Chapter 407 The alarmed senior officials of the Academy of Sciences
As we all know.
As the highest-level official scientific research organization in China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences has a very large subordinate and even derivative system.
Up to now.
There are a total of 12 branches and 114 research institutes under the Chinese Academy of Sciences - the more famous ones include the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, the Shanghai Institute of Optoelectronics, etc.
In addition, many regions and academies of sciences have jointly established scientific research institutions to cooperate with each other in scientific research.
For example, Institute of Microsystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Advanced Studies, Chinese Academy of Sciences, etc.
And as the commanding center of this huge system.
The internal organization of the Academy of Sciences, that is, the administrative department, is usually very low-key.
How low-key is it?
for example.
That’s why it’s difficult to find photos of the entrance to the Academy’s headquarters on the Internet.
If you search for the headquarters of USTC on the Internet, although you can see a lot of pictures, the names on the front are almost all "Institute XXX, Chinese Academy of Sciences".
So many people believe that the Tiandi Science Park of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on Beichen West Road, or the nearby Institute of Biophysics, is the headquarters of the Academy of Sciences.
Actually.
The administrative office of the Academy of Sciences is located at No. 52 Sanlihe Road, which is a high-ranking official unit.
The office headquarters of the Academy of Sciences is a very old-fashioned six-story building, entirely made of gray stone, with three poles standing at the door all year round.
The entrance is an electronic retractable door with a height of Pandora. In theory, any adult can easily pass through it.
The appearance of the entire building looks similar to the government affairs hall of a county-level city.
Of course.
If you really think that the Academy’s office headquarters is just as simple as it looks, you are totally wrong.
Don’t talk about anything else, just mention one detail:
Behind the headquarters of the Academy of Sciences are the Ordnance Industry Group and the National Defense Mobilization Committee.
At this moment.
The third floor of the Academy's office headquarters.
In an office closest to the interior.
Hou Xingyuan, the current president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is routinely reviewing a large stack of documents.
These documents are about thirty to forty centimeters high, and their classifications are very complex.
Some are scientific research project applications.
Some are personnel adjustments.
Others are consultation and scheduling instructions for unit cooperation.
After all, when he reached Hou Xingyuan's level, his work had already broken away from pure scientific research and gradually covered all aspects.
But what’s outrageous is that even with such a simple logic, there are still people on a certain channel who can’t figure it out – for example, someone criticized the Minister of Science and Technology for not engaging in scientific research and going out for meetings, but there were actually a bunch of supporters below.
How deplorable
Snapped!
After reading a project report in my hand.
Hou Xingyuan slammed the document onto the desk, picked up the phone receiver, and pressed the number 3:
"Xiao Gao, come in for a moment."
After a while.
A middle-aged man in his thirties, wearing a white shirt and gold-rimmed glasses, walked in with a notebook:
"Dean, are you looking for me?"
This person's name is Gao Hongwen, and he is Hou Xingyuan's exclusive assistant.
Hou Xingyuan waved to him, pointed to a stack of documents about fifteen or six centimeters thick on the right side of the table and said:
"Xiao Gao, go handle these documents and return them all."
Gao Hongwen was slightly startled when he heard this, and quickly glanced at another stack of documents on the left that was two to three centimeters thick, and confirmed:
"Dean, are you saying that all the stacks on the right should be returned?"
Hou Xingyuan lit up a cigarette, took two deep puffs, and exhaled the smoke along with the tightness in his chest:
"That's right, the stack on the right."
Gao Hongwen has been with Hou Xingyuan for some years, and he is more or less close to him. There are some things that ordinary assistants would not dare to say, but he has no problem saying them:
"Dean, is this? Is the amount returned too much? If so much is returned, I'm afraid the opinions below will not be small."
When he said this, Gao Hongwen's eyelids twitched.
Now that the Spring Festival has just passed, the documents that can appear on Hou Xingyuan's desk are basically of considerable origin.
These applications may come from 985 or 211 universities.
May come from research institutions affiliated with the Academy of Sciences.
It may also come from local cooperative units or even friendly departments.
The identity of the applicants is even more complicated, including outstanding young people, Yangtze River students, and academicians.
If all the documents on the right are returned, Hou Xingyuan will definitely face tremendous pressure in the industry.
Even though Hou Xingyuan is now the president of the Academy of Sciences, he seems to have extraordinary power.
But once he provokes public anger, some things will be very troublesome.
Use the settings in some fantasy novels as an analogy.
