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Chinese researchers get younger, help nation make great strides in innovation During a discussion with representatives of China's youth in 2013,
President Xi Jinping called young people "the most dynamic and creative
group of our society" and said that they should "stand at the forefront
of innovation and creation". China's young people have wholeheartedly answered his call. A notable
development since then has been that Chinese scientists in their 30s
are the backbone of some of the country's greatest scientific and
technological endeavors. In 2018, the average age of the workforce in China's science and
technology sector was 35.9, down from 36.8 in 2013 and 37.4 in 2008,
according to a survey conducted every five years by the China
Association for Science and Technology. The trend was likely to continue
over the following decade, according to the team that conducted the
survey in 2018. In space exploration, the researchers behind the Chang'e lunar
exploration program and the nation's Shenzhou series of spacecraft have
an average age of 35. Meanwhile, the average age of the team that
created the Beidou Satellite Navigation System is 37, according to
People's Daily. China's deepest diving manned submersible, Fendouzhe, the Beishan
underground research laboratory for high-level nuclear waste, and the
Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope, also known as
FAST, have a research workforce that is mostly in its 30s. Zhao Hongzhou, founder of China's scientometrics, the field of
analyzing scholarly literature, said scientists typically make their
biggest achievements between the ages of 25 and 45, with their
productivity peaking at around 37. This trend is evident among the scientists and engineers working on
FAST. Its engineering and operation team has an average age of 39, while
its on-site crew has an average age of 30. Since it became operational in September 2016, the telescope has been
instrumental in the discovery of around 340 pulsars, extremely dense
and magnetic rotating stars that emit beams of radiation out of their
magnetic poles. The telescope has also contributed to helping mankind better
understand the origin of fast radio bursts, extremely brief but powerful
flashes in the universe. This feat was listed by the journals Nature
and Science last year as one of the biggest scientific achievements of
2020. On Feb 5, Xi met with FAST's key project managers and researchers. He
called the telescope "an instrument of national importance" which
represents a major original breakthrough in frontier sciences. The selflessness and silent dedication exhibited by FAST's scientists
was moving and exemplary, he said, adding that science workers should
embrace the scientific spirit, scale new heights in the world of
science, and make greater contributions to China's rise as a scientific
powerhouse. For the young scientists and engineers working on FAST, there is a
special photo that they believe best captures the spirit of the team
engaged in creating it, and it is just as inspiring as the aerial view
of the world's largest single-dish telescope. The photo shows then vice-premier Liu Yandong, then president of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences Bai Chunli, and FAST's chief scientist Nan
Rendong, who passed away in September 2017, posing on the catwalk in
front of the giant telescope during its launch ceremony in 2016. Liu and Bai both had warm smiles fitting the occasion, while Nan's
expression was a mix of joy and anxiety, as he and his team knew the
past 22 years they had spent building a telescope the size of 30 soccer
fields was merely the first step. "It would still take a monumental effort and ingenuity to calibrate
the colossal machine and get its complex systems working in harmony,"
said Jiang Peng, FAST's chief engineer. Jiang said the group photo still
brings back memories of his friend and mentor Nan every time he looks
at it. The construction of FAST pushed the team to its physical and
intellectual limits, including creating new systems to operate the
telescope, also known as the "Sky Eye", whose "retina" consists of
over4,450 panels controlled by 2,225 hydraulic actuators. Engineers also scaled FAST's six towers to install and upgrade
lightning protection equipment in the rainy, remote and mosquito-filled
valleys of Guizhou province. "Our youth is very special, because it is
devoted to a giant 'wok'," Jiang said of the telescope. "Behind the glory and success of FAST lie our sacrifices, our
deceased comrades, our inexperience at the start of the project, and our
puzzlement when building the project," he said. "People often called our team exemplary, but we were just a group of
ordinary people who joined the project in our 20s, and worked tirelessly
for it well into our 30s and 40s," Jiang said. "We sometimes joked that Nan dug a hole so massive and mesmerizing
that over 100 people were willing to jump into it and stay there with no
regrets for over 20 years."
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