On March 4, Wang Pinxian, an 87-year-old academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and professor at the School of Ocean and Earth Science of Tongji University, was among the 13 scholars honored by CCTV as role models at the annual Touching China award ceremony, an event honoring those whose actions have made them inspiring role models over the previous year. The scholars, referred to as "silver hair knowledge hosts," included Wang Pinxian, for his outstanding contribution to the popularization of science after publishing science-related content focusing on Earth and its oceans.
As one of China's leading deep-sea scientists, Wang Pinxian has attained cyberstar status in recent years for his science popularization videos. He has over 1.7 million followers on Bilibili, a popular video-sharing platform mainly targeting Gen Zs.
Wang usually uploads videos that run 7 to 8 minutes. They feature him sitting and talking about a range of topics and questions, e.g., "Earth rotates at the speed of over 1,600 km an hour at the equator, why we don't feel dizzy going round and round at this speed?" or "what do deep-sea gardens look like?"
In 2018, at the age of 82, he boarded China's manned Deep Sea Warrior submersible and dove to a depth of 1,400 meters in the South China Sea. It was his third time plunging into the dark depths. "I felt like Alice in Wonderland—with the wonderland being the deep sea," he said in the related video, describing every detail of the deep sea coral garden views and the sea creatures he spotted.
China has called for the implementation of a strategy for invigorating the country through science and education, and urged the strengthening of basic research. Wang’s work of popularizing science for kids and teenagers started in 2011 while recording the marine volume of the audiobook series One Hundred Thousand Whys, a popular science series mainly for children. In 2020, he started creating short videos popularizing deep sea science and uploaded them to Bilibili, making him the first ever academician to do so. In October 2020, he published his book Deep Sea in Simple Words, which later became a bestseller.
"Seek Truth, Speak Truth, and Be the Truth." Wang sent a message to young people during the ceremony.
Learning never gets old.
Written by: Pengfei Liu
Edited by: Shouting Tuo
