WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.390 Yangyang Cheng: Science Technology. 2 00:00:02.020 --> 00:00:10.809 Yangyang Cheng: at the time, oh, this is an interesting time to start… to start, to start recording. That is great. And so, of course, on one hand. 3 00:00:13.780 --> 00:00:33.460 Yangyang Cheng: especially in the early to the… through the 1950s, when China and the Soviet Union were close allies in the socialist world, and… and… and there was the learning from the Soviet model in terms of building up the science and technology sector in China. And of course, that is… 4 00:00:35.100 --> 00:00:54.760 Yangyang Cheng: in concerted effort with a large number of Chinese scientists who had received their training in Western countries, including the United States and some European countries, as I just mentioned, people like Zhao Royao and Wang Gan, and so they were, they helped lay the foundations of science and technology in the People's Republic of China. 5 00:00:54.760 --> 00:01:18.600 Yangyang Cheng: On the other hand, China at the time, under Mao, was a socialist revolutionary power. And it would be incorrect to say that Mao's China did not care about science. Mao very much cared about science, but he had a different vision for science, which was, like, science needs to mobilize the masses. Scientific experimentation is one of the three revolutionary movements alongside 6 00:01:18.710 --> 00:01:20.380 Yangyang Cheng: Prot… 7 00:01:20.520 --> 00:01:40.060 Yangyang Cheng: class struggle and production struggle. And so… so this poster here is like, everyone needs to study science, everyone needs to do scientific experimentation, is very much an embodiment of this, type of mass science in the Mao era. And under this ideology, scientists who had received elite training, they were seen as politically suspect. 8 00:01:40.060 --> 00:01:51.400 Yangyang Cheng: And so there were these two strains of tensions, pursuing advanced science and technology for strategic development, for national defense, for economic development, for socialist construction, on one hand. 9 00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:59.719 Yangyang Cheng: On the other hand, pursuing maths, grassroots-led mass science, on the other, as an embodiment of this revolutionary ideology. 10 00:01:59.720 --> 00:02:17.310 Yangyang Cheng: And so, so under this, under this context, the pursuit of high-energy accelerators in China in the Mao era, continued, but the earlier proposals, especially the first six proposals, were… did not advance beyond conceptual stage because of technological, material, and political constraints. 11 00:02:17.340 --> 00:02:23.519 Yangyang Cheng: One thing that is also important to note here is that, speaking of science technology development in the Mao era. 12 00:02:23.930 --> 00:02:36.530 Yangyang Cheng: different fields had different treatment because of their perceived political implications. For example, some of the other fundamental fields of science, such as genetics or cosmology, were 13 00:02:36.530 --> 00:02:50.470 Yangyang Cheng: severely constrained because of their suspect political ideology. However, particle physics, or high-energy physics, enjoyed a relatively privileged status that was able to continue its work throughout the most 14 00:02:50.520 --> 00:03:05.939 Yangyang Cheng: fanatic political period, on one hand, because of the field's perceived connections with national defense and national security. On the other hand, there is also a very personal factor, which was that Mao himself held a deep philosophical interest in particle physics. 15 00:03:06.230 --> 00:03:11.330 Yangyang Cheng: He held a deep interest in the idea that matter is infinitely divisible. 16 00:03:11.330 --> 00:03:36.289 Yangyang Cheng: He had… he felt that the idea of the existence of matter and antimatter is an embodiment of material dialecticism. He had spoken about it at party conferences, including in Moscow. He had, he had a fascination with the Japanese Marxist physicist Sochi Sakata. Here, he met with him in 1964. And this continued through the Cultural Revolution, and during the Cultural 17 00:03:36.290 --> 00:03:49.550 Yangyang Cheng: Revolution, of course, this was also a time when Cheng Yangyang and Tidi Li were the first two Chinese-worn Nobel laureates for their theory of parity violation. And parity violation actually had 18 00:03:49.790 --> 00:04:04.960 Yangyang Cheng: a… was elevated to propaganda status during the Cultural Revolution, because the idea is if a fundamental symmetry of the universe was indeed broken, that means anything can be changed, any old order can be smashed through mass struggle. 19 00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:09.939 Yangyang Cheng: And so, so in that context, of course, Yang and Li were among the two pioneers of 20 00:04:09.940 --> 00:04:17.630 Yangyang Cheng: Chinese-American scientists who came back to their birth country in the early 1970s at the beginning stages of Sino-U.S. repertoire. 21 00:04:17.630 --> 00:04:35.040 Yangyang Cheng: And both had met with the highest members of the Chinese leadership, including with Mao himself. And here there is an image of Mao meeting with TD Li in 1974. And as Li recalled, Mao also asked Li to explain to him, tell me, why should symmetry be of importance? 22 00:04:35.040 --> 00:04:45.799 Yangyang Cheng: And then Lee picked up, like, a notepad and a pen from the table between them, and demonstrated to Mao how, like, a dynamic process can also embody a higher order of symmetry. 23 00:04:45.840 --> 00:05:02.079 Yangyang Cheng: And so Mao's personal interest in particle physics also offered a significant degree of political protection for the field during the period of political struggles and mass campaigns in China. And so, and allowed the field to continue, 24 00:05:02.080 --> 00:05:10.659 Yangyang Cheng: Different types of research development, including the pursuit of an high-energy accelerator and some cosmic ray observations and experiments at the time. 25 00:05:11.370 --> 00:05:25.290 Yangyang Cheng: And so, in 1972, Chinese particle physicists, and notably, effectively all of them were veterans of the Chinese nuclear program, petitioned Premier Zhou Enlai to ask for the approval to build up a center for high-energy physics. 26 00:05:25.290 --> 00:05:42.860 Yangyang Cheng: And so for people like… like Zhou and I, who, I think Le Mans was kind of unique in having this deep philosophical interest in particle physics, but for a lot of other Chinese leaders, they recognized the importance of high-energy physics for its strategic importance as a field of advanced science and technology. 27 00:05:42.860 --> 00:05:54.280 Yangyang Cheng: And so Joe, Joe and I did this, approval in 1972, saying that this cannot be delayed further. And so this was, Joe's, emphatic approval that led to the 28 00:05:54.280 --> 00:06:07.240 Yangyang Cheng: founding of the Institute of High Energy Physics in 1973. And this is significant, because this was still during the middle of the Cultural Revolution, where scientists were among the most politically suspect and persecuted groups. 29 00:06:07.250 --> 00:06:21.730 Yangyang Cheng: And so, alongside the approval of building up the center, the Institute of High Energy Physics, was the pursuit of a high-energy accelerator in China. And so this is effectively the seventh project, when we were talking about seven downs and 8 ups. 30 00:06:21.890 --> 00:06:32.320 Yangyang Cheng: And at that time, the plan was for China to build a proton-proton Collider at the order of tens of GEV, effectively equivalent to, like, the AGS at Brookhaven. 31 00:06:33.140 --> 00:06:44.279 Yangyang Cheng: And for the, for effectively the entire decade of the 1970s, this was the plan, that China is going to build a proton, a high-energy proton Collider, and to catch up with Western countries. 32 00:06:44.590 --> 00:07:00.930 Yangyang Cheng: And of course, this was still during the Cultural Revolution, so this project was delayed and stalled because of various times in political winds. And it was only finally able to be put on the path to realization after Mao died and the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976. 33 00:07:00.930 --> 00:07:14.530 Yangyang Cheng: And the new Paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, also gave his approval to speed up the building of the High Energy Physics Experimental Center to speed up this… accelerate this process of building up a high-energy accelerator in China. 