摘要：每年世界顶尖科学家论坛在上海召开的时候，世界顶尖科学家协会与字节跳动都会邀请诺贝尔奖获得者和我做一个对话节目。今年非常高兴，见到2004年诺贝尔物理学奖获得者、美国科学家戴维·格罗斯（David Jonathan Gross）。他和另外两位美国科学家戴维·普利

■ 抖音：

本视频2024年12月6日发布于抖音，播放量已达64.3万

每年世界顶尖科学家论坛在上海召开的时候，世界顶尖科学家协会与字节跳动都会邀请诺贝尔奖获得者和我做一个对话节目。今年非常高兴，见到2004年诺贝尔物理学奖获得者、美国科学家戴维·格罗斯（David Jonathan Gross）。他和另外两位美国科学家戴维·普利策（Hugh David Politzer）与弗兰克·维尔切克（Frank Wilczek）共同获奖，原因是“发现强相互作用理论中的渐近自由”（for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction）。实际上，维尔切克就是格罗斯的第一个研究生，去年我刚在主持墨子沙龙的直播时见过他，所以这次是我第二次见到渐近自由的三位发现者之一。

渐近自由究竟是什么？物质是由原子组成的，原子是由电子与原子核组成的，原子核又是由质子、中子组成的。那么，电子、质子、中子是基本粒子吗？现在的回答是，电子是基本粒子，但质子和中子并不是基本粒子，它们都是由夸克（quark）组成的。默里·盖尔曼（Murray Gell-Mann，1929 - 2019）因为提出夸克模型，获得了1969年诺贝尔物理学奖。

然而，夸克模型有个问题，就是无法观测到单个的夸克。无论把质子、中子多么猛烈地相撞，都从来没有把单个夸克撞出来，只会见到各种各样其他奇怪的粒子。这种现象被称为夸克禁闭（quark confinement）。在一段时间内，这个问题导致许多科学家认为夸克仅仅是个数学模型，并不是真实的粒子，其中甚至包括盖尔曼本人。

对夸克禁闭的解释，就是渐近自由。格罗斯等人发现，夸克之间的相互作用具有一种非常反直觉的性质，就是它随着距离的增大而增大，不是减小。当两个夸克非常近时，它们的相互作用会降到零，也就是说它们会表现得像自由粒子，这就是渐近自由这个词的意思。而当两个夸克非常远时，它们的相互作用会变得非常强，以至于当你把它们分开时，你投入的这么多能量又会产生新的正反夸克对，跟原来的两个夸克连在一起，所以你看到的仍然是多个夸克组成的粒子，而不是单个夸克。

一个常用的比喻，是夸克之间的作用就好比橡皮筋。当你把橡皮筋放松时，它的两端之间没有张力。而当你把橡皮筋拉长时，两端之间的张力就会越来越大。

从更大的图景看，渐近自由的作用还不止于此。例如它使我们有可能研究大爆炸之初的宇宙，那时各种粒子都具有极高的能量，看起来很复杂。然而，渐近自由却使这种情况变得很简单，直接用自由粒子去描述它们就行了。因此，在渐近自由发现之前，我们无法定量描述大爆炸之后20万年内的宇宙，但现在我们可以一直追溯到极早期宇宙。

描述夸克之间相互作用的理论叫做量子色动力学（Quantum Chromodynamics，简称QCD），渐近自由就是QCD的一个关键特征。描述强相互作用的量子色动力学加上描述电磁力与弱相互作用的电弱统一理论（unified electro-weak theory），就是目前我们对粒子物理最好的描述——标准模型（standard model）。

而所有这些理论，在数学框架上都是基于杨振宁与罗比特·米尔斯（Robert L. Mills）提出的非阿贝尔规范场论（non-Abelian gauge field theory），或者称为杨-米尔斯理论（Yang-Mills theory）。因此，渐近自由与杨振宁先生具有密切的联系，这又增加了我们了解它的理由。

那么，格罗斯等人是如何发现渐近自由的？这对基础研究、对思维方法有什么启发？我们在追寻物理理论大统一的路途上已经走了多远？前面还有多远的行程？下面，我们就来跟格罗斯教授对话。

以下是对话原文：

袁岚峰：So, dear Professor Gross, very nice to meet you.

Gross教授，很高兴见到您！

David Gross：Nice to meet you.

幸会！

袁岚峰：So actually, last year, I just met your student, professor Wilczek.

教授，其实去年我刚见过您的学生维尔切克教授。

David Gross：Yes.

没错。

袁岚峰：And the reason for you and Professor Politzer and Professor Wilczek to get the Nobel prize was for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction.

您和普利策教授与维尔切克教授获得诺贝尔奖的原因是“发现强相互作用理论中的渐近自由”。

So what is asymptotic freedom?

