Academician's popular science "Screen", short video version of "100,000 Why", "Circle Powder" and physics "Grandma Wu" became popular ... In the past year, the number of short videos on popular science has increased rapidly-

"Physics is too difficult" is probably the feeling of many people when they were students. Recently, however, the Chinese Academy of Sciences' 2022 New Year's Eve scientific speech caught fire on the short video platform. Standardizing field theory, quantum mechanics and electromagnetism, physical terms that sound difficult have been transformed into easy-to-understand languages, attracting 2.6 million netizens to watch. Cao Zexian, one of the keynote speakers and a researcher at the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: "It is very meaningful to start the new year with a scientific speech with super high knowledge content." Previously, the Institute of Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences had shared the video clips of Cao Zexian open class on the short video platform. One of them combined with long-distance love to explain electromagnetism, which won more than 2.5 million praises. Many netizens lamented: "Physics has become interesting."

"From entertainment to knowledge, the active upgrading of this content industry is helping the network society to form a' knowledge fashion' of seeking knowledge, learning knowledge and respecting knowledge." Chen Gang, director of the Film and Television Media Department of the School of Art and Media of Beijing Normal University, said.

1, the mission of popular science is to "lead people into the door"

Short gray hair, often wearing a vest, novel experiments, concise and neat speech, this is the first impression of netizens on Wu Renren, a retired professor at Tongji University. On short video platforms such as Tik Tok, millions of fans affectionately called her "Grandma Wu" and fell in love with doing experiments with her.

A while ago, Shenzhou XIII manned spacecraft was successfully launched. Many children began to wonder: how did the rocket fly into the sky? In order to answer this question, Wu Renren specially filmed a video to let everyone know that the speed of rocket flight comes from the reaction force of rocket combustion by blowing balloons. The downward injection experiment of liquid nitrogen is used again, so that children can intuitively feel how much fuel is needed to break through the speed of the first universe.

Wu Renren has been insisting on popular science 16 years. "Physics is interesting, but many students are afraid of exams." She said that she just wanted to tell the children how to study physics.

"The mission of popular science is to let people put down their resistance to advanced subjects, lead people into the door and bridge the cognitive gap between science and the public." Chen Gang said.

Zhang Chenliang, whose real name is @ Unlimited Liang Xiaokepu Daily, deputy editor-in-chief of Natural History Magazine and director of chinese national geography Media Center. 2019165438+1October 14 He sent the first Tik Tok video, which opened the way for the popularization of short videos. Since then, he has successively opened columns such as Distant Natural History, Flowers, Plants, Insects and Fish Around him, Catching up with the Sea, and Internet-borne Biological Identification. At present, the series of "Internet Biometrics" videos have been watched 65.438+28 million times. His short videos of popular science are all quoted from classics, and he will also consult professionals such as ant experts and otter researchers.

Outside the major, Zhang Chenliang's popular science is characterized by calm and direct, clear personnel. Because his face is slightly square, his eyes are slightly smaller and his eyebrows are slightly wrinkled, there are rumors that he is a water monkey. Netizens joked that he was a "hidden fox" and the "President of the Water Monkey Rumor Association".

When sharing his creative experience, Zhang Chenliang said that the video platform is a place where inspiration can be generated. "Some background music or a stalk or mantra can amaze me. It is very useful for popular science to absorb these ideas. In this way, the video created by knowing yourself and knowing yourself can be liked by the public. "

The report shows that in the comment area of Tik Tok knowledge video, there are 6.5438+0.36 million "learning" feelings and 2.54 million "understanding" joys. Chen Changfeng, executive vice president of Tsinghua University School of Journalism and Communication, believes that these figures are the satisfaction of users in learning different types of knowledge at a very low cost in terms of time, space and economy, and are the signs that the knowledge attribute of short video platforms has increased and the entertainment attribute has declined.

2. The difficulty of popular science is "general", which is the skill of listening.

In June last year, the State Council issued the Outline of the Action Plan for National Scientific Literacy (202 1-2035), proposing to deepen the supply-side reform, promote the innovation and upgrading of the contents, forms and means of popular science, improve the knowledge content of popular science, and meet the demand of the whole society for high-quality popular science.