34 00:07:14.630 --> 00:07:17.990 Yangyang Cheng: And… This, 35 00:07:18.280 --> 00:07:23.560 Yangyang Cheng: for, for… and as I mentioned, for… for someone like Deng Xiaoping, he did not… 36 00:07:23.560 --> 00:07:41.139 Yangyang Cheng: At least he did not show the level of philosophical interest in particle physics as Mao did, but Deng Xiaoping very much saw the importance for China to develop its high-tech sector as a way to develop its economy and to become a strong country. And this was also… 37 00:07:41.140 --> 00:07:54.370 Yangyang Cheng: a time when science and technology were really important for the political legitimacy of the ruling party in China after the waves of Mao-era disasters, that socialist ideology was no longer 38 00:07:54.370 --> 00:08:11.370 Yangyang Cheng: was no longer a valid source of mass legitimacy. And so for a new generation of Chinese leadership under Deng Xiaoping, the pursuit of science technology was also extremely important for political legitimacy and political survival. 39 00:08:11.370 --> 00:08:32.230 Yangyang Cheng: And so in 1977, the Sun director John Adams visited China, and he asked De Xiaoping a question, which was, why China is still a poor country? Why are you pursuing a high-energy accelerator? And De Xiaoping answered diplomatically that this is not just about short-term gains, this is about long-term interests. 40 00:08:32.240 --> 00:08:35.229 Yangyang Cheng: And we'll come back to this moment, later. 41 00:08:35.750 --> 00:08:50.690 Yangyang Cheng: As this was also important that when China was trying to rebuild after Mao-era calamities, and to build its science and education sectors, high-energy physics, as a branch of fundamental science. 42 00:08:50.920 --> 00:08:56.549 Yangyang Cheng: that had strategic importance during the Cold War, provided an opening 43 00:08:56.550 --> 00:09:16.159 Yangyang Cheng: for China to integrate into the Western-led order, and to provide an opening for science and technology exchange with Western countries, including with the United States and with European countries. And in this process, Chinese-American scientists, including, as I mentioned, TD Lee and RSM-T, 44 00:09:16.160 --> 00:09:31.100 Yangyang Cheng: Li Cheng Deng Cheng Li, and C.S. Wu, these scientists played an instrumental role in creating opportunities for Chinese colleagues in high-energy physics to train abroad. And so this became the first time for Chinese scientists, after decades of 45 00:09:31.150 --> 00:09:39.090 Yangyang Cheng: this pause during the Mao era to be able to go abroad to Western countries to study and to work. And… 46 00:09:39.730 --> 00:09:43.509 Yangyang Cheng: one of the first groups of Chinese scientists. 47 00:09:43.510 --> 00:10:06.389 Yangyang Cheng: to, go abroad to study and work after the Cultural Revolution were the 10 members of the so-called Tien class who went to Daisy in the beginning of 1978. And among the 10 members was my undergraduate physics professor, Shi Zuzo, who taught me, undergrad particle physics, and I'm very ashamed to admit that I only got a B- in his class, because I was a bit distracted at the time. 48 00:10:06.390 --> 00:10:16.300 Yangyang Cheng: But… but this was, so this is a continuation of this lineage. And… And in particular, here. 49 00:10:16.730 --> 00:10:26.790 Yangyang Cheng: U.S.-China collaborate… U.S.-China relations is a continuous theme in this story, and high-energy physics actually played a very important role. 50 00:10:26.790 --> 00:10:37.290 Yangyang Cheng: And as I mentioned earlier, a particle physicist, like, like TD Lee, played an instrumental role in opening up these channels for science and educational exchange. 51 00:10:37.290 --> 00:10:50.109 Yangyang Cheng: in the 1970s, before Beijing and Washington normalized relations, and also including people like Cheng Yangyang, who played an important role in advocating for the renormalization of relations between the U.S. and China. 52 00:10:50.140 --> 00:11:07.380 Yangyang Cheng: And when China… when Cheng Xiaoping visited the United States in the beginning of 1979 and formally signed the documents with President Jimmy Carter in re-establishing, normalizing diplomatic relations in 1979, the first major agreement signed between the two governments. 53 00:11:07.380 --> 00:11:12.769 Yangyang Cheng: in 1979 was the U.S.-China Science Cooperation Agreement in Science and Technology. 54 00:11:12.770 --> 00:11:24.929 Yangyang Cheng: And under that umbrella agreement, the first sub-agreement was the Cooperation in High Energy Physics that was signed by our Vice Premier Chang Yi and the DOE Secretary Schleschinger at the time. 55 00:11:24.930 --> 00:11:35.339 Yangyang Cheng: And DOE laboratories in high-energy physics, like Fermilab, were on the forefront of U.S.-China collaboration. As we see here on this image, this is in 1978. 56 00:11:35.340 --> 00:11:44.869 Yangyang Cheng: Before the two countries formally normalized relations, and the PRC flag was already raised outside of Wilson Hall. And by 1980, 57 00:11:44.870 --> 00:12:02.420 Yangyang Cheng: by spring of 1980, so just a little over a year after the two countries renormalized relations, nearly 200 Chinese particle and accelerator physicists had come to the United States to work and study at high-energy physics laboratories, and over half of them, over 100, came to Fermilab. 58 00:12:03.800 --> 00:12:28.089 Yangyang Cheng: And through this time, as I mentioned, in, starting in the 1970s with Premier Zhou Enlai's approval, China's plan was to build a tens of GV level proton-proton Collider that could later be even upgraded to higher, higher levels. And so this was a very ambitious plan, and this plan, there were a number of Chinese-American scientists 59 00:12:28.090 --> 00:12:32.900 Yangyang Cheng: Including, TD Lee, C.S. Wu, and, and Wu's husband, Lu Kuan. 60 00:12:32.900 --> 00:12:39.119 Yangyang Cheng: The three of them had written a letter about sharing some concerns, though, 61 00:12:39.230 --> 00:12:57.580 Yangyang Cheng: TD Lee decided his approach was he would respect the Chinese scientists' plans and proposal, and do what he could to help the Chinese scientists realize their plans, so he would kind of be more reserved about expressing his personal concerns about the feasibility of this. While some other Chinese-American scientists 62 00:12:57.670 --> 00:13:08.960 Yangyang Cheng: took a more direct approach, including in the beginning of 1989, there were over, like, a dozen Chinese-American scientists, including Huat Muonia at Stony Brook. 63 00:13:09.670 --> 00:13:34.669 Yangyang Cheng: who wrote this joint letter to Deng Xiaoping and other Chinese leaders about expressing their concerns about China pursuing a high-energy proton-proton Collider at the time. And their concerns were multifold. On one hand, it would cost a lot, whether or not that is economically feasible or even wise for China at the time when the country was still very poor. There were a lot of other more immediate material needs. 64 00:13:34.670 --> 00:13:36.030 Yangyang Cheng: That probably should be addressed. 65 00:13:36.030 --> 00:13:53.050 Yangyang Cheng: On the other hand, there is also this context about the actual scientific value, since there were similar machines of similar energy levels that had already been built in the US and in Europe, and had already produced scientific results. Whether, even if China managed to build this in some years. 66 00:13:53.230 --> 00:14:08.410 Yangyang Cheng: the science that could be done at a machine like this would already be done. And so, for a lot of… so these were, very valid concerns, and there were also very real economic headwinds in China in the beginning of the 1980s. 67 00:14:08.410 --> 00:14:13.349 Yangyang Cheng: And that made the pursuit of such a high-energy proton-proton Collider not feasible. 68 00:14:13.350 --> 00:14:20.360 Yangyang Cheng: And so, very abruptly, in early 1981, the plan for a high-energy proton-proton Collider was shelved. 69 00:14:20.410 --> 00:14:37.410 Yangyang Cheng: And at that time, so there was this emergency, because this plan had been pursued for quite a while. Like, hundreds of Chinese accelerator particle physicists had gone to DESI, gone to Fermilab, gone to CERN to study how to build a proton-proton Collider. But now, what is China going to build? 70 00:14:37.410 --> 00:14:45.640 Yangyang Cheng: And at this point, actually, there were… was already a plan that had been proposed, including by people like Pete Panavsky. 71 00:14:45.640 --> 00:14:57.820 Yangyang Cheng: who had raised this idea in the early 1970s, when he visited China, was that China could build a electron-positron Collider at a few GEV level, and so if it focuses on the charm energy, 72 00:14:58.130 --> 00:15:06.490 Yangyang Cheng: To do… to focus on the energy level for charm physics, then this is a more modest design that is more economically feasible on one hand. 73 00:15:06.490 --> 00:15:18.860 Yangyang Cheng: On the other hand, it also has really interesting physics value, because there is not an identical machine because of its specific energy level, so there could be new, interesting physics that a Chinese scientist could do on this machine. 