请问渐近自由是什么？

I heard that it was proposed to solve the puzzle of quark confinement, is that correct?

我听说它是为了解决夸克禁闭提出来的，请问是这样吗？

What is quark? And what is quark confinement?

夸克是什么？夸克禁闭又是什么？

David Gross：Many questions.

好多问题啊。

So quarks are the constituents, the elementary particles that make up nuclear matter, the proton and neutron that make up the nuclei.

夸克是组成单元，是组成核物质的基本粒子，核物质就是组成原子核的质子和中子。

So you are made out of quarks。

所以你也是由夸克组成的。

袁岚峰：Yes.

没错。

David Gross：But the quarks are confined permanently inside the proton, and asymptotic freedom and quantum chromodynamics, which came from that, expain that confinement

但夸克被永久地禁闭在质子中，而渐近自由以及由它得出的量子色动力学解释了这种禁闭。

But that wasn't the reason that we were led to asymptotic freedom.

不过，这并不是我们被引向渐近自由的原因。

We were trying to explain the behavior of quarks as seen in the experiments under very good microscopes.

我们是在努力解释夸克的行为，在用非常好的显微镜做的实验中观察到的行为。

So if you look in these experiments at the inner structure of the proton, it turns out it was discovered in the late 1960s that it looks very much like inside the proton, there are these little quarks moving around.

所以如果你观察这些关于质子内部结构的实验，在二十世纪六十年代末人们发现，在质子内部看起来非常好像有这些小的夸克在运动。

And when they're very close together they're moving freely, noninteractive. And quantum chromodynamics, which has this asymptotic freedom, explain that, which is very surprising phenomena.

当它们非常靠近时，它们的运动是自由的，没有相互作用。而量子色动力学，它具有这种渐近自由，就解释了它，这是一种非常令人吃惊的现象。

Normally things close together interact strongly.

通常情况下，物体靠近时，相互作用是强的。

You pull them apart, they interact weakly.

如果你把它们分开，相互作用是弱的。

It's just the opposite in quantum chromodynamics.

但在量子色动力学中，正好相反。

But that also, in addition, turned out to explain why you can't pull the quarks apart because the force gets bigger at large distances.

此外，这就解释了你为什么无法将夸克分开，因为力随着距离变大是在变大的。

So that's sort of asymptotic freedom.

基本上，这就是渐近自由。

袁岚峰：Yeah, I heard that is often likened as a rubber band.

是的，我听说渐近自由经常被比作橡皮筋。

David Gross：Yeah, somewhat similar.

是的，是有点相似。

That's a metaphor, but right.

这是个比喻，不过是的。

And a rubber, if you take, you pull on a rubber band very short distances, you don't see the band.

一根橡皮筋，如果你在非常短的距离拉它，你不会感觉到张力。

You pull them apart, you begin to feel the force and that's what keeps the quarks inside the proton and the neutron and all other strongly interacting particles.

可一旦拉开，你就能感受到张力，正是这股力量把夸克限制在质子、中子和所有其他强相互作用的粒子中。

袁岚峰：Yeah, that's amazing.

真的很神奇。

So actually, after reading your Nobel lecture, I got to know that the asymptotic freedom solves not only the problem of quark confinement, but also a crisis of physics at that time.

其实在读了您的诺贝尔演讲词之后，我才知道渐近自由不仅解决了夸克禁闭，而且解决了当时物理学的一大危机。

David Gross：Well, yeah, the crisis was we didn't understand the nuclear force.

是的，这场危机就是我们无法理解核力。

So it turned out that the explanation, in some sense, it's very simple if you construct this very special theory of quantum chromodynamics.

最后发现，这种解释在某种意义上是很简单的，如果你建立起量子色动力学这种非常特别的理论。

袁岚峰：Yeah. The truly amazing thing was that there were many scientists who thought that we cannot have a microscopic theory for the strong interaction. And they included many great names, like Lev Landau, Murray Gell-Mann, Richard Feynman, Freeman Dyson, and even your own Ph.D. supervisor ...

是的。真正神奇的是，许多科学家当时认为对强相互作用不可能有微观理论。这其中包括许多伟大人物，例如列夫·朗道、默里·盖尔曼、理查德·费曼、弗里曼·戴森，甚至还包括您自己的博士导师……

David Gross：Yeah, yeah.

没错。

袁岚峰：Professor Geoffrey Chew.

杰弗里·丘教授。

However, the amazing thing was that at last they were proved wrong , and we can indeed find such a theory

然而神奇的是，最终他们被证明是错的，我们确实可以找到这样的理论。

And what's more interesting, the theory is the only one possible, namely, the Yang-Mills theory.

更有趣的是，这个理论是唯一可能的理论，即杨-米尔斯理论。

David Gross：Right. Well, that's what I proved with some other people.