Let advanced science enter the homes of ordinary people. What "secret weapons" do these popular science reds have?

Wu's favorite word is "fun". Chaos pendulum perpetual motion machine, small model Stirling engine, Newton pendulum, pointer electroscope, Fresnel lens ... In addition to these small devices and small models specially used for physical experiments, Wu Ren's "toys" in her "treasure chest" are simply varied-in her hands, eggs, clothes hangers, coins ... daily necessities may be transformed into experimental equipment.

"The construction and development of the country cannot be separated from the improvement of the quality of the whole people, and it needs more in-depth research and beneficial science popularization." This is Wu Ren's initial intention of doing popular science.

"I'm afraid because I don't know enough; Because of the lack of curiosity, I don't understand. " In Wu Shuo, the current popular brushing education is obviously not feasible and counterproductive.

Different from the face-to-face teaching with students in the classroom, in the video, Wu Ren needs to "translate" the complex physical principles in an easy-to-understand language within a limited time and accurately convey them to the public. "The most difficult thing is the creative planning script in the early stage. This part of the work often depends on the inspiration and wisdom of Grandma Wu." The team members said that fortunately, "Grandma Wu" has many ideas and a big brain hole. She is not afraid of hardship and fatigue, and often turns with young people.

In fact, the difficulty of popular science is not "science", but "general".

Wang Xianpin, academician of China Academy of Sciences, is a marine geologist. Three years ago, Wang Zai, who was over eighty years old, completed three deep dives for nine consecutive days. Not long ago, Wang became popular on various platforms with his videos of popular marine knowledge. "Making a video can let millions of netizens know about the ocean. A large barrage, like rain, looks spectacular and exciting. "

"The more easy it is to understand the lessons of great scientists, the more difficult it is to understand the lessons of small scientists. Little scientists are afraid of saying something wrong for the wrong reason. He only dares to follow the book, and the great scientist is more free, because the principle is likely to be discovered by him. " In Wang's mind, the ideal realm of popular science is, "one hour, just one mouth, and there are no auxiliary props such as PPT." If you stare today and want to come back tomorrow, this is the skill. "

In the new world of popular science, the quality of content is precious.

The enthusiasm of short videos has been ignited, but problems such as homogenization of content and proliferation of pseudoscience have gradually emerged.

Rui Chen, a young biologist from China Academy of Sciences, is the head of Tik Tok's "Doctor of Zoology" account. He has long discovered that the so-called "popular science" on the Internet is often full of mistakes. For example, he said that termites are not ants, but closer to cockroaches; Amber must be buried underground for tens of millions of years, otherwise it cannot be called amber. Every time I see the false information spread on the Internet, Rui Chen will feel the urgency of popularizing science.

The Report pointed out that the knowledge inclusiveness of short videos needs to further improve the content quality and focus on solving potential problems such as excessive commercialization of knowledge videos. Chang Lu, a professor at China Communication University, agrees. He mentioned that diversified, all-round and high-level knowledge needs have become an important part of the growing needs of the public for a better life. The deepening of short video knowledge will be beneficial to the long-term healthy development of the entire Internet industry.

In this new world of popular science, the voice of crowd segmentation is getting louder and louder.

Zhong Qi introduced that at present, more than half of the popular science users on the mobile side have a certain educational background, and the popular science audience is characterized by youthfulness and high education, and the coverage has also expanded to white-collar workers, college students, business managers and humanities scholars.

"For this group of people, we usually use in-depth articles to satisfy their thirst for knowledge, but at the same time we can't ignore the popular science needs of primary and secondary school students, the elderly and people with low academic qualifications." In Zhong Qi's view, primary and secondary school students have their own "circles". They use QQ instead of WeChat to communicate and are fascinated by the secondary culture ... "If you use their thinking logic to make popular science content and use their language to make popular science videos, the communication effect will definitely get twice the result with half the effort."

The popular science team of the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences once conducted a survey, and 40% of teenagers were interested in science and 40% were potentially interested. In the past, when children talked about their dreams, they all said they wanted to be scientists, but now many children dream of becoming stars and internet celebrities. In this regard, Rui Chen, as a scientist, feels a little sad, and it is even more urgent to sow the seeds of science in the hearts of more children.