74 00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:29.299 Yangyang Cheng: And so shortly afterwards, with a lot of these various discussions, in late 1981, the project was approved that China would 75 00:15:29.300 --> 00:15:37.730 Yangyang Cheng: pursue… would adjust its plans and pursue an, a few GEV level electron-positron Collider, and we can see here this is 76 00:15:37.730 --> 00:15:49.570 Yangyang Cheng: Deng Xiaoping's approval in 1981 for this adjusted plan. And here, Deng Xiaoping in particular wrote three times, in effect, saying, do not hesitate. And so this was, also the… 77 00:15:50.050 --> 00:15:59.340 Yangyang Cheng: Personal blessing from the Paramount leader, Dada Xiaomi himself took part in the groundbreaking of BPC in the fall of 1984, 78 00:15:59.340 --> 00:16:22.639 Yangyang Cheng: And he also wrote this particular note, that summer, that's saying our high-energy accelerator must be completed on time, and preferably ahead of time. And there was also a dimension of competition here, that, even though it's a very different machine, but Taiwan was also building an accelerator, not for particle physics, but a synchrotron radiation source at the time in the 1980s. 79 00:16:22.640 --> 00:16:28.760 Yangyang Cheng: And so, there was also a dimension of competition that the Chinese accelerator needs to be completed ahead of time. 80 00:16:29.820 --> 00:16:32.179 Yangyang Cheng: And so, but… 81 00:16:32.620 --> 00:16:42.139 Yangyang Cheng: One thing about the 1980s in China is that this is a really, really interesting period of economic and social transition. On one hand, the country was still socialist. 82 00:16:42.140 --> 00:16:57.819 Yangyang Cheng: On the other hand, it was pursuing marketization and pursuing integration into a global capitalist system. And so this created a unique combination of factors that in some ways, were very advantageous for the construction of BETC. 83 00:16:57.820 --> 00:17:07.609 Yangyang Cheng: Like, for the scientists who are working on BEPC's construction, they are still… in some ways, they are still steeped in Marxist philosophy that they are 84 00:17:07.609 --> 00:17:19.679 Yangyang Cheng: They are not pursuing material gains. Their salary was extremely low. They were… they were earning something to, like, 15 to 20 US dollars a month as their salary. They worked under very, 85 00:17:20.980 --> 00:17:36.709 Yangyang Cheng: scarce material conditions, and there were some… these elements of a socialist era selfless sacrifice. And also, the Chinese government issued special provisions to ensure the construction of BPC, including 86 00:17:36.710 --> 00:17:49.420 Yangyang Cheng: prompt funding, including notices to various suppliers that even though marketization had just begun in China, do not plan to profit from this machine. And so there were these various factors. 87 00:17:49.420 --> 00:17:58.259 Yangyang Cheng: And here we could see two accelerator physicists, Fang Shiu Xian and Xi Jiayan, adjusting a machine, and this was Fang Shiu Xian in 1960… 1986. 88 00:17:58.260 --> 00:18:05.040 Yangyang Cheng: when he was doing a mass rally before the first accelerator tube for VEPC was being installed. 89 00:18:05.900 --> 00:18:13.229 Yangyang Cheng: And as I mentioned, this is also a project that was really something that had been blessed from the Mao era, even though the 90 00:18:13.260 --> 00:18:27.430 Yangyang Cheng: actual design had changed from a proton-proton Collider to an electron-poson Collider, but in some ways, this felt like this was a Mao era, this was a premier Zhou and Lai's dying wish that had been personally blessed by paramount leader Zheng Xiaoping. 91 00:18:27.430 --> 00:18:38.839 Yangyang Cheng: Yet, this project still had a lot of opposition within the scientific community and the political leadership. Though these were happening behind closed doors, they were more internal, 92 00:18:38.840 --> 00:18:43.900 Yangyang Cheng: Discontent, because, again, this project was blessed at the highest levels. 93 00:18:43.900 --> 00:19:08.189 Yangyang Cheng: And one of the most notable elements of opposition from above is from Premier Zhao Ziyang. This was him when he was Premier meeting with Ronald Reagan at the White House in 1984, and later in 1987, he became a Communist Party's General Secretary. And in the summer of 1988, at a closed-door party meeting at Beirhe, he had expressed at his 94 00:19:08.210 --> 00:19:18.939 Yangyang Cheng: opposing views to a project like BPC, and he's… because he was, known as a political and economic reformer in China, he felt that, the 95 00:19:18.940 --> 00:19:30.529 Yangyang Cheng: focus of scientific development in China for the Chinese Academy of Sciences should be more on applied research and on product development, rather than such a costly project in fundamental science. 96 00:19:30.530 --> 00:19:42.069 Yangyang Cheng: Of course, some of this is, about history, that, this happened in… so his vocal opposition happened in the summer of 1988, when BEPC's construction was almost complete. 97 00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:55.160 Yangyang Cheng: And then there were also these twists of history that, of course, the following year, Zhao Ziyang was ousted from the party leadership for voicing sympathies to the protesters at Tienman Square. And so the rest is history. 98 00:19:55.510 --> 00:20:07.910 Yangyang Cheng: that in the fall, in October of 1988, BEPC's construction was complete, and it accomplished its first collision, as we saw earlier in the headline in the People's Daily. 99 00:20:07.910 --> 00:20:31.079 Yangyang Cheng: And a few days later, after its first successful collision, Paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and Premier Li Peng and a few other top officials inspected the facility, where Dun made a very important impromptu speech, where he recounted his meeting with John Adams, the Sun director, in 1977, even though in Deng's recalling, he only referred to John Adams as a friend from Europe. 100 00:20:31.340 --> 00:20:50.020 Yangyang Cheng: And so this was when Deng talked about the importance of a project like BPC for China in the 1980s. It was like, whether it's past, present, or future, China must develop its field of advanced science and technologies, and have a seat at the table in the field of event science and technologies in the world. 101 00:20:50.020 --> 00:20:57.220 Yangyang Cheng: And then he made a historical analogy, that if in the 1960s China did not develop atomic weapons, it did not… 102 00:20:57.220 --> 00:21:07.589 Yangyang Cheng: develop the atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb, or artificial satellites. Then China cannot be called an influential, great nation, and it would not have the level of, 103 00:21:07.590 --> 00:21:22.449 Yangyang Cheng: international status it has today. These things reflect the capabilities of a people, of a nation. These are the markers of prosperity for a people and a nation. And so this is a really, these are very, very strong words, and they are somewhat… 104 00:21:22.690 --> 00:21:25.870 Yangyang Cheng: astonishing, out of context, right? This is, 105 00:21:26.290 --> 00:21:35.850 Yangyang Cheng: No, I don't think anyone has said this about, like, say, Slack or Caesar. And so… so… but then it needs to be understood in context that 106 00:21:35.850 --> 00:21:48.710 Yangyang Cheng: BEPC was elevated to the strategic importance as far as the Chinese leadership were concerned. This is not just a scientific instrument. This is a marker. This has great political symbolism. 107 00:21:48.710 --> 00:22:03.559 Yangyang Cheng: And also, very importantly, it happened at a very specific time in history that it created this historic opening for China's integration into the Western-led order for science, technology, and educational exchange. 108 00:22:03.560 --> 00:22:14.300 Yangyang Cheng: And so these were all very important motivating factors why the country at the time would devote such enormous resources to build such an instrument of fundamental research. 109 00:22:14.800 --> 00:22:18.039 Yangyang Cheng: And, so China's first, Chinese, 110 00:22:18.290 --> 00:22:30.130 Yangyang Cheng: PRC scientist's first presentation at ICHAP was in 1990, and that was held in Singapore. And so, Cheng Zhun, some of you might know, so this was really interesting. So he gave the, 111 00:22:30.130 --> 00:22:41.309 Yangyang Cheng: report, because there were Chinese scientists who were working abroad on experiments at the time, so his talk was about Mark III, DM2, and the first year of the Beijing spectrometer, the detector on BEPC. 112 00:22:41.310 --> 00:22:54.850 Yangyang Cheng: And in his acknowledgement, he also, in particular, mentioned the U.S.-China collaboration, and in particular, mentioned the names of TD Lee and Panofsky for their instrumental contributions to the project. 