhood to adulthood, unlike the three small benches that everyone imagined. This is his high school report card, Sweden 1898, out of 6 points. You can see that his grades are excellent.
The second short story is graphene. Heim is Russian. No matter whether you go to Britain or the United States, you will encounter nationality problems, so the situation was very difficult at first, and there was no research funding. He thinks everyone is making carbon nanotubes. This thing is very hot. Why should I do it like everyone else? Can I open the carbon nanotubes and see what happens? Then he opened his mind to do it. Opening up a new field is bound to encounter many difficulties, but if you think it is worth doing, don't give up easily.
Novoselov 1 is only two years older than me. The two of them, Gaim, withstood all the pressure from the aspects of funds and assessment, while Novoselov did his research seriously, much like the postgraduate stage. What you need to do is to do research wholeheartedly. Graphene won the Nobel Prize in Physics. This student of physics should know, and so should students of chemistry and materials. I won't comment here.
1 I note: The 20 10 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov from Britain for their breakthrough contributions in the synthesis of graphene materials since 2004.
Third, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. For its discovery, you should make textual research. There is an article in Nature Nanotechnology, which you read very interestingly. Sometimes it can be used for your research reference. The first discovery was made by three people from Exxon. They finished and published a very general article, and then Smali saw it. He thought it was very interesting, so he bought the same instrument as Exxon and got it in the same way. This is their article published in Nature, drawing a schematic diagram of football and experiment, copying Exxon's, and then mass spectrometry. He won the Nobel Prize for such an article. Why? Looking back, you should know what gold is and what sand is. Exxon threw it away like sand, while Smali did a series of research to understand its nature. So if you want to do research, opportunities are always given to those who are prepared.
The fourth is about Chandraseka, the discoverer of the white dwarf. Why do I know this man? In the 1940s and 1950s, he drove for three hours every day to teach a class, rain or shine. There are only two people in that class, and both of them have won the Nobel Prize. They are Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao. So I know this man's name. He is an Indian scientist. He also has a great uncle who won the Nobel Prize, and that is Raman.
The last story is about Landau 2. He said, "Who is that beautiful girl?" When I was teaching undergraduates, I asked them who the beautiful girl in this sentence was, and they said it was Madame Curie. Landau's beautiful girl refers to relativity and quantum mechanics. He said that all the beautiful girls were taken away by others, so I'll do something else! There are two kinds of scientists. One is to work step by step. A pushes out B, B pushes out C, C pushes out D, and finally gets a great discovery. The other is like Landau and Bohr. They get a thing without analysis or speculation, but intuitively, and see the result at a glance. They are geeks. Such scientists are extremely rare. Although what he did in the end was far less important than relativity and quantum mechanics, he devoted himself to it and finally won the Nobel Prize.
I note: Lev Davidovic Landau (1908- 1968), a Soviet Jew, is known as the last all-round physicist in the world.
There is a "Landau Ten Commandments" 3 that physics students should know. On his birthday, someone gave him a board engraved with his top ten contributions. He has made a lot of achievements, basically doing his best in one line and loving his line. This is an advantage of Landau, which I think is very important. You can't do one line and throw away another. Another advantage of Landau is that he dares to challenge authority. Once Einstein gave a report, as I just said, Landau could see the conclusion of many things by intuition. He directly said that Einstein's equation was wrong. Later, Einstein thought for a long time and thought Landau was right. You think Einstein was an absolute authority at that time, and Landau was just a young man. He stood up and dared to point out the mistakes of authority. I think it takes such courage to do research.
I note: On the occasion of Landau's 50th birthday, the academic circles of the Soviet Union carved his ten great contributions to physics on a stone tablet as a birthday present, and called it "Landau's Ten Commandments", which has the same name as a prophet: he won the Nobel Prize in physics for pioneering the theory of condensed matter, especially liquid helium.
1956, the Soviet physicist Chapiro discovered that parity is not conserved. He also wrote a paper at that time, and then showed it to Landau, because he had to recommend someone to publish the paper. Landau thought this thing was impossible and symmetry should be conserved, so he put the paper aside. A few months later, Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao published a paper on parity non-conservation, which made people feel very sorry. Looking back, in addition to Landau's style of learning hegemony, Shapiro should also reflect and think that his own things are right. Why can't he insist? Landau is wrong, he can also publish a paper.
