Fear of authority stands in the way of mainland breakthroughs in theoretical physics according to a top Harvard and Hong Kong academic
Chinese academics and students need to free themselves from their 'authority mentality' if the mainland is to produce top-flight scholars, an award-winning Hong Kong mathematician said this week.
Harvard professor Yau Shing-tung, 57, director of Chinese University's Institute for Advanced Mathematical Sciences, as well as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the deferential attitude was a contributing factor to the small number of students working in advanced theoretical physics.
Speaking on the eve of scientist Stephen Hawking's visit to Hong Kong and Beijing and in the same week as two of his students published a proof of a 100-year-old mathematical problem, he said there was a marked difference in academic attitudes between China and the west.
'Theoretical physics has not been as popular in China as in other countries in terms of the fact that China is so big and yet the number of successful theoretical physicists beside the older generation is very small,' he said.
'Unfortunately the development of basic science in China is different from other countries. In Britain or the US any young kid or undergraduate can decide they want to go in a certain direction. They can get funding and support and go anywhere they want to in most cases. But not in China. If you don't listen to some authority you're completely screwed up. You will not get jobs, you will not be complimented, you will not get funding. You have to get backing from some authority.