113 00:22:55.450 --> 00:23:08.710 Yangyang Cheng: And I think now this is the story of VEPC, and from here on, I'll use the remaining about 10 minutes or so of my talk to talk about, some… the… 114 00:23:08.710 --> 00:23:22.630 Yangyang Cheng: Chinese super Collider proposal. And so, some of you were probably at ICHAP in Prague in 2024, and there was this panel on Future Colliders, and of course, this is already over a decade after, 115 00:23:22.680 --> 00:23:38.269 Yangyang Cheng: Chinese scientists proposed this future super Collider CPCSPPC project, and that was first proposed in 2012, and it's garnered a lot of enthusiasm from both in and out of China, including there were some 116 00:23:38.270 --> 00:23:49.620 Yangyang Cheng: some of its very prominent Western champions, like David Rose and Edward Witten, who wrote this op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, calling this project a great scientific leap forward. 117 00:23:49.880 --> 00:23:59.109 Yangyang Cheng: And there's also, notably, this was timed with Xi Jinping's first and last state visit as Chinese president at the time. 118 00:23:59.810 --> 00:24:20.980 Yangyang Cheng: And of course, the mathematician Xin Tongyang with science journalist Ignatus wrote this book called From the Great Wall to the Great Collider. I think David Gross himself came up with the term, the Great Collider as an analogy for this proposed super Collider in China. And there were some poetic elements, even though the site was never really, really decided. 119 00:24:21.320 --> 00:24:32.080 Yangyang Cheng: there was this poetic element at the first site that was proposed was Cheng Huangdao, where the Great Wall meets the sea, and… and… for these various of, 120 00:24:32.180 --> 00:24:43.250 Yangyang Cheng: elements, and it's great. But the project happened at a very different time. 2010s, China in the 2010s is very different from China in the 70s and 80s. 121 00:24:43.410 --> 00:24:57.009 Yangyang Cheng: And this project has had vocal opponents. And so here, I think it is important to talk about it's probably the most prominent opponent of the CPC project, which is Cheng Yangyang. 122 00:24:57.830 --> 00:25:02.959 Yangyang Cheng: And here, there needs to be a historical context to this as well. Of course, 123 00:25:03.620 --> 00:25:17.200 Yangyang Cheng: there were personal, issues that I would not talk about, but, Cheng Yangyang and TD Li, in their separate ways, both made really important contributions to U.S.-China academic exchange. 124 00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:23.939 Yangyang Cheng: and scientific exchange since the early 1970s. And after, actually, after, after Harry Kissinger's. 125 00:25:23.940 --> 00:25:39.410 Yangyang Cheng: visit to China in 1971. Before Richard Nixon came to China, Yang was the first prominent Chinese-American scientist to visit his birth country, and he met with the highest members of the Chinese leadership, with Zhou Enlai at first, and later with Mao as well. 126 00:25:39.410 --> 00:25:44.319 Yangyang Cheng: And he also met with, members of the… 127 00:25:44.480 --> 00:26:03.549 Yangyang Cheng: of what later became the Institute of High Energy Physics with a group of particle physicists in China, and listened to their discussions about this pursuit of a high-energy proton-proton Collider in China. And so there is a historical context that Yang, of course, some of you may know, had been 128 00:26:03.590 --> 00:26:07.890 Yangyang Cheng: Pessimistic about the future of particle phys- high-energy particle physics. 129 00:26:07.990 --> 00:26:21.449 Yangyang Cheng: regardless of which country, for a long time, like, ever since, like, since the 1960s, for example, when he spoke at the 100th anniversary of MIT, he was slightly… in 1960, he was less sanguine about the future of high-energy physics. 130 00:26:21.450 --> 00:26:45.310 Yangyang Cheng: And when he visited his birth country in the early 1970s, he was very emphatically opposed to the idea of a proton… high-energy proton-proton collider in China. He felt the country was very poor, this is not a priority project, there should be other things to do in terms of raising the economic… the livelihood, like, people are still starving, like, people need to eat, people need to… 131 00:26:45.310 --> 00:27:02.449 Yangyang Cheng: have these basic industrial production and education to train the personnel, to train, to have the infrastructure, and then we can talk about a proton-proton Collider. But I think it is important to place Yang's opposition in context, right? He opposed a high-energy proton-proton Collider. 132 00:27:02.460 --> 00:27:12.489 Yangyang Cheng: And that project, at the end of the day, proved not feasible, and it changed. When… when BEPC became the official project, 133 00:27:12.600 --> 00:27:26.400 Yangyang Cheng: Yang was not, opposed to it. He had, he, especially when he understood that the BPC was both a high-energy physics experiment and also doubles as a radiation synchrotron source. 134 00:27:26.400 --> 00:27:35.659 Yangyang Cheng: And he had visited VEVPC on various occasions, including more recently in 2004, and this was with then I have director Cheng He. 135 00:27:35.880 --> 00:27:39.559 Yangyang Cheng: And, but then, later on, in 19, 136 00:27:39.640 --> 00:27:56.619 Yangyang Cheng: In 2016, I think this is probably quite well known, that Yang came out listing 7 reasons why he opposed CPC, and some of the reasons were the same as what he had expressed before in terms of China's pursuit of high-energy proton-proton Collider back in the 1970s, that this is 137 00:27:56.620 --> 00:28:05.220 Yangyang Cheng: This costs too much, and this should not be a high priority. And there were a lot of, a lot of, reasons which… 138 00:28:05.220 --> 00:28:09.699 Yangyang Cheng: I think, I think, what is important to understand here is that 139 00:28:09.700 --> 00:28:19.540 Yangyang Cheng: Yang could, of course, he is entitled to his personal opinions, but his views carried weight, not just because of who he was. 140 00:28:19.640 --> 00:28:33.010 Yangyang Cheng: but also because a lot of people agreed with him. And so what happened in 2016 with Yang's very public blog post of 7 reasons why he opposed a Chinese super Collider was Yang used his statue 141 00:28:33.100 --> 00:28:41.820 Yangyang Cheng: to provide political cover for others in China to voice their opposition to the Chinese super Collider more openly. 142 00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:55.779 Yangyang Cheng: And so this was, the last image here is in 29… in 2019, when a 97-year-old Yang was asked by a student at IHEP whether or not he still opposed CEPC, and Yang said yes, he had not changed his mind. 143 00:28:55.980 --> 00:28:57.260 Yangyang Cheng: And… 144 00:28:57.710 --> 00:29:11.350 Yangyang Cheng: And so, we could see that this is in the fall of 2016, after Yang's public blog post that opened up this window, because, again, this needs to be placed into context of the political climate in China. It is an authoritarian country. 145 00:29:11.350 --> 00:29:22.529 Yangyang Cheng: And for a national project like CEPC, initially the political signal was not clear, and so a lot of people would be hesitant to express their views if they are opposed to it. 146 00:29:22.530 --> 00:29:36.699 Yangyang Cheng: However, after Yang's very public comment and very vocal opposition, it provided, it basically gave permission for others to speak their mind. And what is also very important is that, 147 00:29:36.760 --> 00:29:56.320 Yangyang Cheng: though, like, many high-energy physics… physicists in China were, of course, very passionate about CEPC, though not all. There were opposing voices within the particle physics community in China as well, which is not unusual, right? Like, here, anywhere, like, there are different views with regards to an experiment. 148 00:29:56.320 --> 00:30:05.980 Yangyang Cheng: But the views outside of the high-energy physics community in China for the Chinese public was very overwhelmingly against such a project. 149 00:30:06.110 --> 00:30:21.830 Yangyang Cheng: And this also needs to be understood, that for the Chinese public, this is seen as another vanity project for a country that is already rife with corruption, there is a lot of economic inequalities, and… 150 00:30:22.460 --> 00:30:26.089 Yangyang Cheng: And what is also… what is very interesting is there were these, 151 00:30:26.280 --> 00:30:33.870 Yangyang Cheng: debates that were happening on Chinese social media in late 2016, including among prominent scientists like us. 152 00:30:33.870 --> 00:30:47.320 Yangyang Cheng: Xin Tong Yao and David Gross and Yu Feng Wan on one hand, there is Yang, there is also He Zu Xiu, there are a lot of other prominent Chinese scientists who were also opposed to this project. So there was this heated public debate. 