What do I learn from Mr. Feng yuantao, the father of biological mechanics? [Reprinted]

[Reprinted]

Original: http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-485553-753738.html

 

I was supposed to have nothing to do with Mr. Feng Yuan, the father of biochemistry, who was engaged in technical work in the enterprise, but I was engaged in the fluid transmission and control technology field in the machinery industry, imagining whether fluid mechanics can be used as an analogy with mechanical structures to resolve hypertension, so I found a book titled human anatomy (I only read the chapter of blood circulation ), it is found that the principle of the blood circulation system is the same as that of the fluid transmission system. The heart, valve, vascular, and blood are completely pumps, valves, pipelines, and mineral oil. Fluid Transmission Systems must follow fluid mechanics, mechanisms, thermodynamic rules, and blood circulation systems, as part of nature, should also follow these physical rules, as a result, I went to find a book on biochemistry and found a series of monographs by Mr. Feng yuantao. His understanding of Mr. Feng started from his book.

Mr. Feng's book is clear and mathematical, and the style of concatenating physical and experimental data makes me feel fresh and easy to understand. He encouraged students not to be too busy. They set aside time to think independently, observe nature, think about engineering and scientific problems, and learn to turn vague questions into accurate mathematical descriptions, cultivate the habit of asking, analyzing, designing, and inventing questions in engineering and scientific research. Mr. Feng has at least the following points worth studying by scientific research and engineering and technical personnel.

I. Pay attention to the study and application of basic theories. As Mr. Feng's book "biodynamics-blood circulation" said: "Although these laws are well known, they should not be taken lightly because of their familiarity ....... Although the ancient Greek knew about the anatomy of the heart and blood vessels, they lost the honor of discovering blood circulation because they ignored the law of conservation of mass, harvey created the concept of blood circulation, and Harvey proved that blood circulation only uses the law of conservation of mass. ....... Nothing is more valuable and effective than learning general principles and applying them at any time ".

Domestic colleges and universities have at least two points worth reflecting on: first, the basic courses of the undergraduate course are weakened; second, the postgraduate course focuses on the cultivation of Scientific Research (in fact, the cultivation of the ability to reproduce papers, it is not the cultivation of scientific research capabilities.

Technical managers of Chinese enterprises need to think about: Are your subordinates too busy? Is it a flicker to cope with the assessment work? Does it make technical R & D personnel do too much complicated and transactional work? How much free time can subordinates have? What are they doing during free time?

2. Master the subject first. Mr. Feng obtained a doctorate degree in aviation and mathematics at Caltech in 1940s. He has been engaged in the work of the Bank for nearly 20 years since his graduation. He has written about air elasticity theory and solid mechanics basics. three well-known books in the field of mechanics in the introduction to continuous medium mechanics. It can be said that Mr. Feng had a deep understanding in Aero mechanics before he was transferred to the biomedical engineering.

Our scientific and technical staff also like to talk about cross-discipline, but many people continue to engage in cross-discipline in the case that the Bank still knows little about cross-discipline, East and West, and finally won't miss the case.

3. Love to observe nature and cultivate the ability to extract the essence from numerous natural or engineering technical phenomena. Mr. Feng wrote a book with distinctive exercises. His exercises are rarely purely theoretical and contain formulas. Many questions describe a natural or engineering phenomenon first, and then let the students extract the essence behind the phenomenon, describe the problem with accurate mathematical language, or seek help for analysis, or ask for help from experiments to answer questions. Or give a certain requirement for students to invent an instrument or method that meets the requirements. As Fu Sinian said during the period of the Republic of China: "to check whether school education is successful and whether students are excellent, you only need to check whether the students' hands and feet have the ability to apply book knowledge, whether the students' minds can relate the things around them to the theoretical knowledge of textbooks ".

On the other hand, our textbooks are too dry and fully theoretical knowledge is built up, as Socrates said: "Education is not an indoctrination, but a flame ." Our textbooks did not guide students to observe nature at all and cultivate the essential abilities behind the extraction of natural and engineering technical phenomena. Maybe this is a Chinese college student, one of the reasons why Enterprise technicians think book theory is useless!

4. It is not too late to read books. The key is to check whether you are interested and make persistent determination. Mr. Feng was originally studying aviation engineering and was not engaged in biomedical engineering until he was in his 40 s. He used mathematics, mechanics, and engineering techniques to study bioinformatics and did a great job, known as "father of bioinformatics ".

End this article with an example.

Our company developed a new product in 2010, which has the problem of excessive liquid leakage and has not been solved after several years of exploration. What is the finite element structure analysis, CFD fluid simulation these postgraduate papers like to use the method, is not to solve the problem. I checked a lot of documents and followed the methods in the documents. It didn't work very well. It proved that those papers were refined. I did not lose confidence or a mental state like stress. If I did not solve the problem, the leaders did not blame us. How happy is the boss willing to spend money for us? After the fancy tricks were completed, I tried to start from the basic principle until October this year, and changed the size and material. I just gave a subtotal, and the experiment immediately took effect, the knowledge used is nothing more than the basic course of the sophomore major. This proves Mr. Feng's point of view: "Nothing is more valuable and effective than learning universal principles and applying them at any time ".

References:

1. Feng yuanmiao, "Introduction to continuous media mechanics".

2. Feng yuanmiao, biodynamics-blood circulation.

3. Feng yuanmiao, "biological mechanics-mechanical properties of living tissues".

4. Feng yuanmiao, "Bioinformatics-motion, flow, stress and growth".