When science ＂collided＂ with science fiction, the ＂Big Bang＂ happened.

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From science to science fiction, and then from science fiction to science, this collision between literary and artistic works and science and technology has created countless surprises. The national team of scientists escorted the domestic sci-fi movies to the world and sounded their horns. In this process, they also spread the seeds of science to a larger audience. This is a great attempt for China’s film and television industry and popular science.

　

"Does cosmic flicker really exist?" "Is digital life feasible?" "If a day becomes 60 hours, how many hours do we have to work?" … …

The audience who are still immersed in the domestic sci-fi movies such as Wandering Earth 2 and TV series Three-body, after two brushes and three brushes, are continuously shocked by the grand and complete world view shown in the film and begin to stare at the starry sky overhead. They gave many questions about astronomy, physics, artificial intelligence, chemical materials and other disciplines to the scientific advisers of the two works.

With the same expectations as the audience, Workers Daily interviewed four scientists from China Academy of Sciences who tailored the world outlook for domestic science fiction: Gou Lijun, a researcher at the National Astronomical Observatory, Wei Hongxiang and Liang Wenjie, a researcher at the Institute of Physics, and Wang Yuanzhuo, a researcher at the Institute of Computing Technology.

From formula to screen

The reason why Wandering Earth 2 and Three-body are defined as milestones of domestic science fiction is that they have a huge and complete world outlook (the general views and opinions of the film on the whole world and the relationship between people and the world).

Whether it is the big ideas of "exploding the moon", "digital life", "space elevator" and "guzheng action", or the dense formulas that exist as background boards in Wei Cheng’s room on the wall of Tu Hengyu, they are supported by scientific consultants.

It is understood that "Wandering Earth 2" hired 19 experts from various fields to form a scientific advisory group, which made detailed settings for the world view of the film. The whole script is 70,000 words, but the world view behind it is over 200,000 words. During the seven-year preparation and shooting of the drama "Three-body", 60 or 70 scientific consultants have joined it.

As a fresh force of domestic science fiction, "scientific consultant" is the first time for the film and television industry and the first time for the group of scientists. They not only created a new world in their works, but also created a new pattern of domestic science fiction industry.

Wang Yuanzhuo contributed the plot line of "People in the Loop" to Wandering Earth 2. "We can’t demand that the scientific knowledge in science fiction movies is 100% accurate, which is a big premise." In his view, science and artistry need to find a balance point, so that the audience can be brought into the plot with "realism" and enjoy the beautiful impression brought by the wide opening of their brains.

"The setting of scientific knowledge that we know and have reached consensus, such as artificial intelligence, digital life and brain-computer interface, should be more professional. At the same time, it is reasonable to have a false desire for the future, at least at a set point in time. "

Under his design, the 550 series intelligent quantum computers in the film are very small and can even be taken to the moon with them, but they are extremely powerful and iterative. Its appearance and development also give the film a realistic basis for discussing digital life. This kind of imagination is not illusory, because from the current situation of the development of quantum computers and artificial intelligence, the audience can accept and understand without obstacles, and even think and explore further.

The most unforgettable thing for Liang Wenjie is the setting of the plot of bombing the moon. The original design of the script was to assemble all the nuclear bombs on the earth to blow up the moon, but the astrophysics group found that this was not feasible after calculation. But this plot must exist, so scientists began to collectively "burn their brains". After several rounds of discussions between the Astrophysics Group and the Theoretical Physics Group, the scheme of "phased array nuclear explosion on the moon" was formed, which perfectly balanced science, vision and plot.

The channel of branch and shadow fusion has been opened.

Liang Wenjie is the scientific consultant of Wandering Earth 2 and the drama version of Three-body. At the beginning, he had some doubts about being a scientific consultant. "If I just invited scientists to endorse it, I wouldn’t agree."

After these cooperations, he now has a sense of trust in the increasingly mature industrialization of domestic science fiction films. "The production team is very serious about the construction of the world outlook. Sometimes scientists think it is ok, but the production team is still constantly improving, and the final visual effect is also very shocking."

Wandering Earth 1, released in 2019, opened the door to domestic sci-fi movies, and also brought opportunities for integration between the film and television industry and the scientific community. In 2020, the National Film Bureau and the China Association for Science and Technology issued the "Several Opinions on Promoting the Development of Science Fiction Films" called "Ten Science Fiction Articles"; Subsequently, the National Film Administration and the China Association for Science and Technology took the lead in establishing a science advisory library for science fiction films, and hired a group of academicians of the two academies, authoritative experts and outstanding scientific and technological workers as experts in the scientific advisory library. At the end of 2020, the Chinese Popular Science Writers Association established a professional committee for the integration of science and film and television.

The four scientists interviewed by Workers Daily have interacted with sci-fi movies for a long time.

When Wandering Earth 1 was released, Wang Yuanzhuo drew a scientific explanation map by hand in order to popularize the knowledge points in the film for his daughter. In order to preserve it better, he posted it in his Weibo, but he didn’t expect to get 150 million readings.

Gou Lijun came into contact with the concept of "scientific consultant" earlier. In 2014, Interstellar was released. As a researcher, he was greatly shocked and excited by the sci-fi worldview with black holes, wormholes and gravitational waves as clues. Kip Thorne, a scientific consultant and physicist who learned about the film, also wrote a popular science book with the same name to introduce the scientific story behind the film. Gou Lijun wrote an email to the later Nobel Prize winner overnight, eager to translate the book. Finally, the professional fan’s wish came true. Gou Lijun, who is in his 40 s, talks about this experience and still has stars in his eyes.

"Before the release of Wandering Earth 1, I went to see the film. At that time, there was no post-production. Many scenes we saw were still green scenes, which could only be explained by director Frant Gwo ‘Brain tonic’ . Even so, everyone is very excited, because we finally saw the start of domestic science fiction. "Gou Lijun recalled.

In addition to the deep participation of scientists, the scientific community also supports domestic sci-fi films, and even approved the crew to enter the particle collision center and the National Nanoscience Center for live shooting for the first time.

Reaction of science fiction works

In bilibili, where young people gather, the "Second Institute of Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences" has a huge number of fans. Wei Hongxiang, as the main contributor, believes that it is because he has found a way to communicate with young people.

"More than half of the fans are high school students." Wei Hongxiang has been doing popular science for teenagers for more than ten years. Recently, he found that more and more teenagers expressed their ideal of becoming scientists.

In his view, science, popular science and science fiction have a mutually reinforcing relationship. Popular science is to let everyone understand scientific concepts and principles. Science fiction, on the other hand, makes more people think about bigger and more future problems. It strives for more people’s recognition and understanding for some major events related to the future of mankind, and unites more people to work together to solve and overcome them.

"Science fiction works can bring people a kind of inner strength. When you have no confidence in yourself or are confused about the future, he will guide you to think and act." Wei Hongxiang said.

"Our scientific planning in reality is usually three or five years, and we rarely look at today’s work from the perspective of the next few decades. When we look at the current research from the perspective of science fiction, there will be many new ideas. " Wang Yuanzhuo said.

Gou Lijun recalled that the most important thing for him to become a "stargazer" was to read the science fiction magazine UFO Exploration in his youth. Today, what scientists want to do is to make more people love and yearn for science with the help of science fiction fever.

"Science fiction movies are an important way for popular science and scientific research to face more people. At the same time, through the presentation of sci-fi literary works, the direction of research and exploration in the scientific field will be paid more attention to by more people, which is also very important for scientific research itself. " Liang Wenjie said.