153 00:30:47.320 --> 00:31:06.840 Yangyang Cheng: And there were a number of these headlines from Chinese party state media, like the People's Daily, like Xinhua, who were praising this vibrant public debate. Now, this debate by itself is a reflection of scientific and social progress in China. And that is true, right? Like, of course, diverse views and free discussion is essential to science. 154 00:31:06.840 --> 00:31:21.760 Yangyang Cheng: However, this also needs to be understood in context of the political climate in China, that this is an authoritarian country, this is a hyper-nationalistic country. This is a place where public expression is closely monitored and tightly controlled. 155 00:31:21.760 --> 00:31:38.170 Yangyang Cheng: And so, for such a debate to happen so freely, among the Chinese public and among Chinese scientists at the time, signaled that CPC does not have the level of political… elite political support in China. 156 00:31:38.190 --> 00:31:58.180 Yangyang Cheng: as other types of high-level national projects, right? It was not BEPC. It was not the Three Gorges Dam, or the Beijing Olympics, or whatever other types of projects. It did not have that level of political symbolism. This was just another scientific project that can be debated and discussed among the public. 157 00:31:58.180 --> 00:32:08.200 Yangyang Cheng: And again, this is not a critique, but this is a fair assessment of what is the political situation, and that is very, very different from what happened with VEPC. 158 00:32:09.050 --> 00:32:11.650 Yangyang Cheng: And so, and then I think, 159 00:32:11.730 --> 00:32:26.120 Yangyang Cheng: This is public knowledge, right? Actually, in 2016, when this public debate was happening, there was already a political setback to CEPC that happened behind closed doors that summer, which was it failed by one vote. 160 00:32:26.120 --> 00:32:41.089 Yangyang Cheng: to make it into the 13th 5-year plan in China for R&D. And so, of course, this is for an R&D, this is not for construction. The project can still do design studies with funding it had already received from the Ministry of Science and Technology. 161 00:32:41.090 --> 00:32:58.629 Yangyang Cheng: But it signaled that it did not have that kind of political support. And in retrospect, one might see that it failed by one vote, right? But its political prospects did not improve in a decade since. It could, of course, it could improve. This is in retrospect, but in retrospect, it did not. 162 00:32:58.660 --> 00:33:12.920 Yangyang Cheng: And… and then I think the most… the latest, news which came out last fall was that it did not make it into the 15th five-year plan. And that is an interesting timing of the statement, because the 15th 5-year plan, of course, was only released this year. 163 00:33:12.920 --> 00:33:30.429 Yangyang Cheng: And so the idea that, the statement was made last fall indicates that the project had, been frustrated in earlier internal processes, and so its political prospects did not improve, and I think this is some of the implications of it. And so what if the pro… 164 00:33:30.430 --> 00:33:31.050 Andrew Gentry: It's me. 165 00:33:31.370 --> 00:33:48.369 Yangyang Cheng: what is the prospect of this? And one thing that is also, of course, public knowledge is that Chinese… the Chinese economy has not been doing well for a while, and it has been stagnating. And of course, some might say it was like, oh, but it's selling, like, a lot of EVs and whatnot. There is a… 166 00:33:48.440 --> 00:34:08.779 Yangyang Cheng: fast-growing sector with regards to some of these green energy, some of this new technology, and that sector is indeed fast-growing, but that sector is a very, very small component of the Chinese economy, so the overall economy is still stagnant and facing a lot of issues, and a lot of local governments also face severe fiscal crisis. 167 00:34:08.840 --> 00:34:28.200 Yangyang Cheng: But I think what is important in the last couple of minutes I want to emphasize is that focusing only on the price tag misses the point. It's not about whether or not China had money to build this. 10 years ago, it no longer has money. Well, China did not have any money in the 70s or 80s when it relentlessly pursued a high-energy accelerator. 168 00:34:28.909 --> 00:34:31.480 Yangyang Cheng: And so, so, so it's really about 169 00:34:32.340 --> 00:34:43.910 Yangyang Cheng: what is the value of a machine for the… for the… of such a machine to the decision makers, right? What is the funding being used for? And so, if we come back to the story of BEPC, 170 00:34:43.909 --> 00:34:58.610 Yangyang Cheng: One of the things that I mentioned was that the BEPC happened at a very specific time, at a political juncture for China, at a period of social, political, and economic transition, when it was emerging from a socialist past, but still carried some of that legacy. 171 00:34:58.900 --> 00:35:22.119 Yangyang Cheng: On the other hand, it was embracing marketization and embracing a Western-led order. And BEPC provided an opening for scientific and technological transfer from the West to China. And this was also a period where U.S.-China relations was in the so-called honeymoon period, and there were geopolitical factors as well, including this was when both United States and China saw the Soviet Union as their greatest 172 00:35:22.160 --> 00:35:29.500 Yangyang Cheng: geopolitical enemy. And so, so, people like, like Pete Panofsky actually made 173 00:35:29.530 --> 00:35:44.239 Yangyang Cheng: important efforts to lobby the US government to make exemptions in its export control regulations. This was gained still during the Cold War, when exporting computing equipment to the Eastern Bloc was strictly prohibited. 174 00:35:44.240 --> 00:35:53.660 Yangyang Cheng: And so, like, Chinese scientists on VPC were able to get this VAX8580 machine, very specifically with Pete Panofsky's efforts. 175 00:35:53.660 --> 00:36:05.069 Yangyang Cheng: And of course, four decades later, China is no longer a socialist backwater seeking to join the capitalist world. It has risen in the global capitalist hierarchy. 176 00:36:05.070 --> 00:36:20.710 Yangyang Cheng: It has emerged from periphery to the core to context U.S. hegemony. And so this underlying calculus has changed, right? The US-China scientific collaboration is no longer being viewed by the U.S. leadership as a smart investment, as a strategic 177 00:36:21.000 --> 00:36:29.780 Yangyang Cheng: maneuver, or as mutually beneficial. It's being seen as aiding a geopolitical enemy. And on one hand. On the other hand. 178 00:36:30.670 --> 00:36:48.219 Yangyang Cheng: High-energy particle accelerators during the Cold War was on the frontier of strategic competition between the Eastern Bloc and the West, between the Western-led, US-led Western Order and the Soviet Union. But now the strategic competition in science and technology arguably has moved on to new battlegrounds. 179 00:36:48.280 --> 00:37:07.830 Yangyang Cheng: Right? We are seeing here, like, in the latest, 15, five-year plan, like, Xi Jinping has been talking about the AI+. Like, China, like, artificial intelligence is going to elevate the stagnant, like, stagnant Chinese economy to reach new heights. There are all these things about talking about which country is going to build a super 180 00:37:07.920 --> 00:37:16.029 Yangyang Cheng: quantum computer, which country is going to build a more powerful chatbot, whatnot, right? So… so in this context. 181 00:37:16.220 --> 00:37:28.370 Yangyang Cheng: What is the future of high-energy physics? And then I want to end on this note, that when I first came to the field of particle physics 20 years ago as a student in China. 182 00:37:28.950 --> 00:37:47.429 Yangyang Cheng: I was very much drawn to the idea of this long-term planning, this grand scale, whether it is geographical, whether it is time-wise, whether it's in terms of international collaborations, or the very size of the machinery itself. It's like coming face-to-face with a technological sublime. 183 00:37:47.750 --> 00:38:04.560 Yangyang Cheng: And… but I think what is very important for the planning for the future of this field is to think not just about, oh, which government or which entity might have the funding, and then we can adapt to these conditions to just get the funding so we can build a machine. 184 00:38:04.700 --> 00:38:13.680 Yangyang Cheng: This is when we can accelerate beams of elementary particles to nearly the speed of light to create these new 185 00:38:13.680 --> 00:38:29.769 Yangyang Cheng: conditions that mimics the early moments right after the Big Bang. We should also be able to have the political and moral imagination to imagine what is the kind of world, what is the kind of underlying socioeconomic and political conditions. 186 00:38:29.770 --> 00:38:42.549 Yangyang Cheng: that would be able to support and realize such a project? Like, in what kind of a world would a future super Collider be feasible, be possible, and be desirable? 