是的，这是我和其他一些人一起证明的。

Yes. So there were many reasons to suspect that the theoretical framework that we had, quantum field theory, which was very good at explaining the behavior of electrons and light, Maxwell's theory, quantum electrodynamics, was very successful.

是的。当时有许多理由来怀疑我们手里有的理论框架，量子场论。它在解释电子与光的行为时，是非常成功的，即麦克斯韦理论、量子电动力学。

But when people tried to apply the same ideas to the strong nuclear force, it was totally failure. Some people believe that therefore, quantum field theory, the quantum theory of fields like the electromagnetic field, were just wrong.

但是当人们尝试把相同的想法用于强核力时，却是完全的失败。于是有些人认为，量子场论，即对于像电磁场这样的场的量子理论，完全就是错的。

They were not the right framework.

它不是正确的框架。

And that one needed something much more revolutionary.

我们需要某种更加革命得多的东西。

So indeed, it was quite a surprise just about to everybody that a particular, in fact, unique quantum field theory could explain this force very precisely.

所以确实，当时几乎对所有人都是个惊喜，当发现有一种特别的，实际上是唯一的，量子场论可以非常精确地解释这种力的时候。

袁岚峰：So you rescued the quantum field theory.

所以您拯救了量子场论。

David Gross：Actually. Yes. But, you know, my, I had, I'd been working on a plan for many years to kill quantum field theory because no quantum field theory could explain this phenomenon.

实际上，是的，但是如你所知，我多年来一直工作的计划是要杀死量子场论，因为没有量子场论能够解释这种现象。

And more or less, the only one that was left was Yang-Mills theory, so called, or a theory like electromagnetism, but with more than charge, three charges in fact.

大致上，最后只剩下了所谓杨-米尔斯理论，或者说是一种类似电磁学的理论，但不只有一种荷，实际上是有三种荷。

That was the, a very difficult kind of theory. People were not accustomed to it.

这是一种十分不同的理论，人们对它并不熟悉。

And so that was the last theory that I studied with my newest, my first student, Frank Wilczek.

所以这是我和我的第一位学生弗兰克·维尔切克一起研究的最后一个理论。

袁岚峰：Yeah.

是的。

David Gross：And I was very surprised that it behaved in this way.

我很惊讶，它表现出这种特性。

But once we discovered that, the rest was almost came easy.

然而一旦我们发现了这一点，剩下的事情基本上就顺理成章了。

袁岚峰：So in the end of your Nobel lecture, you talked about the implications of asymptotic freedom to many other areas. For example, the early universe.

在您的诺贝尔演讲词的结尾，您谈到了渐近自由对很多其他领域的意义，例如早期宇宙。

At first glance, the early universe seems to be very complicated.

乍看之下，早期宇宙似乎非常复杂。

However, due to asymptotic freedom, it instead becomes very simple, so that we can study it. Can you introduce these implications to us?

但由于渐近自由，它反而变成了简单的，这样我们才能研究它。您能向我们介绍一下这些意义吗？

David Gross：Yeah, that was one of the main, one of the many benefits of quantum chromodynamics.

是的，这是量子色动力学带来的许多好处之一。

So if we run the movie backwards in time and look at the universe. The universe is now expanding.

如果我们把影片倒放，观察宇宙。宇宙现在是在膨胀。

So we go back in time.

我们反转时间。

It was getting denser and denser and hotter and hotter, so the temperature was increasing, particles were moving more energetically closer together.

就会看到宇宙变得越来越密，越来越热，温度不断升高，粒子的能量越来越高，靠得越来越近。

That was difficult because people really had no idea what happens at these very high energies.

这种情况很难研究，因为人们对这种高能状态下的情况一无所知。

Asymptotic freedom taught us that at very high energies, things become very simple.

渐近自由告诉我们，在能量很高的情况下，其实事情变得非常简单。

The particles stop interacting, the neutron and the proton nuclei melt and the quarks come out, but they are interacting weakly, so you can study them easily.

粒子之间停止了相互作用，质子和中子组成的原子核融化，夸克跑了出来，但它们之间的相互作用很弱，于是我们可以容易地研究它们。

And that enabled astrophysicists and cosmologists to go extrapolate backwards in time and learn about the early universe.

这使得天体物理学家和宇宙学家能够向过去外推，了解早期宇宙。

Now we have a very good understanding of how the universe evolved from the beginning, whatever that means.

现在我们对宇宙从最初开始如何演化有了很好的理解，无论这个最初是什么意思。

A very, when the universe was, the universe we see was very small and hot and dense, but the physics was very simple.

当我们看到的宇宙非常小、非常热、非常密集时，物理却非常简单。

袁岚峰：Yeah, it's amazing that we get a hot soup of quarks and gluons. Amazingly, it's very simple.

是的，这真是很神奇，我们得到了一锅夸克和胶子的热汤。神奇的是，它居然很简单。

David Gross：Exactly. Yeah, we are lucky.