Hou Xingyuan is roughly equivalent to the leader of the martial arts alliance. He has a very high status and no one can beat him solo in one-on-one.
But if he encounters a group attack, then at most he can only fight one against two or three, and he cannot be as arbitrary as Emperor Huangtian.
Looking at Gao Hongwen who looked worried, the anger on Hou Xingyuan's face did not diminish at all. His temper was as fierce as the big front door he loved to smoke:
"The quantity returned is too much? You're kidding, I still think the quantity returned is small!"
As he spoke, he picked up a project book at random, glanced at the title, and threw it in front of Gao Hongwen:
"If you look at this application, it is a project collaboration letter sent by a unit under the Academy of Social Sciences. The funding is not high, but it will occupy a valuable collaboration quota."
"If it's a valuable topic, then that's fine, but what about this one? The content is about studying Hua Mulan's psychology, and it's estimated to be 230,000 words long."
Gao Hongwen:
"."
Then Hou Xingyuan picked up the other party's file again. He didn't slap it on the table, but waved it in his hand:
"There is also this project document, which plans to let the mole salamanders bred by two different reproductive modes run on a treadmill to study whether there is any difference in the physical fitness and endurance of the mole salamanders born by different reproductive modes."
"It's just a small research project. This bid is for a support fund project. Even the treadmill needs funds to purchase - what the hell is this?"
Gao Hongwen continued:
"."
After swearing.
Hou Xingyuan had no intention of stopping. He picked up another document and said:
"As for this project. The development of a sequential wavelength dispersion thermal chromatography instrument applied for by a university in the south."
"To be honest, there is nothing wrong with the prospects and theoretical basis of this project, but can you believe that the funding is 14 million?"
"Last year, the same project at Sichuan University, including the audit, only cost 6 million. If it hadn't been delayed because Sichuan University applied for too many projects last year, I would be able to throw the finished instrument over the heads of those people from southern universities now!"
A few seconds passed.
Hou Xingyuan slapped these documents with his palms and sighed:
"Xiao Gao, can I agree to these projects?"
"If I open such holes, our scientific research in China will really be hopeless."
Gao Hongwen was silent.
Since Academician Zhou Shan was killed as a warning to monkeys, the recovery cycle for scientific research funds in China has become much looser.
Although this corresponds to a reduction in individual funding, projects exceeding 2 million are not common.
But the overall boundaries have been relaxed.
In addition, more and more people are applying for notebooks these days, so many people are turning their attention to the academy's own projects.
Because unlike those national fund projects, the Academy of Sciences has very high and flexible decision-making power on its own projects.
There are two words that explain everything.
Most of the projects that can be approved by the general academy of sciences are generally general projects, that is, the funding is more than one million.
So let alone applications from affiliated institutions, there are endless applications for cross-field coordination from the Academy of Social Sciences like Hua Mulan.
to be honest.
Hou Xing is far from being an unreasonable person, and he can indeed understand some situations.
For example, if the planned funding for a project is 3 million, the project leader will often overstate it by 500,000. In fact, there is a high probability that this money will not be misappropriated, but is a small backup treasury prepared out of hamster psychology in case of misappropriation.
Unexpected needs.
Or there are some powerful bosses who like material enjoyment. They stay in five-star hotels for meetings, pay for meals, etc. Everyone knows that a bottle of Coke can sell you 15 yuan for everything in the hotel.
So when they declare funds, they usually report a little more.
Although Hou Xingyuan is somewhat disgusted with this approach, it is undeniable that this situation does exist.
Therefore, if the project does have research value and the applicant is very capable, Hou Xingyuan will generally choose the default - only if the amount of additional applications is not high.
But the problem now is that many people don't want to declare a small spare treasury, but want to move a gold mountain directly.
For a 3 million project, they dare to send you a 6 million or even 8 million project document.
How did you get Hou Xingyuan to agree to this?
Of course.
This cannot be said to be how dirty China's scientific research community is. In the final analysis, it is still a matter of population base - more people means more project bids.
If you make a ratio calculation between these weird applications and the total project proposals, the percentage value will not be very high.
For example, the SCI manuscript retraction mentioned before.
At that time, it was widely rumored that 1,564 SCI papers had been retracted globally, and 536 domestic papers ranked first. Many people said, "Your country has serious fraud."
But in fact, among these 536 articles, 174 were withdrawn because the translation did not match the picture. They were republished after many proofreadings, and 41 were papers written by the Seven National Defense Scholars.