187 00:38:42.580 --> 00:38:43.510 Yangyang Cheng: Thank you. 188 00:38:48.510 --> 00:39:06.759 Yangyang Cheng: This, I should mention a note about this, this, painting. This painting is by a very famous Chinese painter, Li Keuran, who drew this in the mid-1980s after T.D. Li explained to him what particle collisions are about. And so this, the painter, Li Keiran, wrote. 189 00:39:06.760 --> 00:39:14.550 Yangyang Cheng: And with inscription is that the nucleus are as heavy as auxins, and their collision creates new forms of matter. 190 00:39:16.060 --> 00:39:22.950 WH11NE- Sunrise: Amazing. It looks eerily similar to one of our viewing Collider Bisie designs. 191 00:39:23.290 --> 00:39:29.600 WH11NE- Sunrise: Alright, fantastic. Thank you so much, Yangyang. Do folks have questions for Yangyang? 192 00:39:36.360 --> 00:39:52.890 WH11NE- Sunrise: I will kick off with one of my own. I'm a little curious, like, the contradiction of, of the sort of specialized scientists versus distributed science to the masses that you talked about at the beginning is, like, an interesting concept. 193 00:39:53.030 --> 00:40:09.140 WH11NE- Sunrise: the first… the first level, it makes sense, in terms of, like, what a communist state would want, a socialist state would want, but I don't understand at all what it means in practice. So, was there a nominal in-practice version of what that 194 00:40:09.590 --> 00:40:15.910 WH11NE- Sunrise: It's hard for me to imagine how you have accelerator physics in a non-specialized way, for example. 195 00:40:16.270 --> 00:40:16.810 WH11NE- Sunrise: Hmm. 196 00:40:18.070 --> 00:40:23.699 Yangyang Cheng: This is a really great question, and then I think I'll answer it, first and fore… 197 00:40:23.860 --> 00:40:33.659 Yangyang Cheng: for the field, for science and technology in general, and then I'll come to more specifically about particle and accelerator physics. And so I think in this, 198 00:40:34.520 --> 00:40:37.520 Yangyang Cheng: In this, in this context, right, this is, 199 00:40:38.550 --> 00:40:58.059 Yangyang Cheng: Because science and technology do not just happen in a vacuum. They are products of the social, economic, and political conditions. They are products of a society, they're embedded in. And so different kinds of societies would pursue different kinds of science, would prioritize different fields, and may do things in different ways. 200 00:40:58.060 --> 00:41:02.540 Yangyang Cheng: And so for science in, in, in, in, in the, in the Mao era. 201 00:41:02.700 --> 00:41:22.050 Yangyang Cheng: it was very, very important that, on one hand, it is partly… the ideological factor is twofold, right? Who is being elevated, and who is being suspected and needs to be disciplined? And so, the masses, the poor peasants, the workers, they're being seen as politically 202 00:41:22.570 --> 00:41:30.800 Yangyang Cheng: reliable, and so they… and they are being seen as the backbone of the nation. And… and because science and technology are important. 203 00:41:30.810 --> 00:41:41.290 Yangyang Cheng: And so it should be the peasants and the workers, the masses, who should be the main forces in driving science and technology as well. And for the elite scientists. 204 00:41:41.290 --> 00:41:51.680 Yangyang Cheng: Their elite status makes them politically suspect, and so they need to be disciplined, and they need to receive different types of political indoctrination to understand 205 00:41:51.680 --> 00:42:02.070 Yangyang Cheng: To do self-criticism on their boudoir ideologies and various family backgrounds, to become good socialists, that who can work with the masses 206 00:42:02.070 --> 00:42:13.280 Yangyang Cheng: to work together towards socialist construction. And so this, how it happens in practice would differ in terms of fields. So, so, so, you know, in some of the fields, like agriculture. 207 00:42:13.290 --> 00:42:23.719 Yangyang Cheng: Like archaeology, like, meteorology, where… where mass participation are… are very important, and, and, and, and, and, and can, can… 208 00:42:23.720 --> 00:42:35.160 Yangyang Cheng: And… and so these may be… these were some of the very vibrant areas of science and technology development in the Mao era. And of course, there were waste, there were, 209 00:42:35.330 --> 00:42:45.929 Yangyang Cheng: there were a lot of mistakes, but there were also genuine achievements. For particle and accelerator physics, for the fields that do require extensive 210 00:42:46.270 --> 00:42:57.710 Yangyang Cheng: specialized training. The picture is a lot more complex. And one example I would give, not so much in accelerator particle physics, is semiconductor physics development. 211 00:42:57.770 --> 00:43:07.650 Yangyang Cheng: And so for semiconductor physics, of course, because now we're talking about chip wars, but on one hand, China at the time had elite solid-state physicists. 212 00:43:07.650 --> 00:43:22.889 Yangyang Cheng: Including people like Huang Kuan, who studied with Mott at Bristol, at Berkeley in the UK, and people who had elite Western training. They were world-class solid-state physicists who could lead semiconductor development in China in the 1950s. 213 00:43:22.890 --> 00:43:39.730 Yangyang Cheng: But of course, they were persecuted, they were sidelined because of their elite status, and they faced waves of political persecution. On the other hand, semiconductor development was an important strategic goal in Mao-era China as well, and there were these 214 00:43:39.820 --> 00:43:51.980 Yangyang Cheng: articles you can see in the People's Daily in various party and state newspapers, talking about how workers with very little training were able to build these transistor tubes from scratch. 215 00:43:52.010 --> 00:44:07.399 Yangyang Cheng: And so that, of course, that has value. I do not want to dismiss that outright, but that is very different types of… type of scientific development, right? It is a way to get… you can train up a mass workforce, you can… you can learn some of these basic skills, but that is not… 216 00:44:07.400 --> 00:44:22.710 Yangyang Cheng: the most direct approach to build up cutting-edge semiconductor chips. And so, so yeah, so this is, like, this is one example of how this might work in practice. And for accelerator development, because this is so specialized and requires so much resource. 217 00:44:22.710 --> 00:44:41.260 Yangyang Cheng: So it really did not… like, like, there were these couple of the earliest accelerators that I showed that Zhao Zhongyang and his team were able to build with some of the equipment they had acquired from the United States earlier, before the Civil War, and before the communist takeover, and then, and then some of these projects happened on one hand with it. 218 00:44:41.280 --> 00:44:43.180 Yangyang Cheng: With the nuclear program. 219 00:44:43.330 --> 00:45:02.170 Yangyang Cheng: And there was also Soviet assistance. On the other hand, some of these more high-energy physics accelerators really only happened at a conceptual stage for several years, until the early 1970s, when the Institute of High Energy Physics was established at this pursuit of a proton-proton Collider became on the official agenda. 220 00:45:03.870 --> 00:45:04.570 WH11NE- Sunrise: Yeah. 221 00:45:05.270 --> 00:45:15.419 WH11NE- Sunrise: Larry, go ahead. Hi, Yangyang. Larry, good to see you. Thank you so much, super, super interesting, as always. I'm thinking about your… 222 00:45:15.560 --> 00:45:19.309 WH11NE- Sunrise: Kind of call to reflection at the end. 223 00:45:19.620 --> 00:45:25.489 WH11NE- Sunrise: And… and I'm wondering what… what you think… how much do you think 224 00:45:25.850 --> 00:45:34.360 WH11NE- Sunrise: getting a super Collider level project to happen Requires this kind of… 225 00:45:34.700 --> 00:45:44.820 WH11NE- Sunrise: National competition, national identity, kind of tying, kind of, political power with scientific events through the lens of everything you've talked about here. 226 00:45:47.190 --> 00:45:57.819 Yangyang Cheng: This is a really… this is a great question, and it's also a complicated one, and I think one thing that I, maybe I… it's… again, like, analogies are all never perfect, but I think… 227 00:45:57.820 --> 00:46:20.329 Yangyang Cheng: One thing to think about, like, CEPC, if one actually looks at the history of BEPC and then look at CEPC, these two are not great analogies, because China has changed so much. But I think, actually, some of the examples of SSC can be applied to what we have seen with CEPC, and one example is there is this contradiction between, on one hand. 228 00:46:20.440 --> 00:46:35.240 Yangyang Cheng: emphasizing the importance of international collaboration and global exchange. This is going to be a global center for fundamental science, on one hand, and trying to garner international support. 229 00:46:35.440 --> 00:46:49.669 Yangyang Cheng: And which is important for political and financial support in the host country as well. And this is something that supporters of CAPC have also mentioned. On the other hand, also leaning into this techno-nationalistic language. 