正是如此，没错，我们很幸运。

袁岚峰：It is well known that there are four kinds of fundamental interactions in Nature: strong interaction, weak interaction, electromagnetic force, and gravity. So far we are not able to unify them. You have always been interested in this topic, e.g., the string theory. So, how long have we marched in this direction? And how long would we need to go ahead?

很多人都知道，大自然有四种基本相互作用：强相互作用、弱相互作用、电磁力和万有引力。我们目前还没能把它们统一起来。您一直在关心这方面的研究，例如弦论。请问目前在这条路上，我们已经走了多远？前面还有多远？

David Gross：Well, we have very good clues, in my opinion, that these forces are unified because again, we can extrapolate using the theory to what happens when particles have very high energies. We can't directly probe those very high energies because it's very difficult to build very big a particle accelerators. But theoretically we can extrapolate, and if we extrapolate our theory we find that the forces seem to come together close to where gravity becomes very strong and very quantum like. And we don't understand how gravity behaves at very high energies or very short distances. But this is a very important clue that unification is likely to happen with gravity at these very very short distances. And so that has motivated us for, you know, almost 50 years to try to unify all the forces. And the best approach that has emerged is string theory.

在我看来，我们有很好的线索，表明这些力是统一的。还是那句话，我们可以利用理论去外推，当粒子拥有非常高的能量时，会发生什么。我们无法探测那些非常高的能量，因为很难建造非常大的粒子加速器。但在理论上我们可以外推，而且如果我们外推我们的理论，我们发现这些力看起来会收敛，当引力变得非常强、非常类似量子的时候。我们还不理解引力在非常高的能量或非常短的距离下如何表现，但这是一个非常重要的线索，即包含引力的统一是有可能发生的，在这些非常非常短的距离下。所以这激励了我们，如你所知，大约50年，力图统一这些力。涌现出来的最佳的途径，就是弦论。

But we're still, I think, far from understanding how to precisely construct a solution to the unified theory. If we had someday, I think we will, maybe we'll need even theories that go beyond string theory. And if we do so, we'll be able to answer a lot of the questions that currently we can't answer.

不过我想，我们离理解如何精确构建一个统一理论的解还很远。如果有朝一日我们有了这样的解，我想我们会有的，那么可能我们会需要甚至超越弦论的理论。如果我们做到这一点，我们将能够回答许多我们现在无法回答的问题。

袁岚峰：So do you have predictions to Nobel prizes in the areas of high energy theory and experiment? Which works are very likely to be awarded in the future?

请问您对高能理论与实验方面的诺贝尔奖有什么预测？哪些成果在将来很有可能获奖？

David Gross：It's very hard to predict Nobel prizes. Not really. Well, we have had a lot of hopes when the LHC, the large hadron collider started at CERN. That there are many proposals for due physics that would be discovered, there were we expected to discover the Higgs particle. Very shortly after the LHC turned on. And that obviously deserved the Nobel Prize, but nothing else so far.

很难预测诺贝尔奖。其实也不见得。我们有很多期待，当LHC即大型强子对撞机在欧洲核子研究中心开始运行时。对预期发现的物理有许多提议，例如我们期望发现希格斯粒子。希格斯粒子确实被发现了，在LHC启动后不久。这显然值得诺贝尔奖，但除此之外目前没有其他的。

袁岚峰：Right.

是的。

David Gross：Which is very disappointing. But, you know, nature is nature. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't, it's not there to serve us.

这很令人失望。但是如你所知，自然就是自然。如你所知，它不是来服务我们的。

袁岚峰：Yeah.

是的。

David Gross：we're there to understand it. But I expect that in the coming years and decades, there will be very fundamental discoveries maybe here in China.

是我们需要来理解自然。不过我期望在未来的几年或几十年里，会有非常基本的发现，也许就在这里，在中国。

诺奖得主格罗斯：第一次有理论物理学家发明而非发现获奖 我为他骄傲

袁岚峰：So this year’s Nobel prizes give us great shock, because the physics prize and the chemistry prize both go to artificial intelligence. What ideas do you have about AI?

今年的诺贝尔奖给我们巨大的震撼，因为物理学奖和化学奖都发给了人工智能。请问对于人工智能，您有什么看法？

David Gross：Well. I don't think that it's correct to say that the physics prize went to artificial intelligence. The physics prize, which the half of the physics prize went to John Hopfield. John Hopfield is a condensed matter physicist. He was my colleague at Princeton for 20 years. His office was two offices down for me. He a physicist. Now, this prize was given for an invention, not a discovery, an invention.

