“我们可以生活在一个去化石燃料的世界中吗?”“意识存在于何处?”“为什么时间似乎只朝一个方向流动?”……今天(4月10日)下午,上海交通大学携手《科学》杂志共同发布了125个全世界最受关注的科学问题。
这125个问题集合了全球智慧。为纪念建校125周年,上海交大与《科学》/美国科学促进会联袂策划发行《125个科学问题——探索与发现》增刊。
上海交通大学校长林忠钦,常务副校长丁奎岭,副校长徐学敏、奚立峰、毛军发、王伟明,《科学》/美国科学促进会国际合作总监初晓英,世界顶尖科学家协会副主席、2013年诺贝尔化学奖得主Michael Levitt,秘书长王侯共同受邀上台,共同按下面向全球的125个科学问题发布装置。林忠钦表示,重大科学问题的凝练是大学创新使命和能力的重要体现,学校联合《科学》面向全球征集与发布125个科学问题,希望能够为推动科技进步、服务人类社会发展作出贡献。《科学》系列期刊出版人Bill Moran通过视频回顾了16年前《科学》杂志社为纪念创刊125周年出版同样发布了《125个科学问题——我们有哪些未知》特刊。这些问题中有些已经在过去的10多年中得到了解决,而有些仍然是延续至今的谜题,甚至在此次的问题征集中,仍然广受关注。初晓英说,问题的边界就是我们思想的边界,只有提出正确的问题,才能更好地认清和解决全球性问题与挑战。上海交大提出这样极具创新的方式纪念校庆,体现了交大人的创新精神,以及对科学发展、人类未来的重要使命感。专刊上的问题结合国际前沿、全球共需、科学发展,聚焦人类福祉和前瞻重大科学问题,对未来科技的发展具有强烈的指导意义。Michael Levitt表示,期待学者们和科研人员们对这125个科学问题开展热烈探讨,推动研究发展。新版125个科学问题中,个别问题是持续关注上版问题中至今尚未解决的重大科学难题,如“宇宙是由什么构成的”“我们可以阻止自己衰老吗”。也有具有挑战性的全球共性问题,如“我们可以阻止全球气候变化吗”“能量存储的未来是怎样的”“我们有可能在另一个星球上长期居住吗”;还有具有较强时代特征的前沿科技问题,如“为什么生命需要手性”“量子人工智能可以模仿人脑吗”“DNA可以广泛用作信息存储介质吗”“我们如何在火星上开发制造系统”……1. What makes prime numbers so special?2. Will the Navier–Stokes problem ever be solved?3. Is the Riemann hypothesis true?1. Are there more color pigments to discover?2. Will the periodic table ever be complete?3. How can we measure interface phenomena on the microscopic level?4. What is the future for energy storage?5. Why does life require chirality?6. How can we better manage the world's plastic waste?7. Will AI redefine the future of chemistry?8. How can matter be programmed into living materials?9. What drives reproduction in living systems?1. Can we predict the next pandemic?2. Will we ever find a cure for the common cold?3. Can we design and manufacture medicines customized for individual people?4. Can a human tissue or organ be fully regenerated?5. How is immune homeostasis maintained and regulated?6. Is there a scientific basis to the Meridian System in traditional Chinese medicine?7. How will the next generation of vaccines be made?8. Can we ever overcome antibiotic resistance?9. What is the etiology of autism?10. What role does our microbiome play in health and disease?11. Can xenotransplantation solve the shortage of donor organs?1. What could help conservation of the oceans?2. Can we stop ourselves from aging?3. Why can only some cells become other cells?4. Why are some genomes so big and others very small?5. Will it be possible to cure all cancers?6. What genes make us uniquely human?7. How do migratory animals know where they're going?8. How many species are there on Earth?9. How do organisms evolve?10. Why did dinosaurs grow to be so big?11. Did ancient humans interbreed with other human-like ancestors?12. Why do humans get so attached to dogs and cats?13. Will the world's population keep growing indefinitely?14. Why do we stop growing?15. Is de-extinction possible?16. Can humans hibernate?17. Where do human emotions originate?18. Will humans look physically different in the future?19. Why were there species explosions and mass extinction?20. How might genome editing be used to cure disease?21. Can a cell be artificially synthesized?22. How are biomolecules organized in cells to function orderly and effectively?22.细胞内的生物分子是如何组织从而有序有效发挥作用的?1. How many dimensions are there in space?2. What is the shape of the universe?3. Where did the big bang start?4. Why don't the orbits of planets decay and cause them to crash into each other?5. When will the universe die? Will it continue to expand?6. Is it possible to live permanently on another planet?7. Why do black holes exist?8. What is the universe made of?9. Are we alone in the universe?10. What is the origin of cosmic rays?11. What is the origin of mass?12. What is the smallest scale of space-time?13. Is water necessary for all life in the universe, or just on Earth?13.