230 00:46:49.670 --> 00:47:00.040 Yangyang Cheng: Saying this is about national pride and national leadership, how to elevate our country to world leadership status. And these two visions are in conflict. 231 00:47:00.040 --> 00:47:15.729 Yangyang Cheng: And what happened also with CPC, which is also very interesting, is because, again, like, China's unique development trajectory. So, by the 2010s, it is indeed… it's the world's second largest economy, but it's still a newly rich country, with 232 00:47:15.840 --> 00:47:27.399 Yangyang Cheng: rich as a whole, but it's still, like, at a per kappa scale, it's still a developing country, it has a lot of disparities. And for the Chinese public, this is a very strange argument, especially 233 00:47:27.540 --> 00:47:34.759 Yangyang Cheng: Okay, this, again, this is not a critique, but I think it's, in retrospect, it is, it is a salient point in terms of 234 00:47:35.300 --> 00:47:46.160 Yangyang Cheng: Why are so many Western scientists so eager for China to spend the money to build a machine? If the machine is so valuable, why don't they lobby their own government? 235 00:47:46.420 --> 00:47:50.069 Yangyang Cheng: And I think that that is a valid point for… 236 00:47:50.570 --> 00:48:10.210 Yangyang Cheng: For a Chinese public, for anyone to raise. And so, and including Cheng Yangyang himself in 2019, during, when a student asked him a question, and he said, oh, I'm very glad that the Chinese pop… the Chinese government was not bamboozled into spending this kind of money. And so, in this context. 237 00:48:10.210 --> 00:48:19.909 Yangyang Cheng: Opposing CAPC also became patriotic. It was trying to help the government save money on the wasteable fancy project that other governments are not even willing to spend. 238 00:48:19.910 --> 00:48:27.320 Yangyang Cheng: And so, so, so it is my own view that I think a techno-nationalistic, argument 239 00:48:27.490 --> 00:48:48.330 Yangyang Cheng: the historical context during the Cold War, right, a lot of the high-energy particle accelerators, they are products of the Cold War, where the techno-nationalistic argument was salient, but it was also when the machines were at a smaller scale, and they are being perceived as connected to national defense and national security. 240 00:48:48.330 --> 00:48:50.770 Yangyang Cheng: And these arguments no longer hold. 241 00:48:50.770 --> 00:49:04.899 Yangyang Cheng: And I think… and this is not just about a pragmatic point. An important point is, what is the point of building a machine like this to probe some of the most fundamental questions about nature? 242 00:49:04.980 --> 00:49:05.770 Yangyang Cheng: if 243 00:49:05.770 --> 00:49:25.220 Yangyang Cheng: this machine is being perceived effectively as a weapon by the people who choose to fund it. Is that the kind of world… is that the kind of world we want? And is that sustainable? Especially, we want to project this onto a timescale, right? These are decades-long projects. How long can an argument for conflict hold? 244 00:49:25.490 --> 00:49:42.819 Yangyang Cheng: And what is the actual world we want this machine to be a part of, right? It's not just about attaching, grafting a machine into whatever condition there is. Like, if the world is at war, but we can find a spot that is peaceful, and then we build a machine. 245 00:49:45.380 --> 00:49:49.670 WH11NE- Sunrise: Good, thank you. Thank you. Do you have time for a couple more questions, Hamil? 246 00:49:49.670 --> 00:49:51.549 Yangyang Cheng: I think someone has raised… yeah, I can say. 247 00:49:51.550 --> 00:49:53.800 WH11NE- Sunrise: Okay, cool. Rithika? 248 00:49:54.290 --> 00:50:07.200 Rithika Ganesan: Hi, this was a great talk, thank you so much. I was… this might be a naive question, but you mentioned the dichotomy between the fundamental philosophical basis for why we're interested in particle physics. 249 00:50:07.200 --> 00:50:19.320 Rithika Ganesan: And then, the more public reasons, whether that be weaponry or, like, nationalism. And, I was very interested in the thing that you mentioned about CB violation being used as propaganda. 250 00:50:19.570 --> 00:50:37.480 Rithika Ganesan: Do you think that that is… do you think that it would be feasible to use the physics itself as a way to market the field to people, and, like, in the context of Dova's question and your answer to that, and to make it more appealing or attractive to the masses? 251 00:50:40.420 --> 00:50:48.179 Yangyang Cheng: Oh, this is really interesting. So… so I think this… this really happened in a very, very specific… 252 00:50:48.190 --> 00:51:02.550 Yangyang Cheng: political context with a very, very specific leader. So this is Mao's own personal eccentricities, that he was a communist revolutionary, and he is very, very drawn to these ideas. 253 00:51:02.560 --> 00:51:14.299 Yangyang Cheng: And… and he happened to be someone in that… in that position of power. So… so… so I think this… this happened in a very, very specific context, that this was really his, 254 00:51:14.380 --> 00:51:20.280 Yangyang Cheng: His personal interest. And… and so, parity violation… 255 00:51:20.530 --> 00:51:27.190 Yangyang Cheng: became a point of propaganda during the Cultural Revolution, not because it is particularly 256 00:51:27.290 --> 00:51:37.140 Yangyang Cheng: salient with the general public, but it was more, more, there were politically savvy Chinese scientists and 257 00:51:37.140 --> 00:51:52.090 Yangyang Cheng: a number of people who felt, that this… like, because, again, this is a very specific time in Chinese, in Chinese history when it's hyper-ideological, and so whatever 258 00:51:52.200 --> 00:52:02.540 Yangyang Cheng: whatever thing there is, it needs to be somewhat adapted into an ideological framework. And so it was under that very specific political context 259 00:52:02.540 --> 00:52:08.469 Yangyang Cheng: That parity violation somehow became, like, was fit into 260 00:52:08.470 --> 00:52:26.099 Yangyang Cheng: this idea of mass struggle. And then, of course, there were also elements related to it in terms of, of course, the two scientists were Chinese-born, so there were some nationalistic elements as well. But this was really more like a coincidence of history. A counterexample is, for example, general relativity. 261 00:52:26.120 --> 00:52:32.399 Yangyang Cheng: was very politically suspect and struggled against during the Cultural Revolution. 262 00:52:32.400 --> 00:52:46.349 Yangyang Cheng: And one of the arguments against Einstein's theory of relativity that was raised during the Cultural Revolution, where the Chinese Academy of Sciences organized study groups to criticize Einstein and criticize 263 00:52:46.450 --> 00:52:48.580 Yangyang Cheng: The general relativity was… 264 00:52:49.090 --> 00:53:05.159 Yangyang Cheng: If the Soviet Union and China went to war, where there were border conflicts, and if time is relative, how can we tell which side shot first? And so, of course, this is counter-revolutionary, this is not correct, and Einstein, this Western bourgeois scientist. 265 00:53:05.160 --> 00:53:22.560 Yangyang Cheng: And so this was, like, really a period of political madness, and I mention this in terms of this is important for the history of particle physics development in China, that there were these unique historical and political factors that, at various points. 266 00:53:22.560 --> 00:53:39.740 Yangyang Cheng: helped protect this discipline under very perilous political conditions, and helped this field to continuously develop. And so the line was actually never really broken in terms of particle physics development, and some of these legacies 267 00:53:41.160 --> 00:53:42.560 Yangyang Cheng: Or… 268 00:53:43.030 --> 00:53:53.520 Yangyang Cheng: were contributing factors to the realization of VEPC, but these are very specific conditions that no longer apply to today. 269 00:53:55.330 --> 00:53:56.180 Rithika Ganesan: Thank you. 270 00:53:56.180 --> 00:53:56.850 Yangyang Cheng: Thank you. 271 00:53:57.900 --> 00:53:59.760 WH11NE- Sunrise: Any other questions, Fiona? 