好吧，我并不认为物理奖发给了人工智能。一半的物理奖发给了约翰·霍普菲尔德。他是一位凝聚态物理学家。他跟我在普林斯顿是20年的同事。他的办公室跟我的办公室只相差两个房间。他是个物理学家。今年这个奖是授予了一个发明，不是发现，而是发明。

Many Nobel Prizes are given for inventions for example, radio, the blue laser LED, the integrated chip. Those are inventions coming from physics. The Hopfield model was an invention which came from physics and has had great impact on biology, neuroscience, understanding the brain and on computer science. The brain thinks these networks that Hopfield invented with ideas that came from spin glasses from condensed matter physics have had an enormous impact on neuroscience science. And since the brain thinks, on thinking machines like, so neural networks have become an important component of artificial intelligence, of machine learning, of large language models. So this is an invention coming from physics. It's the first invention, Nobel Prize for an invention that was made by a theorist. Marconi was an engineer. The integrated chip was designed by a transistor. These were designed by a physicist, experimentalist. But the neuron nets that Hopfield invented were so impactful, were invented by a theorist. So I'm very proud of my good friend and colleague, the physicist, who made an important invention.

许多诺贝尔奖授予了发明，例如雷达、蓝色激光发光二极管、集成电路。这些是来自物理的发明。霍普菲尔德模型也是一项来自物理的发明，它对生物学、神经科学、理解大脑以及计算机科学都有重要影响。霍普菲尔德发明这些网络的理念来自凝聚态物理中的自旋玻璃，对神经科学具有重大影响。由于大脑会思考，这些思维机器例如神经网络变成了人工智能、机器学习、大语言模型的重要组成部分。所以这是一个来自物理的发明。但它是第一次有诺贝尔奖发给一个理论家的发明。马可尼是一位工程师。集成电路和晶体管是实验物理学家发明的。但霍普菲尔德发明的神经元网络是如此影响深远，它是理论家发明的。所以我很自豪我的好朋友和同事，一位物理学家，做出了重要的发明。

关于自然的任何事都是基于物理

袁岚峰：Yeah. And based on the Hopfield model, Professor Jeffrey Hinton got the Boltzmann machine. That's also the name of Boltzmann.

是的，基于霍普菲尔德模型，杰弗里·辛顿教授发明了玻尔兹曼机。这个名字也是物理学家玻尔兹曼。

David Gross：Yes.

是的。

So indeed, so many, you know, physics is a very deep conceptual framework which we understand the natural world. And, you know, as a physicist, I can tell you that everything about nature is based on physics in the end.

所以确实，如你所知，物理是一种非常深刻的概念框架，我们用于理解自然世界。如你所知，作为一个物理学家，我可以跟你说，关于自然的任何事最终都是基于物理。

袁岚峰：Yes.

是的。

David Gross：So it's not surprising that ideas coming from understanding the natural rule have enormous impact in many areas, not just traditional physics. You know, in nature, there are no boundaries as to.

所以并不奇怪，来自对自然规律的理解的理念对许多领域都有重大影响，不只是传统物理。如你所知，在自然当中并没有边界……

袁岚峰：Right.

是的。

David Gross：This is physics, this is ..

这个是物理，这个不是物理。

Not surprising. So Hinton, who is a computer scientist and looking for models, analogies to try to understand very complicated networks of neurons and how thinking happens, used techniques that came from physical systems with many many different components, where we use ideas of statistical mechanics. Ludwig Boltzmann was the main developer of those tools. And so he called one of his methods a Boltzmann machine.

所以不奇怪。辛顿作为一位计算机科学家，在寻找模型和类比来尝试理解非常复杂的神经元网络以及思维如何发生，他使用的技术来自具有很多很多不同组分的物理体系，在这里我们使用统计力学的思想。路德维希·玻尔兹曼是这些工具的主要发展者，所以辛顿把他的方法之一称为玻尔兹曼机。

But the computer has really changed the way we do physics. We can now do, as theorists, we can do experiments, numerical experiments, which teach us a lot, as well as incredible calculations that were totally impossible 50 years ago.

但是，计算机确实改变了我们做物理的方式。作为理论家，我们现在可以做实验，数值实验，这些数值实验教会了我们很多东西，还能做一些不可思议的计算，它们在50年前是完全不可能的。

格罗斯锐评杨振宁对高能物理的论断：大错特错

袁岚峰：So we have talked about Professor Chen-Ning Yang. He made great contributions to particle physics. Nevertheless, he also made a famous comment to particle physics: “The party is over.” So how do you think about this?

前面我们提到了杨振宁先生，他对粒子物理有巨大的贡献。然而，他对粒子物理也有一句著名的批评：“盛宴已过。”请问您对此怎么看？

David Gross：Well, he was completely wrong. C. N. Yang made that statement in 1950s, over 50 years ago, before we had the evidence that led us to say QCD, which of course is based on Yang-Mills theory. So it was a very strange statement. I don't understand why he made it.