After deducting these, the number of domestic publications withdrawn is just over 300.
The number of withdrawn journals from Haituan is 255, while the number of journals published in China is 3.4 times that of Haituan.
The amount of counterfeiting seems to be large in China, but the proportion is only one-third of that across the sea.
Five weirdos out of 100 people seems to be more than one out of 10 people, but the ratio of the former is lower than that of the latter.
Talking directly about quantity without discussing the cardinality issue is often a hoax.
It’s just that the concept of base number is aimed at the public. As the main approver of the project, Hou Xingyuan is often faced with the specific ‘quantity’.
Then he thought of something else, spent some time flipping through the returned documents, and pulled out a tender document from the bottom:
"There is also this letter of intent written by an organization in Guangdong Province, hoping to connect to the Wukong database, saying that it can discover dark matter."
"The entire project costs 1.8 million, ha?!"
Hou Xingyuan said that he was so angry that he laughed:
"1.8 million can detect dark matter. I went to the Ordnance Industry Group next door on the spot and ate the Zaku thermal ax in their laboratory!"
Toot toot—
Hou Xingyuan had just finished speaking.
The phone next to him rang.
The area code for the call was 0551. As the former president of the University of Science and Technology of China, Hou Xingyuan was quite familiar with this area code.
So without much hesitation, he answered the phone:
"Hello, I am Hou Xingyuan."
After a while.
Academician Pan’s voice rang from the other side of the phone:
"Dean Hou, it's me, Xiao Pan. Is it convenient for you now? I have something very important to report to you."
The words "very important" and "report" came out.
Hou Xingyuan realized the nature of Academician Pan's call.
So he gave a faint hum and looked up at Gao Hongwen across the table.
The most important thing for an assistant's job is to be aware of people's emotions. In addition, Gao Hongwen has been with Hou Xingyuan for many years, so his tacit understanding is basically at full level.
So he wisely put away the thick stack of documents on the table, poured a glass of water into Hou Xingyuan's empty tea cup, and left the office on his own initiative.
After Gao Hongwen closed the door, Hou Xingyuan said:
"Okay, Xiao Pan, you can talk now."
The person on the phone paused for a moment. It seemed that Academician Pan was trying to organize his words. After a while, he said:
"Dean Hou, a new particle was discovered in our laboratory about a few hours ago."
"New particles?"
Hou Xingyuan blinked, his expression did not change, but he still said congratulations:
"Xiao Pan, this should be the first new particle discovered in the world this year, right? An article in the main science journal has disappeared."
at the same time.
He also quickly calculated in his mind the purpose of Academician Pan's call.
Nowadays, the physics community discovers more than a few composite particles every year. This situation is not common, but it is not rare.
Therefore, although the discovery of a new particle is worthy of celebration, it is obviously not high enough for Academician Pan to make a special call to announce the good news.
So if Hou Xingyuan expected it to be good.
Academician Pan probably just used this particle as a reason, and would probably talk about other things later.
Is it Xiao Lu’s academician selection?
Or do you have ideas for some projects this year?
Or to get some benefits for HKUST?
And just as Hou Xingyuan's mind was spinning rapidly, Academician Pan's voice came out from the microphone again:
"Well, Dean Hou, you may have misunderstood what I meant."
"The new particle I'm talking about is not a composite particle, but a basic particle."
Hou Xingyuan was stunned for a moment.
I don't know if it was because he was offended by those weird projects before, but he didn't come back to his senses until half a minute later.
He put his left hand holding the cigarette butt on the table and stood up:
"Xiao Pan, are you telling the truth? Have you really discovered a fundamental particle?"
elementary particle.
Although there are only two words different from composite particles, the concepts and importance of the two are completely different.
If what Academician Pan said is true, then this is not as simple as the first breakthrough this year.
soon.
Academician Pan’s determined tone sounded again:
"One hundred percent sure. This is the result of multiple re-examinations by Academician Zhao Zhengguo and I. It does not belong to any known basic particle. In addition,"
Hou Xingyuan quickly asked:
"What else?"
This time.
There was no reply from Hou Xingyuan's microphone, but a clear and long inhalation sound.
It was as if he was gathering courage for what he was going to say next.
A few seconds later.
Academician Pan’s somewhat ethereal voice came from thousands of kilometers away:
"The other thing is that after our testing, this particle will not participate in strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions except gravitational interaction."
"."
This time.
Hou Xingyuan's pupils shrank suddenly, and the expression on his face changed from surprise to completely...