Here is a positive example, that is, the Indian mentioned earlier, whose Nobel Prize was won in the 1930s. He was at Cambridge University at that time, but his achievements were not recognized by an astronomical authority at that time. The authority criticizes him every time he meets, but he always sticks to his own point of view. Later, he went to the United States, died against his authority, and won the Nobel Prize in the 1980s. I once saw an interesting saying on the Internet that the new theory defeated the old theory, not because the people of the new theory persuaded the people of the old theory, but because the people of the old theory died and educated the next generation. Therefore, I have always stressed to students that it is impossible not to exercise. I have given you many examples, including the discovery of the double helix. The first one is a female scientist who pursues perfection and has never been published. Later, she died young. When the Nobel Prize was awarded, she had already passed away and had no chance to win the Nobel Prize.
2. Doing scientific research should have the mentality of "doing the best"
What I said just now was looking up at the stars, and then I will talk about how to carry out the experimental work. These are my personal feelings. Have the mentality of "Do it and you will do it best". We should also have a positive attitude towards the experimental results. You want A, and the possible result is "-A". Many times, the opposite result is also very important, even more important.
Once, I listened to a report and was also a great scientist. He said: "If you get an opposite result, you are likely to make an important discovery." You should focus on some big scientific problems and don't dwell on some details. Also, do a lot of experiments. If you can't convince yourself with your experiment, even if you publish an article, experts can see the quality of your work at a glance. When you develop well in the future, it will have a great influence on your reputation So, do more experiments, so that you can know more about your work.
Of course, many experiments failed for no reason. When I was doing anionic polymerization, I couldn't figure out why I couldn't do it. Then one day I suddenly did it, and I have been doing it ever since. So sometimes there are too many reasons for failure, and the easiest way is to repeat. I think this is the case with experimental science. You need to work hard and have a certain probability to do it. Mr. Mao Yisheng once said, "Diligence is the mother of success." Everyone was smart when they were in graduate school. You can do better than others because you pay more.
Third, some methods and skills in scientific research.
1.？ Develop good experimental habits
To form a good habit, I am very bad at it and have suffered a lot. When I was a master in Fudan, I did a lot of work, some of which were very important. As we all know, writing a paper has a certain lag. Because the experimental record book is very bad, we can't remember the conditions under which these experimental data were obtained when we went abroad. The experimental conditions are not good enough to write, so you can't publish an article, because the conditions can't be scribbled, otherwise others can't repeat it. This is fraud.
At that time, I thought I must remember these experimental conditions, and I did remember them at that time. You don't need to read the experiment record book when you repeat the experiment, but people's memory is always limited. After a year, it's a little unclear. At this time, you can't publish an article, and the loss will be great. So we should develop good experimental habits.
In my opinion, to do experimental science, there must be two experimental notebooks, one is a planning notebook and the other is a notebook. The plan is the plan before the experiment, what to do tomorrow, what to do a week later and so on. Then I have to think about how long it will take to do these experiments, what steps are there, what matters need to be paid attention to and so on. In this way, your thinking of doing experiments will be clear, which can improve efficiency and increase the safety of experiments. If you do the experiment without a plan, it is easy to have a safety accident. Be more careful when doing experiments, and write down every step clearly, including time, temperature and weather. The laboratory in China is different from that in the United States, and it is not constant temperature. These are all influential. If you record this way, it will be very convenient for you to write your paper, because it is all written! You will write your graduation thesis or publish it soon, and it will be very efficient for others to repeat your experiment. I strongly recommend this to you.
Figure: experimental planning book and experimental record book
"The amount of information is inversely proportional to creativity" I disagree. In my opinion, you still need to read a lot of literature. You don't know what others are doing. How can we do better than others? If you don't know other people's things, how can you know if your own things are good or bad? So keep abreast of the latest information, that is, the top journals in this field. Now there is a trend that good results are gathered in top journals.
Nature established its authoritative position in the scientific community in the 1950s. Before that, no one knew what nature was. This is the case now, and so is the United States. All the good results were still in Nature and Science, but they were rejected and then submitted to other journals. And now there are too many documents, just look at these authoritative journals. You can't say 100%. Most of your good grades are in these journals, which can save you time.
2.？ Take an active part in academic reports, not behind closed doors.