好吧，他完全错了。杨振宁说这话是在二十世纪五十年代，超过50年以前，比我们有证据导向量子色动力学还早，而量子色动力学当然是基于杨-米尔斯理论的。所以这是个非常奇怪的论述。我不理解他为什么要这么说。

袁岚峰：I think it was in the seven, in the 80s.

我想他说这句话是在八十年代。

David Gross：He might have made in the 80s. But he made such statements. I know. I. I s in 1971.

可能是在八十年代。但是他讲过很多类似的话，我想是在1971年。

袁岚峰：Oh my goodness so even earlier than that.

我的天，居然比八十年代还早。

David Gross：Sorry. I have no idea why he made that statement, but he's made it forever and he's been wrong forever.

抱歉，我不知道为什么他这么说，但他一直在这么说，而且一直是错的。

Since he made that statement, we discovered deep inelastic scattering, we discover neutral course with all the components of the Standard Model. And he kept making that statement and he kept being wrong.

自从他发表那个观点以来，我们发现了深度非弹性散射，我们发现了标准模型的所有组成部分。他一直在重复那个观点，一直在重复错误。

袁岚峰：So your career as a teacher can be said to be extremely successful. You have at least two very famous students, Frank Wilzcek and Edward Witten. Prof. Wilzcek received the Nobel prize along with you, and Prof. Witten was a leading figure of string theory, and got a Fields medal. So, what is your way of education?

作为教师，您的生涯可以说是极其成功的。您有至少两位非常著名的学生，弗兰克·维尔切克和爱德华·威腾。维尔切克跟您一起获得了诺贝尔奖，威腾是弦论的领军人物，获得了菲尔兹奖。请问您的教育之道是什么？

David Gross：Well, I was lucky that I, you know, that I had such great students. They chose to work with me. So if new students become colleagues, so it's very good to have very good students. I don't know.

好吧，我很幸运，如你所知，我有这么优秀的学生。他们选择了和我合作。新的学生变成了同事，有非常优秀的学生真是很好。我不知道。

I have many other students in addition to Frank and Ed Witten who haven't necessarily won these top prizes but are truly excellent excellent physicists. So one of the great things in physics is to work with the young people. First when I started, Frank was my first student. I was only 30. He was the young student. But over the years, it's been one of the great pleasures of any scientist, as you know, to work with young people. They are always the future of science. And it keeps you young if you work with young people.

除了弗兰克和爱德华，我还有很多其他学生，他们不一定获得了这些最高奖项，但他们也是真正优秀的物理学家。所以物理学的一大伟大之处就是和年轻人合作。最初当我开始的时候，弗兰克是我的第一个学生。我那时只有30岁，他还是个年轻的学生。但这么多年来，对任何科学家来说，如你所知，跟年轻人合作都成了最大的乐趣之一。他们总是科学的未来。而且它使你保持年轻，如果你跟年轻人合作。

袁岚峰：So, how do you think about science communication? Did you write popular science writings? What popular science writings would you like to recommend to the public?

请问您对科普有什么看法？您有没有写过科普著作？您想向公众推荐哪些科普著作？

David Gross：Oh, well, there are many. You know, that's how I became a scientist. I started reading popular science books when I was a child, a kid. And I got enormously. I, that's how I got interested in theoretical physics, especially I read a book by Einstein. Einstein wrote a popular science book, beautiful book.

哦，是的，有很多。你知道，这就是我为什么成为科学家。我开始阅读科普书籍是在我还是小孩的时候，我得到了巨大的……这就是我如何对理论物理产生兴趣，尤其是我读了一本爱因斯坦的书。爱因斯坦写了一本科普书，优美的书。

袁岚峰：The Evolution of Physics?

《物理学的进化》？

David Gross：Yes, yeah, exactly.

是的，是的，正是这本。

You know the book?

你知道这本书？

袁岚峰：

Sure, sure.

当然。

David Gross：With Infeld.

爱因斯坦跟英费尔德合著的。

袁岚峰：Right, right.

是的。

David Gross：Excellent book. It's a wonderful book.

出色的著作，这是本精彩的著作。

And now I think popular science books are incredibly important because they teach young people about science, get them excited. Frank does very well. Frank likes to write. I don't like to write. I find it difficult, painful. I don't enjoy it. I like to calculate. So yes, I maybe someday I'll write some books. I've written some books, but not, but I don't enjoy it as much as Frank does. But I do think it's very important. And there are many good books nowadays. There are also many bad books.