Shocked.
without any exaggeration.
This is the first time in nearly 20 years that Hou Xing has shown such an expression.
It wasn't until the cigarette butt burned his fingers that the current president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences felt a pain in his heart and barely regained consciousness.
Although Hou Xingyuan's main field is nanomaterials, as a science student graduating from the Department of Physics of the University of Science and Technology majoring in crystallography, his knowledge of the microscopic field is not shallow.
At least
He could understand what Academician Pan meant.
Think of this.
He threw the cigarette butt in his hand into the ashtray, holding the phone receiver with his left hand holding the cigarette, and the corners of his mouth were trembling slightly:
"Xiao Pan, you mean that you have discovered dark matter?"
Academician Pan keenly noticed the change in Hou Xingyuan's tone, but he still pretended not to notice and reported the situation obediently:
"That's right, the name of this particle is the solitary point particle - we had a project for it not long ago."
"Currently, based on our detection, we can confirm with at least 80% confidence that this is a kind of dark matter."
"It's just that the equipment at HKUST or Luzhou has limited precision, so it's difficult to completely determine whether it is standard cold dark matter or hot dark matter similar to neutrinos."
Hou Xingyuan was silent for a while before he completely digested the news.
Solitary point particle.
After calming down, Hou Xingyuan quickly thought of one thing:
About a year ago, Academician Pan and his colleagues submitted a project application.
The subject of research is this solitary point particle.
Of course.
The reason why Hou Xingyuan remembered this incident was largely related to the fact that this project involved Academician Pan, Zhao Zhengguo, Lu Chaoyang and others.
Also, if he remembers correctly
Xu Yun, who later caused public opinion incidents, seems to be one of the team leaders of the project.
At that time, the funding for the entire project should have been.
1.79 million?
Hou Xingyuan's expression couldn't help but become a little subtle.
At that time, he even complained to Gao Hongwen, saying that the price quoted by HKUST was similar to the price tag of vegetables in the supermarket.
Then he looked out the door with some guilt and found that the office door was tightly closed. He coughed lightly and said to Academician Pan:
"Xiao Pan, how do you want the Academy of Sciences to cooperate with you now?"
Academician Pan has been emphasizing the level of equipment in Luzhou before. If you still can't understand what he means, Hou Xingyuan doesn't need to be the dean.
Academician Pan, who was on the other end of the phone, was silent for a moment and said:
"Dean Hou, Mr. Zhao and I have the idea to go to Sichuan Province for verification and at the same time connect to the Wukong satellite for auxiliary testing."
"Wukong and Sichuan province?"
Hou Xingyuan repeated Academician Pan's request in a low voice, with a trace of hesitation in his eyes.
The docking of the Wukong satellite is not a big problem. After all, it is one of the strategic leading science and technology projects of space science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Not to mention Hou Xingyuan, Academician Pan can negotiate for auxiliary verification of relevant data.
What really made Hou Xingyuan undecided was what Academician Pan said.
Sichuan Province.
As the current president of the Academy of Sciences, he naturally knows where Academician Pan is referring.
So because of this, he was a little hesitant.
But soon.
Hou Xingyuan's hesitation turned into a decision. He took a deep breath and said to Academician Pan:
"No problem, Xiao Pan, you can make preparations now. I will complete the procedures before tonight and contact you then."
Right on the phone.
Academician Pan's face lit up when he heard this, and he was about to give Zhao Zhengguo a look, but he heard Hou Xingyuan say:
"By the way, Xiao Pan, I remember that the solitary point particle can be discovered. The little doctor named Xu Yun seems to have made a lot of efforts, right?"
Academician Pan's raised eyebrows suddenly froze in mid-air. He glanced at the well-behaved Xu Yun beside him in surprise, nodded and said:
"Yes, it was thanks to the orbit calculated by Xiao Xu that we were able to discover the solitary point particle - but no one knew it would be so special at that time."
Hou Xingyuan nodded thoughtfully:
"okay, I get it."
After hanging up the phone.
Hou Xingyuan was silent for a moment, picked up the phone again, and dialed Gao Hongwen's number:
"Xiao Gao, you book two tickets and we will go to Sichuan Province tomorrow."
Note:
Thanks to the readers for reminding me that tomorrow’s memorial service is a bit sensitive. After discussing it with the editor, I decided not to break the news and make the first move. Anyway, the break-out lasts for a week. If it starts the day after tomorrow, it can be postponed for another day. This is a force majeure.