From gravitation, black holes and their applications to creating a better scientific publication service, Yu Tian, Crypto Commonwealth

Interesting interview with Yu Tian, an interdisciplinary professor including theoretical physics and computational physics, gravity and blockholes, as well as now working with Crypto Commonwealth.

What is your own background briefly?

I graduated from Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, majoring in physics and minoring in computer science. Then I got my PhD in theoretical physics at Peking University. After that, I worked as a postdoc at the Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and as an associate professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology, doing research in theoretical physics.

Currently I am a full professor and doctoral supervisor in the University of Chinese Academy of Science (UCAS), and visiting scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). My specific research field is gravitation, black holes and their applications. My interest in computer science also lasts, which leads me to an interdisciplinary research area of theoretical physics and computational physics in recent years, and which makes me keep in touch with what is happening in the IT field.

Does it seem like a logical background to what you do now?

Yes, definitely. My background of theoretical physics, being a most fundamental science, enables me to analyze problems deep and rationally, not only those related to physics but also in other fields, including social science problems. As an active researcher in theoretical physics, I have published more than 70 research papers, most of which are in major international physics journals, including Physical Review Letters and the Physical Review series of American Physical Society (APS).

I have also been invited to peer review many papers by various physics journals. So I am familiar with how the system of scientific publication runs. At the same time, I have had more than 15 years of experience dealing with online distribution services like arXiv.org, which has long been a tradition in the field of theoretical physics. So, as an advisor in the team, I can use my experience/expertise to help Crypto Commonwealth with a better scientific publication service.

How was the last 12 months?

Nearly a year ago, I came to the United States as a visiting scholar at the Center for Theoretical Physics at MIT, collaborating with my hosting professor here on some novel approaches (known as applied AdS/CFT) to study superfluid physics theoretically. It has been a very exciting and impressive experience for me. A couple of months ago, we finished a project related to the instability of superfluids that had been working on for years, which resulted in a beautiful paper in Physical Review Letters.

After that, we have been working on an even more interesting new project about superfluid instability and turbulence. Alongside the fruitful academic collaboration I met Wayne Yee by coincidence, the founder of Crypto Commonwealth, who introduced me to the idea of pioneering the scientific publishing industry with blockchain technology, which struck me deeply.

Why did you get involved with Crypto Commonwealth?

As I mentioned, I was deeply struck by Wayne’s idea about scientific publication with blockchain technology. He has a background similar to mine. We talked a lot and became good friends shortly after we met each other for the first time. We both believe that decentralization should be the key principle in academia. We both believe that science and scientific publication should be as free and open as possible. So I have been very happy to be an advisor in his team.

COMMs will be highly sought in our subscription, circulation and investment ecosystem. #COMM holders have the priority to invest. Strategists may receive #compensation for their #performance. The issuer, #Commonwealth Foundation is fully regulated as a #nonprofit Singapore CLG. pic.twitter.com/ZHxaVBCvcZ

— Crypto Commonwealth (@CryptoSmartBeta) March 7, 2020

What will your role be?

As an advisor, I will keep an active discussion with Wayne and other members in his team, helping with building a better scientific publication service with blockchain technology, as I did before. Basically, the role I will play is to help the team decide what kind of functions of our e-print website will be implemented and when they should be implemented, based on my experience with e-print services and the balance between cost and functionality as we expect.

What are your goals for 2020 with CC?

I hope we can establish the e-print website and make it function preliminarily. Based on our experience with e-print services, I hope our e-print website is simple yet already handy and effective enough to be used by students and scholars.

BTC and ether seem to be rising again, what does the crypto world look like for 2020 and beyond?

To be honest, I am not an expert in the crypto world. To me, whatever the crypto world goes like, we just try our best to combine scientific publication with blockchain technology, providing a decentralized, free and open platform for academia.

Who and where do you get inspiration from?

Inspiration is everywhere. I find two specific situations that inspire me most: One is when I can’t sleep in the middle of the night. In such quiet moments, I can do some of my best thinking. The other is to actively discuss with collaborators, colleagues or friends. Such interactions always bring me new ideas.

One time, I talked to my colleague Prof. Li about an interesting new paper on the nature of gravity. He is not an expert in that field at all, but I benefited a lot from our conversation and his viewpoint on that paper really inspired me, which later led to one of my most important works in that field.

How can people learn more about you & your work, twitter, linkedin? website?

I don’t use social network apps very much. For people who want to know more about me & my work, I have a profile page on ResearchGate:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yu_Tian

More about Irish Tech News and Business Showcase here

FYI the ROI for you is => Irish Tech News now gets over 1.5 million monthly views, and up to 900k monthly unique visitors, from over 160 countries. We have over 860,000 relevant followers on Twitter on our various accounts & were recently described as Ireland’s leading online tech news site and Ireland’s answer to TechCrunch, so we can offer you a good audience!

Since introducing desktop notifications a short time ago, which notify readers directly in their browser of new articles being published, over 30,000 people have now signed up to receive them ensuring they are instantly kept up to date on all our latest content. Desktop notifications offer a unique method of serving content directly to verified readers and bypass the issue of content getting lost in people’s crowded news feeds.

Drop us a line if you want to be featured, guest post, suggest a possible interview, or just let us know what you would like to see more of in our future articles. We’re always open to new and interesting suggestions for informative and different articles. Contact us, by email, twitter or whatever social media works for you and hopefully we can share your story too and reach our global audience.

Irish Tech News

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at [email protected] or on Twitter: @SimonCocking