Scientific instruments are the "national instruments" that determine the future of the nation

According to the reading: “The state has invested several hundred million yuan and more than one billion yuan for you. What is the use of the national economy?” Some people often ask Ye Peijian.

As the technical leader of the satellite project such as “Shu”, Ye Peijian values ​​the development of scientific instruments. For him and many scientists, scientific instruments can not only satisfy human curiosity, but also become a “nation’s weight” that determines the future of the nation.

Who says that scientific instruments can't make money?

Ye Peijian told a story at the two sessions. “Previous passenger trains, when the staff was parking, knocked on the wheel with a wrench or a steel rod. You know why he knocked on the sound.”

In the past, the bearing quality of the wheel was not good, and the long-term load gave rise to cracks. The knocking wheel was used to check abnormal noise. Freight trains are more prone to problems, but they cannot stop and “knock,” so the bearings often break.

This problem was actually solved by a space project in China. An infrared detector used on satellites can sensitively capture changes in heat. Placing many infrared instruments along the railway line can be the first time to notice anomalies in the bearing's heat and send out an alarm.

Ye Peijian told us that there are many instruments on the satellite that can be directly or slightly modified to “make money”. Such as high-precision camera lens on the satellite, its design ideas can be used for many devices, such as lithography machine - without it do not want to create a large integrated circuit such as CPU. The use of computers on satellites, with low power, light weight and resistance to extreme conditions, is a template for future computer reference.

The secular value of scientific instruments is not as often mentioned as its "sacred" value. Wilson, the founder of Fermi Laboratories, asked the Congress for 200 million U.S. dollars as an accelerator. When asked whether "the project is helpful for national defense," he replied: "It cannot defend the United States, but it makes the United States worth defending."

In fact, accelerators have also contributed to humanity. The Internet was born in the particle accelerator laboratory in Europe. The new technology that the accelerator has spawned has also stimulated the progress of the electronics industry.

Scientific instruments can also be used directly in the industry. Famous scientist Wang Daxuan has cited many examples: electron microscopes, mass spectrometers, CT tomographs, X-ray material structure analyzers, optical phase contrast microscopes, and scanning tunneling microscopes. The inventor won the Nobel Prize and opened up a fortune.

The bio-industry is high hopes, and the most popular bio-utility devices, such as gene chips or micro-motion probes, are instruments in the laboratory.

With the emphasis on the environment and food safety, various testing instruments originally used in laboratories began to provide information for everyday life.

All advanced machine prototypes
“Inadequate support for key components and instrumentation is a difficult problem for China's equipment manufacturing industry.” At the two sessions, the underwater robot expert Feng Xisheng mentioned that when China finances major equipment, it often neglects the basic work of advanced equipment.

This foundation is, in the final analysis, a precision instrument—the scientific instrument is one of the most sophisticated, and other machines originate here.

The steam engine may be the most important machine in history. The first steam engine, an instrument developed by the barometrician Papan for interest, uses steam to make vacuum. A hundred years later, a scientific instrument craftsman at Glasgow University made important improvements to the steam engine. He was Watt.

Since the beginning of the 18th century, the purchase of scientific instruments has become a European fashion, and a large number of practical machinery will soon come out. This is not accidental. Mechanical inventors are often scientific instrument makers or watchmakers. The United Kingdom was the world center of scientific instruments at that time and it had a great relationship with it as a source of industrial revolution.

The highest precision comes from optical instruments. For example, the "Mother of Industry" CNC machine tool, which uses a ruler called "raster", the accuracy of its marking, determines the upper limit of the machine tool accuracy.

The best gratings came from a German company: It spent 200 million euros to build a three-stage vibration isolation plant with an amplitude of no more than 1.5 nanometers and a temperature difference of only one percent. The company has the world's best atomic clock and the length transfer standard that China's National Bureau of Measurement does not have. Therefore, the German machine tool can use the most accurate ruler in the world.

High-end manufacturing can not be separated from precision instruments - often scientific instruments. The famous Zeiss company, which produces high-quality astronomical telescopes and microscopes as well as camera lenses and industrial lenses, is not a crossover. Optical instruments were originally used in science.

The high-speed train running fast, the reason why the bearing will not be broken, thanks to the high precision provided by optical instruments; the piston engine with the least friction, the longest-lived jet engine, but also can not be separated from the optical instrument "correction."

The developed industrial countries not only have a solid foundation for the manufacture of scientific instruments, but also the government does not dare to underestimate instrument innovation. The National Natural Science Foundation of the United States and the National Institutes of Health invested exclusively to propose that the United States should lead the scientific instrument industry; the European Union spent 4.1 billion euros on new instruments such as radiation sources and telescopes in the past few years; the Japanese government began to spend huge sums in 2004. Developed the world's most advanced analytical meter.

Chinese instrument industry weakness

Earlier this year, the Chinese government announced that it had allocated 800 million yuan to subsidize scientific instruments. This is the largest investment in history. However, China still lacks the experience of manufacturing scientific instruments. Currently, most of the domestic industry is small workshops, and R&D investment only accounts for 2% to 3% of sales. The foreign industry is dominated by a long history of giant corporations. R&D investment accounts for one-tenth of sales.

In a certain city of Jiangsu, an instrument center has been formed and there are more than 100 instrument companies. However, many of them started as imitations and it is difficult to say that they have formed their own core competitiveness.

China's rapid development of research funding, the bulk of the purchase of a variety of high-end scientific instruments, and most of these instruments can not be produced in China. The 2010 scientific instrument deficit is close to 10 billion U.S. dollars. According to a survey conducted by Zhu Xixing, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), 60 per cent of China’s research investment in fixed assets each year is used for imported equipment, and some areas rely entirely on imports.

The CEO of Beijing Jitian Instrument Company told the reporter of the Science and Technology Daily that 40 years ago, certain key components could only rely on imports. For example, the photomultiplier tubes that must be used in spectroscopy instruments directly affect the sensitivity and stability of the instrument. After 40 years, the device still relies on imports, and it costs the company more than 3 million yuan each year.

The manufacture of sophisticated scientific instruments requires the support of precision optics and special materials science, and these areas are accumulating for hundreds of years and cannot be accomplished overnight. One data is that the development investment of foreign scientific instrument companies accounts for an average of 10% of sales, while China only accounts for 2% to 3%. Therefore, domestic instruments are only paralyzed in middle and low-end markets.

Zhao Zhongxian, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and physicist, gave an example: The vacuum ultraviolet laser angle-resolved photoelectron spectrometer completed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences six years ago has achieved important results in the research of high-temperature superconductors. "The development of some instruments is particularly difficult and not short-term." Zhao Zhongxian believes that the original advanced instruments are supported by the state's scientific research programs, including the 863 Program, the 973 Program, and the Academy of Sciences and Foundation Program. The long-term accumulation, involving materials, devices and design capabilities and personnel training, is a comprehensive result.

"If a country can't make some sophisticated instruments, even if the country is really rich, it is still not a real developed country." Zhao Zhongxian said.