Spreading popular science knowledge in Li Miao’s way: interesting in writing style, rich in content, and talent in storytelling
Li is a professor in the Department of Physics at South University of Science and Technology of China. He was the Dean and Founder of the Institute of Astronomy and Space Sciences at Sun Yat-Sen University.
He was graduated from Peking University with a bachelor degree in astrophysics in 1982 and a master degree in science from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1984. In 1989, he went to the Bohr Institute of Copenhagen University in Denmark and received his Ph.D. in Philosophy. Since 1990, he has been a research assistant and research assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Brown University. In 1996, he became a senior research assistant at the Fermi Institute of the University of Chicago.
In 1999, he returned to China and served as a researcher and doctoral tutor at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2005, he received a special government allowance from the State Council. Li Miao’s main research fields are quantum gravity and cosmology, and first proposed and developed a model of holographic dark energy, which relevant academic papers by him and his collaborators have been cited for more than a thousand times. From 2016 to 2018, Li Miao entered the list of Elsevier China’s Most Frequently Cited Scholars for three consecutive years.
In addition to the identity of scientist, the world renown physicist Li Miao has published a series of popular science works in recent years, allowing for children and parents to read together. His series of popular science works (Quantum Mechanics for Children, Universe for Children, Relativity For Children, Space for Children, Brief History of Time for Children) have been well received by readers and won numerous awards. Among them, Quantum Mechanics for Children won the 13th Wenjin Book Award announced by the National Library of China in 2018; the 2017 Annual Top Ten Children’s Books in Shenzhen Reading Month; and its traditional Chinese version won Annual Children’s Book Award in Taipei in 2017. Li Miao’s Physics in Three Body was shortlisted for the Wenjin Book Award and the China Good Book Award. This title won the Gold Award of the third World Chinese Science Popularization Award announced by World Chinese Science Popularization Writer Association and the Wu Dayou Science Popularization Award in Taipei, which was the most important science popularization award on both sides of the mainland China and Taiwan.
According to OpenBook market projection, since the first book of the “Science for Children” series published in January 2017, more than 480,000 copies have sold in two years as of 2019. Among them, Quantum Mechanics for Children is the best-selling, ranking first in the children’s science books published in January 2017, and the total sales volume is more than twice of the sales of the second place.
Li Miao hopes to spread the knowledge of science and share experience to readers of all ages. He regards developing children’s abilities in language, logical reasoning and problem analysis as important. The “Science for Children” series is also targeted at “Children and Parents Read Together” readership of 7-80 age group. Li Miao’s popular science works can make scientific knowledge easy to understand. His popular science works have three factors, interesting in writing style, rich in content, and talent in storytelling. The writing style is interesting because he uses humorous language to describe the scientific principles in a metaphorical way. Rich in content refers that there is a solid scientific core, and physics is the basis of multidisciplinary. As Nobel Prize winner Ernest Rutherford has a famous saying “The only possible conclusion the social sciences can draw is: some do, some don’t”, the development of physics has also led to the change of the world view, from the geocentric theory to the heliocentric theory, now to the discussion of the boundaries of the universe. Finally, Li’s works is full of talent in storytelling as he always refers to the story behind the discovery of classical principles by scientists, such as Pauli Exclusion Principle was inspired by pairs of dancers at the ball.
There is an old saying, “Science has no borders.” When Li Miao was studying in the United States, he saw that foreign middle-class families attached great importance to children’s reading of popular science books, which also prompted him to actively participate in popular science writing. Just as the physicist Kip Thorne’s popular science books have caused countless young people around the world to be fascinated by topics such as black holes, gravitational waves, relativity, time travel, and wormholes. Li Miao’s easy-to-understand science knowledge has also subtle influence over a wide range of age readers.
In 1999, he returned to China and became a candidate for Hundred Scholar Project announced by the Academy of Sciences. At the time, he was an excellent researcher among the Chinese in the superstring field.
In 2000, he was awarded the Outstanding Youth Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
In 2004, he was selected as a national candidate for the Century Talents Project by 7 ministries and commissions, including the Ministry of Personnel.
In 2005, he received a special government allowance from the State Council.
Received the 2011 Charisma Character Award from Southern People Weekly.
Since 2015, Elsevier has released a list of China’s highly cited scholars every year. In 2017, a total of 1,776 Chinese scholars from 38 disciplines were selected in the 2016 List of Highly Cited Scholars. Li Miao entered the list and was nomiated as one of Most Frequently Cited Scholars of Elsevier in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Research results:
Li Miao is a researcher at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for more than ten years. His main research areas are quantum gravity and cosmology. Li Miao is one of the leaders of the cosmology team. He is one of his team proposed and developed the holographic dark energy model. The original papers were cited for more than a thousand times. The series of papers were cited for more than 3,000 times. He has released a total of more than 160 SCI papers, which have been cited more than 7,000 times.
