Hiding Science Against the Chinese Cultural Revolution

“Lin Lin is too smart. To work in fundamental theory, one must be stupid.”

In later years, I began to understand his words more and more. Lin, you truly are too smart. Even a few years ago, you could feel the political winds shifting in academia and prepared yourself. For example, when you taught, you changed the names of many physical laws and constants: Ohm’s law you called resistance law, Maxwell’s equations you called electromagnetic equations, Planck’s constant you called the quantum constant.… You explained to your students that all scientific accomplishments resulted from the wisdom of the working masses, and those capitalist academic authorities only stole these fruits and put their names on them.

Liu Cixin, The Three-Body Problem (2014-11-11)

• cultural revolution
• culture
• science