水是宇宙中所有生命所必需的么,还是仅对地球生命?14. What is preventing humans from carrying out deep-space exploration?15. Is Einstein's general theory of relativity correct?16. How are pulsars formed?17. Is our Milky Way Galaxy special?18. What is the volume, composition, and significance of the deep biosphere?19. Will humans one day have to leave the planet (or die trying)?19.人类有一天会不得不离开地球吗(还是会在尝试中死去)?20. Where do the heavy elements in the universe come from?21. Is it possible to understand the structure of compact stars and matter?22. What is the origin of the high-energy cosmic neutrinos?1. Is there a diffraction limit?2. What is the microscopic mechanism for high-temperature superconductivity?3. What are the limits of heat transfer in matter?4. What are the fundamental principles of collective motion?5. What are the smallest building blocks of matter?6. Will we ever travel at the speed of light?7. What is quantum uncertainty and why is it important?8. Will there ever be a 'theory of everything'?9. Why does time seem to flow in only one direction?11. Can we make a real, human-size invisibility cloak?12. Are there any particles that behave oppositely to the properties or states of photons?13. Will the Bose-Einstein condensate be widely used in the future?14. Can humans make intense lasers with incoherence comparable to sunlight?15. What is the maximum speed to which we can accelerate a particle?16. Is quantum many-body entanglement more fundamental than quantum fields?17. What is the optimum hardware for quantum computers?18. Can we accurately simulate the macro- and microworld?1. Is there an upper limit to computer processing speed?2. Can AI replace a doctor?3. Can topological quantum computing be realized?4. Can DNA act as an information storage medium?Engineering & Material Science1. What is the ultimate statistical invariances of turbulence?2. How can we break the current limit of energy conversion efficiencies?3. How can we develop manufacturing systems on Mars?4. Is a future of only self-driving cars realistic?1. What are the coding principles embedded in neuronal spike trains?2. Where does consciousness lie?3. Can human memory be stored, manipulated, and transplanted digitally?5. What is addiction and how does it work?6. Why do we fall in love?7. How did speech evolve and what parts of the brain control it?7.言语如何演变形成,大脑的哪些部分对其进行控制?8. How smart are nonhuman animals?9. Why are most people right-handed?10. Can we cure neurodegenerative diseases?11. Is it possible to predict the future?12. Can we more effectively diagnose and treat complex mental disorders?1. Can we stop global climate change?2. Where do we put all the excess carbon dioxide?3. What creates the Earth's magnetic field (and why does it move)?4. Will we be able to predict catastrophic weather events (tsunami, hurricanes, earthquakes) more accurately?4.我们是否能够更准确地预测灾害性事件(海啸、飓风、地震)?5. What happens if all the ice on the planet melts?6. Can we create an environmentally friendly replacement for plastics?7. Can we achieve a situation where essentially every material can be recycled and reused?8. Will we soon see the end of monocultures like wheat, maize, rice, and soy?8.我们会很快看到小麦、玉米、大米和大豆等单一作物的终结吗?1. Could we live in a fossil-fuel-free world?2. What is the future of hydrogen energy?3. Will cold fusion ever be possible?1. Will injectable, disease-fighting nanobots ever be a reality?2. Will it be possible to create sentient robots?3. Is there a limit to human intelligence?4. Will artificial intelligence replace humans?5. How does group intelligence emerge?6. Can robots or AIs have human creativity?7. Can quantum artificial intelligence imitate the human brain?8. Could we integrate with computers to form a human-machine hybrid species?