272 00:54:00.210 --> 00:54:09.430 WH11NE- Sunrise: So, I would have one that is maybe… so it's a little bit, like, I guess, like, the talk, political, like, you just, you know, the thing that you just said, 273 00:54:09.580 --> 00:54:13.659 WH11NE- Sunrise: Before about, possibly this next… 274 00:54:13.910 --> 00:54:18.520 WH11NE- Sunrise: Collider being… so, whether we would like it to be… 275 00:54:18.720 --> 00:54:31.849 WH11NE- Sunrise: sponsored or, or, yeah, hosted by someone that really thinks about it as a weapon, to some extent, right? That provocation that you said. So, while… 276 00:54:32.220 --> 00:54:45.640 WH11NE- Sunrise: I can see the point, you know, if you go back to the Cold War, maybe, right? But if we look maybe to the perspective where we lived most, right, the LHC, 277 00:54:47.390 --> 00:55:00.660 WH11NE- Sunrise: one could try to look at it into still a political view, and it's not as a weapon, like in the Cold War, but it's kind of still about some kind of 278 00:55:01.700 --> 00:55:09.959 WH11NE- Sunrise: supremacy, right? That is… so the negativity's still there of being a weapon versus some instrument, but, 279 00:55:10.150 --> 00:55:19.419 WH11NE- Sunrise: Seeing that as something about global supremacy, like, like, so the fact that you would be hosting, the next 280 00:55:19.500 --> 00:55:29.880 WH11NE- Sunrise: big Collider, the li- maybe the last ever, right, Collider, or what Europe has done now, and so they… 281 00:55:29.880 --> 00:55:45.700 WH11NE- Sunrise: could kind of claim is that, oh, look at us, right? You can come here, we're international, we're open, it's all about globalization, right? The… kind of the peak of everything after Second World War led to this moment. 282 00:55:45.840 --> 00:55:49.680 WH11NE- Sunrise: And, so would you still see that as, 283 00:55:49.950 --> 00:56:00.039 WH11NE- Sunrise: something that is not viable, like, politically, say, in that environment in China, of saying, okay, you can try to compete 284 00:56:00.160 --> 00:56:03.990 WH11NE- Sunrise: Not as a weapon, but as a… stealing that… 285 00:56:05.340 --> 00:56:09.550 WH11NE- Sunrise: Supremacy at a global level, to some extent, but… 286 00:56:11.040 --> 00:56:25.819 Yangyang Cheng: I'm not entirely sure. I understood your question, and also, okay, so I'll make a couple comments. The first is, when I say about a weapon, it's not necessarily meaning that it's an offensive weapon, like a bomb, but it's 287 00:56:26.240 --> 00:56:32.649 Yangyang Cheng: as something that, that, that has strategic value, that, that is linked with. 288 00:56:32.960 --> 00:56:48.770 Yangyang Cheng: national defense and with national power. That's what I mentioned, is, like, this idea is being weaponized, right? And the second thing I wanted to say is, with regards to the history of CERN, I think… I think it is important to recognize its… 289 00:56:48.780 --> 00:57:02.599 Yangyang Cheng: its embodiment of the cosmopolitan spirit of science. It is also very important to recognize that CERN was a product of the Cold War, and… and it was very much a product of the… 290 00:57:02.790 --> 00:57:06.079 Yangyang Cheng: of, of, of U.S. 291 00:57:06.780 --> 00:57:16.830 Yangyang Cheng: strategic aims in building up its, its global leadership status, and, and in facilitating that. 292 00:57:17.480 --> 00:57:20.270 Yangyang Cheng: One of the methods was 293 00:57:20.390 --> 00:57:35.789 Yangyang Cheng: scientific and technological exchange with Western European countries in the immediate aftermath of World War II, when those countries were, were rebuilding from the rubble. And when CERN was being established. 294 00:57:35.990 --> 00:57:54.420 Yangyang Cheng: there were a lot of… there were a lot of controversies as well, including, for example, the two Nobel-winning French nuclear physicists, including, Frederick Juliet Curie, who was not consulted on the building of CERN at all. Why? Because he was a communist. 295 00:57:54.420 --> 00:57:59.560 Yangyang Cheng: And so there were very strict ideological criteria being placed. 296 00:57:59.560 --> 00:58:03.910 Yangyang Cheng: into the founding of CERN as well, and that is part of its legacy. 297 00:58:03.910 --> 00:58:10.910 Yangyang Cheng: And that needs to be under, understood, that, that, and… and… and I think it is… 298 00:58:11.610 --> 00:58:27.619 Yangyang Cheng: It is important to not just see CERN as just a laboratory that is built on a border that embodies an international spirit. It embodies a cosmopolitan spirit in the context of the Cold War in a vision of Western liberalism. 299 00:58:27.660 --> 00:58:39.539 Yangyang Cheng: And so do the conditions that led to the establishment of sun still apply today? That is a… that is a very important question to ask as well, right? 300 00:58:39.540 --> 00:58:49.770 Yangyang Cheng: And so, has evolved over its decades, trying to shed that legacy of being a Cold War ideological project. 301 00:58:49.770 --> 00:59:00.670 Yangyang Cheng: to becoming a global center of science. And it has… and it's important to acknowledge the progress it has made. But it's still… it's not perfect, and it has… it has its own. 302 00:59:00.760 --> 00:59:25.219 Yangyang Cheng: like, historical issues and current problems as well, with regards to what are the lines to be drawn with regards to international collaboration? What are the ethical and moral implications of collaborating across national borders when different countries have very different views and may be in actual conflict, right? These are very salient questions. And so I didn't quite understand 303 00:59:25.240 --> 00:59:30.520 Yangyang Cheng: I didn't quite understand your question, but the last point I wanted to make is about supremacy. 304 00:59:30.600 --> 00:59:38.160 Yangyang Cheng: is that I do not, I think… I think it is a problematic concept by its own, and… and this… 305 00:59:38.360 --> 00:59:52.910 Yangyang Cheng: Argument has, at various historical points, benefited the field of energy particle physics when it was being seen as the embodiment of technological supremacy for the host country. 306 00:59:52.920 --> 01:00:05.849 Yangyang Cheng: But that argument can always change, and the… so… so… so when it's today, right, it's no longer high-energy accelerators, it can be a chatbot or a quantum computer. And then… 307 01:00:06.130 --> 01:00:13.399 Yangyang Cheng: what's next, right? So that argument is not reliable, and in some ways, it can backfire, and we can see how 308 01:00:13.820 --> 01:00:25.059 Yangyang Cheng: the discouragement against the SC and the discouragement against CAPC to some extent in China as well, from other members in the scientific community, is exactly against this 309 01:00:25.060 --> 01:00:36.149 Yangyang Cheng: This arrogance is against this hubris of the particle physics community, seeing their field as supreme. And then one needs to understand that supremacy is not an inherent 310 01:00:37.360 --> 01:00:38.450 Yangyang Cheng: Character. 311 01:00:38.550 --> 01:00:40.139 Yangyang Cheng: of particle physics. 312 01:00:40.310 --> 01:00:43.560 Yangyang Cheng: The supremacy is a political and social product. 313 01:00:43.600 --> 01:00:57.429 Yangyang Cheng: as an outcome of the Cold War. And… and so I think that is an important realization, and I'm saying this as someone who loves the field of particle physics, and if I did not become a particle physicist, I would not have become a scientist. 314 01:00:57.430 --> 01:01:05.310 Yangyang Cheng: But I think it is also important to say that just because we love it, doesn't mean other people would… would see this as, like. 315 01:01:05.430 --> 01:01:23.139 Yangyang Cheng: like, that argument, that doesn't mean other people need or should see it as, like, the crown jewel of scientific development. And so I think what supremacy, whether it is in terms of between fields of science or between countries, is a deeply problematic concept. 316 01:01:23.300 --> 01:01:31.880 Yangyang Cheng: And… and I'll just end on this one note, is the actual… the only way to reliably win a race is to refuse 317 01:01:33.550 --> 01:01:46.309 Yangyang Cheng: Right, it's… when it's no longer a competition, then you cannot lose this… lose this race. Like, that is the point. There is no way to win an arms race. The only way to win is to no longer see this as a competition. 318 01:01:46.460 --> 01:01:49.329 Yangyang Cheng: And, and so, I don't know what… 319 01:01:51.870 --> 01:01:59.689 WH11NE- Sunrise: Alright, thank you very much, Yangyang. That's an interesting point to end on, I would say. Alright, thank you all so much. 320 01:01:59.690 --> 01:02:00.380 Yangyang Cheng: Thank you so much! 321 01:02:00.380 --> 01:02:11.840 WH11NE- Sunrise: I hope folks will join for our next installment of this. I think there might be one scheduled before this, but the next one we have on the books is October 7th. 322 01:02:11.840 --> 01:02:26.349 WH11NE- Sunrise: And we'll have Margaret Dean, who is the, who had… who was the co-author of Scott Kelly's, The Astronaut's, autobiography, talking to us about how narrative can be used for science advocates. 323 01:02:26.680 --> 01:02:34.390 WH11NE- Sunrise: So I'm looking forward to that. We'll send that announcement about that. And let's all thank Yangyang again. Yangyang, that was an amazing and extremely important. 324 01:02:34.850 --> 01:02:38.509 Yangyang Cheng: Thank you so much, I learned a lot from the questions and discussion as well. Thank you. 325 01:02:38.940 --> 01:02:40.560 WH11NE- Sunrise: Thank you, Yangyang. Thank you all. 326 01:02:40.560 --> 01:02:41.190 Yangyang Cheng: Bye.