现在我认为科普书不可思议的重要，因为它们让年轻人了解科学，激发兴趣。弗兰克做得非常好。他喜欢写作。我不喜欢写作。我感觉写作困难而痛苦。我不享受它。我喜欢计算。所以是的，也许什么时候我会写一些书。我已经写了一些书，但我没有像弗兰克那样享受写作。不过我确实认为它非常重要。现在有很多好书，——也有很多坏书。

袁岚峰：So You served as the Director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics until 2012. So what have been the main focuses of your life and work in the twelve years since then？

您曾长期担任卡弗里理论物理研究所所长，直到2012年。那么，在过去这12年里，您生活和工作的重心是什么呢？

David Gross：Well, I have to do less administration, so I do, which is great. So I have time to do, in addition to continue to do physics, but also to interact with various centers of theoretical physics around the world. So I spent many years trying to help the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Beijing, but also similar institutes around the world, in India, Brazil and other places. And too much travel, but I still try to continue to do physics and to keep up to date with what the wonderful things that are happening.

好吧，我不得不减少管理工作。我确实这样做了，这很好。所以我有了时间，在继续做物理之外，还可以和全世界许多理论物理中心互动。所以我花了很多年努力帮助北京的理论物理研究所，以及全世界类似的研究所，在印度、巴西和其他地方。太多的旅行，不过我仍然在努力继续做物理，跟上正在发生的精彩的事。

出息了 诺奖得主给我灌鸡汤

袁岚峰：And regarding research anxiety, there is such a question. You received your tenure at Princeton when you were only 30.

关于研究焦虑，有这样一个问题。您在普林斯顿获得终身教职只有30岁。

David Gross：Yes.

是的。

袁岚峰：So do you consider yourself a very lucky scientist?

您认为自己是幸运儿吗？

And compare to now obtaining tenure seems to be increasingly difficult and demanding.

相比之下，现在获得终身教职似乎越来越难，要求越来越高。

So with so many young scientists in their 30s facing anxiety about projects and funding, so what message would you like to share with them?

所以对于这么多30多岁、在项目和经费方面面临着焦虑的年轻科学家，您有什么信息想分享给他们？

David Gross：Don't be paranoid. No, I mean. I was very lucky indeed. So I was tenured before asymptotic freedom, before I'd really done something really important. So I thought my mentors were very smart. They could identify people, young people. I think that's very important. But I was lucky, okay? But I think today, young scientists I find in China, in Asia, actually everywhere in the world, including the United States, are much too scared, paranoid.

不要太偏执。我的意思是，我确实非常幸运。我获得终身教职是在发现渐近自由之前，那时我还没有做出真正重要的研究。所以我认为我的导师们非常聪明，他们能够分辨人，分辨年轻人。我想这非常重要。但我是幸运的，对吧？然而我觉得今天，我发现年轻的科学家在中国，在亚洲，实际上是在世界所有地方，包括在美国，都太恐惧了，太偏执了。

This wasn't the case when I was young. We weren't so hung up. I think the problem is that nowadays, because of social media and the internet, everybody knows everything. Too much information.

在我年轻时并不是这样。我们没有那么纠结。我想问题在于现在，由于社交媒体和互联网，人人都知道所有事情。信息太多了。

袁岚峰：Yes,yes.

是的，是的。

David Gross：Right. Right. Which makes people paranoic. And that's not good. It means that instead of focusing on doing science, having fun, just enjoying oneself, which is the motivation for creativity, instead they're just worried and they think, what do I need to do? Do I need to write these papers for Nature like this? It's wrong. And so it's very unfortunate. So I try to tell my postdocs and young students and here, stop being so scared. It'll work out. Don't worry. Do what you enjoy doing. Take chances. Don't be scared. But people... it's a bad bad development.

这使得人们偏执。这不是好事。这意味着人们不是专注于做科学，获得乐趣，享受自我，这是创造性的动力，而是在担心。他们在想，我需要做什么？我需要为《自然》杂志像这样写论文吗？这是错的。这很不幸。所以我力图劝说我的博士后和年轻学生以及这里的人，停止恐惧。事情会好起来的。不用担心。做你享受的事情。接受冒险。不要被吓倒。但是人们……这是个很糟很糟的发展。

袁岚峰：So there is also a question regarding the importance of asking questions.

另一个问题是关于提问的重要性。

袁岚峰：So in your 2008 interview with Adam Smith, you mentioned that ... Adam Smith was the reporter of the Nobel prize website, you mentioned that students need to learn to ask questions, not answer them. And you, so are you someone who enjoys asking questions? And why do you think learning to ask questions is so important for young people, especially international students for whom English was not their native language? It would be challenging to ask professor like you.

在您2008年与亚当·史密斯的访谈中，您提到……亚当·史密斯是诺贝尔奖网站的记者，您提到学生们需要学习提出问题，而不是回答问题。所以您是喜欢提问的人吗？为什么您认为学习提问对年轻人如此重要，尤其是对国际学生，英语不是他们的母语？对像您这样的教授提问，会有挑战性。

袁岚峰：So what advice would you give to the young scholars?