One more thing, what I want to say is to actively participate in academic reports, rather than behind closed doors. I think our teachers should also reflect on this. Teachers have a lot of things to do, but they should still have time to listen to the report. Academic report is a good exchange opportunity, which needs us to improve slowly. Students need to participate more, because teachers have more communication channels and fewer students. Especially some experts, it will be very helpful for you to ask questions and have a chat with others in the future. For example, if you want to go to him to be a postdoctoral fellow, or a very important network that you will study independently in the future, this network will be established slowly, not at once. Therefore, you need to seize the opportunity to talk to others. There are always some people, and you will find that others have a good impression on you, so that when you are in trouble, others will be happy to help you.
Four, several points of writing scientific research papers
First of all, I think drawing scientific research papers is very important. Drawing plays a great role, especially for good journals. Some people abroad spend money on painting. When we review the papers now, we should look at the pictures first when we get the papers. Sometimes this picture looks ugly at first glance and gives you a very bad impression. Secondly, it is language training. Our mother tongue is not English, and good periodicals are basically English. We emphasize that editors and reviewers should be conquered by logical rigor, and there should be no grammatical mistakes. Of course, beautiful language is better.
Regarding language training, here is a method recommended by Tsinghua University and Shi. He recalled that when he was a graduate student, his English was poor. In order to improve his English, he reads English news reports or articles for at least half an hour every day. Later, he trained English in graduate school, and he found this method very useful. When you start writing a paper, you can imitate others, but don't copy. According to the English definition, six consecutive words are the same as plagiarism, so everyone must pay attention. Writing an article must be enthusiastic and aware of its importance, as important as doing experiments.
Of course, the article needs to be revised. Lu Xun said well, "A good article needs to be revised 20 times." I think 20 times is absolutely necessary. You must be satisfied with the article. It is impossible to satisfy the reviewers if you are not satisfied with yourself. Also, everyone should learn to make academic reports, be logical, pay attention to the audience's reaction, use pictures as much as possible to illustrate the problem, and use a small number of keywords to emphasize it; Be enthusiastic when making a report. If you don't have enthusiasm, the audience will definitely be more listless, and of course there will be body language and so on. In this regard, I have great admiration for Premier Zhou Enlai. I'm not very good at this myself, but I can't change it. I haven't formed a good habit yet.
Finally, talk about writing a graduation thesis. Quote Mao Zedong: "Articles should be accurate, vivid and vivid." He introduced how to make the article accurate, vivid and vivid. You can go and have a look. One more thing, don't talk empty words, any point of view must be supported by materials. We also write letters of recommendation Empty talk is definitely a bad recommendation letter. This is a sentence from Tao Xingzhi. We write academic papers, not to say that they are for the old lady to understand, at least our colleagues have to read them.
I noticed that the preface and thanks of graduation thesis are "copy here, copy there". I think this is a bad habit. Don't pursue space, express yourself in your own language. There are many templates on the Internet to thank students. Generally speaking, the first paragraph thanks Mr. XX for his integrity, and I have benefited a lot in my life. Teachers placed in ABCD can apply it. Next, I thank my classmate ABCDE. Anyone can bring it here and change its name. This is meaningless. Thank you is to say what you want to say. There is. No, there won't be. Say as much as you have. Here I give an example of the gratitude of former US President Bill Clinton:
Dedicated to my mother, who gave me love for life.
To Hillary, who gave me a life full of love.
Dedicated to Chelsea, who gave all this joy and meaning.
In memory of my grandfather, he taught me to respect those who are looked down upon by others.
Because we are no different after all.
-Bill Clinton
This thank you is very targeted. He thanked his mother and made him full of love for life. He thanked his wife and gave him the love of his life. Thanks to his daughter for giving him happiness and meaning in life; He would like to thank grandpa in particular, because grandpa taught him one thing, that is, to respect the despised people, because in essence, no one is much taller than anyone else, and everyone is equal. The content is clear and the language is beautiful.
The above is my translation, try to keep his original intention, which may not be correct for your reference. So whatever you write, you should use your own words, and don't copy others'. China people have this problem, so do I. ..
Finally, I don't want to see such a scene: this picture was found in Nature: he has a doctorate and has been a postdoctoral fellow for three years. I calculated, at least 1 1 year. 1/kloc-0 only published six articles a year, so he can only work for food. This is a pity. I hope our graduate students will work for fun in the future, and you will only do it when you are enjoying it, so that you can do your best.
So I hope I can see the truth after many years. What kind of certificate is this? The winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was Robert H. Grubbs. I hope to see the real certificate here. So how many years later? I hope it's not ten thousand years. Thank you!