The research in superstring theory has international influences, especially in the two-dimensional Liouville theory, D-brane and quantum physics of black holes. Recently he focused on the study of black hole physics, superstring cosmology, and dark energy.
In 1996, Li Miao published a paper regarding D-brane on superstring theory, which greatly supported the correctness of the duality of superstring theory. This is the best work of Li Miao before his return to China.
After returning to China, Li Miao immediately judged that cosmology entered a golden period of development because scientists had confirmed the accelerated expansion of the universe in 1998 and the accurate measurement of WMAP on the microwave background radiation. Not only did he start to turn to cosmology research, but he also led several graduate students on this cosmology research. He hosted several cosmology seminars in China to promote theoretical research in domestic cosmology studies.
In 2004, he proposed the first dark energy model based on the principle of quantum gravity holography. Soon, his team and other teams fitted the model with cosmological observations. The model is only one parameter more than the cosmological constant and has a profound theoretical basis. His first paper regarding holographic dark energy model was extremely influential and was cited more than a thousand times. Based on this paper, he and his team have conducted in-depth research on this model from the perspective of theoretical and observational data over the past 15 years and published dozens of papers. Two years ago, he and his former graduate students Wang Shuang and Wang Yi published a review paper on holographic dark energy at Phys. Rept., which became the first paper published in the physics review journal in Southern China. In addition, a review paper by Li Miao and his students’s paper about dark energy is also very influential, and others have cited nearly six hundred times.
Recently, the Hubble constant introduced by microwave background radiation is quite inconsistent with the Hubble constant introduced directly from Cepheid variable star observations, perhaps suggesting that the so-called standard cosmological model is not necessarily correct. One possibility is that dark energy is not constant. Therefore, it remain a large room for further development of Li Miao’s holographic dark energy model.
In addition to the great influence on the study of dark energy, Li Miao also has a certain influence on the study of the early universe and the study of gravitational waves. He also plans to study cosmology through LIGO’s observations of the merger of double neutron stars, especially how to determine the Hubble constant and its impact on the dark energy model.
Li Miao is also an excellent graduate tutor. The vast majority of his graduate students have continued research in the field of physics. Among them, 14 are professors and associate professors in the Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University. In 2013, Li Miao joined Sun Yat-sen University to set up an team on astronomy and space science studies. The current School of Physics and Astronomy at Sun Yat-sen University grew up on this basis. In November 2019, he became a professor in the Department of Physics at Southern University of Science and Technology. His main research objects are cosmology and dark energy, and he has also been engaged in the research of superstring theory and quantum gravity. His representative work is the proposal of the holographic dark energy model, and 160 SCI papers have been published.
Cross-border Cooperation
He has participated in CCTV programs, such as the “Reading” and “Today’s Film Critics”. He also participated in variety shows many times, such as “Mars Intelligence Bureau”, “Intelligence for the Future.” Li Miao also served as consultants for a number of science fiction films.
Li Miao hopes to spread the knowledge of science and share experience to readers of all ages. He regards developing children’s abilities in language, logical reasoning and problem analysis as important. The “Science for Children” series is also targeted at “Children and Parents Read Together” readership of 7-80 age group. Li Miao’s popular science works can make scientific knowledge easy to understand. His popular science works have three factors, interesting in writing style, rich in content, and talent in storytelling. The writing style is interesting because he uses humorous language to describe the scientific principles in a metaphorical way. Rich in content refers that there is a solid scientific core, and physics is the basis of multidisciplinary. As Nobel Prize winner Ernest Rutherford has a famous saying “The only possible conclusion the social sciences can draw is: some do, some don’t”, the development of physics has also led to the change of the world view, from the geocentric theory to the heliocentric theory, now to the discussion of the boundaries of the universe. Finally, Li’s works is full of talent in storytelling as he always refers to the story behind the discovery of classical principles by scientists, such as Pauli Exclusion Principle was inspired by pairs of dancers at the ball.
There is an old saying, “Science has no borders.” When Li Miao was studying in the United States, he saw that foreign middle-class families attached great importance to children’s reading of popular science books, which also prompted him to actively participate in popular science writing. Just as the physicist Kip Thorne’s popular science books have caused countless young people around the world to be fascinated by topics such as black holes, gravitational waves, relativity, time travel, and wormholes. Li Miao’s easy-to-understand science knowledge has also subtle influence over a wide range of age readers.
Li Miao will not limit to write only for children but he hopes to spread the knowledge of science and share experience to readers of all ages.
Li Miao will release another two titles on the science fiction category. One of his coming title would be related to physics in science fiction and another title is related to space.
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