所以您想对年轻学者提什么建议？

David Gross：No, and I don't mean asking questions of your professors, although that's good, too. I mean asking questions of nature. So science is driven by questions. That's, you know, we do experiments to answer questions. We develop theories to answer questions. Once you have formulated a really good question in science, that's the hardest part, the rest is not easy, but it follows from the questions. So the, it really is important for for beginning scientists, for any scientist to continually ask questions and try to, but not just questions that are, because you're ignorant of something that somebody else knows already or is in the books, questions for nature, and what ...

不，我的意思不是说向你的教授提问，尽管那也是好的。我的意思是向自然提问。科学是由问题驱动的。如你所知，我们做实验是为了回答问题。我们发展理论是为了回答问题。一旦你在科学中提出了一个真正好的问题，这是最难的部分，剩下的也不容易，但它会随着问题而来。所以对于起步阶段的科学家，对于任何科学家，持续提问都是非常重要的，不仅是那些你对某些事情不了解但其他有些人知道或者在书本上的问题，而是对自然的问题……

You know, there are many great discoveries, theoretical or experimental, that could have happened 20 years ago, except nobody was asking the question.

你知道，有许多伟大的发现，理论的和实验的，原本可以在20年前就发生，但没有人去问那个问题。

David Gross：It, this is the hardest thing to teach. You can teach people about what we understand, what we observe, what we, our theories, but how do you teach people to ask questions? And that's is the most important thing. I think it is much easier to teach people, unfortunately, not to ask questions. That's what often happens in school, right? Kids have questions and the teacher says, shut up,

这是最难教的事情。你可以教人们我们已经理解的，我们观察到的，我们的理论，但你如何教人们提问？而这是最重要的事。我想不幸的是，教人们不去提问却要容易得多。这在学校里经常发生，对吧？孩子们有问题，老师却说，闭嘴！

袁岚峰：That's too bad.There is also a question about Professor Tsung-Dao Lee.

这太糟糕了。还有一个问题，是关于李政道先生。

David Gross：Yes, T.-D. Lee.

是的，李政道。

袁岚峰：Professor Tsung-Dao Lee passed away two months ago, at the age of 98. And actually, he had a very close relation with you, right?

两个月前，李政道先生去世了，享年98岁。实际上，他跟您有密切的关系，对吧？

David Gross：Over the...Well, yeah, I see.

在……哦，是的，我明白了。

袁岚峰：Because both he and your Ph.D. supervisor Geoffrey Chew were students of Enrico Fermi.

因为他和您的博士导师杰弗里·丘都是恩里科·费米的学生。

David Gross：Right.

是的。

袁岚峰：So in this sense, he was an academic “uncle” of you.

所以在这个意义上，他是您的师叔。

David Gross：Kind of. Yes.

某种意义上，是的。

袁岚峰：So what personal contact did you have with Professor Lee? And how do you think about him?

请问您跟李政道先生有什么样的交往？您对他有什么看法？

David Gross：So I've known T.-D. Lee, I guess I met him over 50 years ago. And for many interactions over the years, especially in China. He was, T.-D. Lee was the father of really of elementary particle physics, high energy physics in China.

我认识李政道，我猜已经有50多年了。多年来我们有很多互动，尤其是在中国。李政道真正是中国的基本粒子物理之父，高能物理之父。

袁岚峰：Right, right, like BEPC.

是的，例如北京正负电子对撞机。

David Gross：He was the originator of BEPC and ... But much more than that, he started CUSPEA, the first exchange program of Chinese graduate students who came to the United States. And I know he was a great physicist, of course, but I think he was enormously important for the development of science in China. He really passionately cared about that.

他是BEPC的创始人，还有……但远不止此，他开创了CUSPEA（中美联合培养物理类研究生计划），这是第一个送中国研究生来美国的交换访问项目。当然我知道他是一位伟大的物理学家，但我想他对科学在中国的发展是极其重要的。他真正充满激情地关心这件事。

So it was a lot of fun to be with. He was always full of energy and ideas and devotion. And so I get many ... I gave an interview at T.-D. Lee Institute here in Shanghai a few days ago, which was for almost two hours.

所以跟他在一起非常有趣。他总是充满能量，充满思想，充满奉献精神。我学到很多……几天前我在上海的李政道研究所做了一个访谈，将近两个小时。

袁岚峰：Yes.

是的。

David Gross：So I don't have time now to tell you about it, but I enormously admired him, especially for what he did for science in China.

所以我现在没有时间对你详述，但我非常崇敬他，尤其是因为他对中国科学的贡献。

■ 扩展阅读

量子计算的成熟之路 | 袁岚峰

袁岚峰对话塞尔日·阿罗什：我得诺奖是因为证明了薛定谔的错误

您的量子计算方法没人用？诺奖得主：我觉得还能抢救一下

诺奖得主：中国对科研的投入远超法国，但应该更重视年轻科学家

来源：袁岚峰一点号