Songshanhu Trip Travel Notes

——Thinking about Science and Technology

Edward Zhou

Thanks to the school and our Family Committee, we had a valuable opportunity to visit a high-tech industrial park in Songshanhu (, Dongguan). It was a guided tour by several specialists working there, and we visited such venues as a museum about atomic physics, a laboratory for studying materials, workshops for battery production, and a laser workshop. During the process, we were given a lecture by an expert on atomic physics and intriguing thoughts about its application were brought to my attention.

As explained in the lecture, in terms of technological applications, in-depth studies on atomic-level physicsare exorbitant but create greater future value than many people could realize. As a medical therapy, BNCT (Boron Neutron Capture Therapy) has been used for combating cancer. It is a binary system that consists of two separate components, Boron-containing targeted drugs and neutron irradiation, to achieve its therapeutic effect. Each component in itself is non-tumoricidal, but when combined they can be highly lethal to cancer cells. Compared with other common therapies for cancer such as surgery and radiation therapy, BNCT alleviates the patient’s pain thanks to the contribution of Molecular Physics and Molecular Chemistry, which enables the molecule to carry chemical substances that kill cancer cells without accidentally damaging healthy cells.

The lecture also asserts that the process of adapting innovative technology is progressive and time-consuming, thus people ought to have more tolerance and lower expectations of their current application. In the 19th century, when automobiles were first invented, their speed could not even catch up with carriages. As more research was conducted, technology improved as a result, and automobiles replaced carriages and became more affordable and sustainable. Only a minority could expect the dominance of cars in transportation when they first came into being, and it is no coincidence that society has gradually adapted to the advancement of scientific research. Similar scenarios could also be applied to the study of physics at the atomic level. The essentiality of studying in this scientific field is that it helps people reveal the core of a subject, even though it could be time-consuming and less practical in the early stages. It is costly and arduous work to reveal the internal principle of how these molecules move and collide, those enormous particle colliders and tracks have a tremendous appetite on expenditure for construction and reservation, while their further application could be expanded into fields in nuclear energy, micromachining, and medical therapy once people master the technology.

At the end of the lecture, we all got in a car and drove the 1.5 hours back to Guangzhou. I brushed my teeth and went to bed, and as I was falling asleep, I imagined I could see the invisible particles flying through the air, colliding with each other with electronic sparkles around with the images of those elaborate devices floated upon my mind.