The Cultural Cryptogram of Chemistry

 

Date: 9^th July, 2024 (Tuesday)

Time: 4 - 5 pm (HKT)

Venue: Lecture Theatre P4, Chong Yuet Ming Physics Building

Prof. Yuqing Miao

School of Materials and Chemistry

Shanghai University of Science and Technology

Yuqing Miao, School of Materials and Chemistry, Shanghai University for Science and Technology. He is the Director of Research Center of Bismuth. In addition to research on chemistry and new materials of bismuth, Prof. Maio is also an expert on promoting chemistry and chemistry education. He has published a book entitled “The Cultural Cryptogram of Chemistry”, and edited a song of “the changes of chemistry”. He often gave lectures to the public in China on the history of chemistry, science and arts as well as scientific language and culture.

 

Chemistry is not a boring knowledge system, instead, it is rich, interesting, emotional and flesh-and-blood. It is deeply rooted in the entire science and knowledge system, engrained in the land where human civilization develops, expressing the rich and colorful natural scenes of all things in the universe, and accommodating the various cultural connotations of human society. Chemistry contains rich humanistic spirit, thoughts and stories. They may seem ever-changing, but in fact they are related to each other. There are many chemistry-related wisdom crystallizations in ancient Chinese philosophy and traditional culture. Being and nonbeing, big and small, gathering and dispersing, part and whole, chaos and void, rhythm and cycle, origin of all things and time and space, the ancient Chinese sages’ thinking on these issues are all sparkling with wisdom. It is believed that these thoughts still play an important role in inspiring current chemistry and science.