Peking University, May 10, 2013: Themed on “Molecule rotates the earth, Chemistry creates the future”, the 15th Chemistry Cultural Festival & Xingda Science Report of the College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering (CCME) unveiled at Yingjie Exchange Center on May 10, 2013.
Initiated in 1995, Xingda Science Report has been a science tradition at the college hosted by Professor Yan Chunhua. It is scheduled on every Friday and aims at providing the graduates with the frontier knowledge covering chemistry, physics, biology, material science, medicine, academic morality and science method. The speakers of Xingda Report include experts, scholars, academicians and professors in these fields domestically and abroad.
As the speaker of the 400th seminar of Xingda Report, President Wang Enge delivered a speech on the surface study of the ice. He firstly reviewed his research since 1990, which was divided into three parts, including kinetic driven surface film growth, light atoms such as boron, carbon, nitrogen and liquid/solid water.
Then he elaborated his latest work in detail, which showed us a fascinating world of water and physics. Wang’s group mainly focuses on theoretical simulation of unique behavior of liquid/solid water under different circumstances. They not only utilized calculation methods to search for the behavior of water on Ru, Mg and silicon, but also defined the order parameter of various surface of the ice for the first time, which is a very unique and sensitive factor to describe proton ordering on ice surface and offers great convenience for the following study on ice. Also, Wang’s group made comprehensive and thorough study on the surface of the ice and found out that the surface of the ice is much rougher than people previously thought, indicating that the most common thing in the world still contains mysterious physical problem to be learned.
On the ceremony, the initial publication of Star Molecule was announced. Star Molecule is the fourth volume of the Republic of Molecules series, which were mostly written by students from CCME. Academician Xu Guangxian, one of the most famous physical and inorganic chemists, contributed the first chapter “kai guo da dian” and pointed out that chemistry is the founder of the republic of molecules, of which 83 million nationalities were created and identified within the past 100 years and they made great contributions to human’s existence and development. As he said, “curiosity and free thinking are the source of creativity”. The book series will help boost the popularization of chemistry.
Reported by: Zhang Jiang
