Why do we need more “knowledge bloggers” in the era of hard technology?

In the era of the rise of hard technology, "expert bloggers" with extensive knowledge and unique insights have become a key force in promoting industrial innovation. The popularity of popular science IPs such as "Zhang Chaoyang's Physics Class" has not only popularized high-tech knowledge, but also stimulated the public's enthusiasm for science, demonstrating the unique value of insight bloggers in promoting the integration of knowledge and industry.

On the afternoon of August 4, at the "New Species Explosion·Wu Sheng Business Method Release 2024" event, Wu Sheng, the founder of Scene Lab, frequently made golden sentences and gave the latest interpretation of "Zhang Chaoyang's Physics Class", a hard-core knowledge IP that has been popular on the entire network in the past two years.

Wu Sheng believes that physics itself is an unchanging underlying logic. Zhang Chaoyang deconstructs and reconstructs things through structured thinking, giving birth to today's new form of knowledge live broadcast.

He defines this type of people who share professional knowledge as "Insighters." They interpret changes with constancy and use model thinking to dispel complexity, bringing not only knowledge but also insight itself.

Since its launch on Sohu Video at the end of 2021, "Zhang Chaoyang's Physics Class" has held more than 200 live classes and more than 20 offline classes, with an online time of more than 21,000 minutes, a total of more than 2,000 manuscripts, and published two popular science books with the same name.

From the physics knowledge around us to quantum mechanics and then to the vast universe, Zhang Chaoyang showed the audience the charm of physics in a simple and easy-to-understand way. As a video column featuring physics popularization, "Zhang Chaoyang's Physics Class" is undoubtedly a breath of fresh air in the live broadcast industry.

Why is "Zhang Chaoyang's Physics Class", which seems to have a very high threshold for viewing, so popular on the Internet? What is the deeper industrial and social impact of "knowledge bloggers" behind the dissemination of professional subject knowledge?

1. “Creativity is more important than knowledge”

When it comes to physics, people often think of those complicated physical formulas and strange Roman symbols. Most people may be very secretive about physics. After all, everything from the origin of the universe to the movement of atoms is covered by physics.

But "Zhang Chaoyang's Physics Class" provides a new way to explore physics.

In Zhang Chaoyang's live broadcast room, physics is no longer a lofty and mysterious scientific theory. He starts with life phenomena, derives physical formulas, and interprets the scientific principles behind the phenomena.

Not long ago, Zhang Chaoyang had an in-depth exchange with the famous physicist Xu Yihong on topics such as quantum mechanics and astrophysics in a live broadcast. Zhang Chaoyang used the example of white dwarfs and performed real-time calculations on a small blackboard to explain why the study of celestial bodies is inseparable from quantum mechanics.

In addition to exploring grand cosmic propositions, Zhang Chaoyang often explores the physical essence behind trivial matters in life - lowering the center of gravity to generate torque to balance people, so the "tumbler lady" in Xi'an never falls down even when swaying; flash photography is prohibited at cultural relics to prevent high-frequency light from damaging antiques; the GPS used every day records running tracks in real time, and it turns out that Einstein's field equations from a hundred years ago allow positioning to be accurate to the meter level; and the flow of blood in human blood vessels is related to the Bernoulli equation, so when blood vessels are blocked, the heart is burdened, causing blood clots...

Zhang Chaoyang's physics class has the energy of "simplifying the complex." This is just like the consistent understanding of physics in "Jia Zi Guang Nian": "In the process of exploring the basic operating principles of the world, those extremely simple, beautiful, unified but invisible physical laws have been given various physical forms by clever people, turning into hoes, steam engines, airplanes, computers and even spacecraft, constantly changing everyone's production and life." What Zhang Chaoyang did was to let these complex physical forms return to their essence and return to the basic operating laws of nature.

Everything in the world must go through a process of creation from nothing to something.

Many people blur the essential difference between "innovation" and "creation", which is not just a word game. In the eyes of "Jia Zi Guang Nian", creation is from 0 to 1, while innovation is from 1 to 10, or even thousands of times.

Throughout history, every major leap in human civilization occurred in the leap from 0 to 1. For example, Einstein proposed the theory of relativity, which allowed humans to jump out of the classical physics system established by Newton and further explore the truth deeper in the universe.

However, today, both the scientific and technological communities seem to talk more and more about "innovation" and less and less about "creation". Just like many people commented that ChatGPT is a great innovation, but it is not a "creation".

To some extent, creation is more difficult than innovation. Creativity is a scarce part of this era. As Zhang Chaoyang mentioned in the live broadcast with Professor Xu Yihong: "Creativity is more important than knowledge." The theory of relativity is not the result of rigorous deduction based on the knowledge of predecessors. On the contrary, if we calculate and deduce based on Newton's classical physics, perhaps humans will never be able to enter the quantum world.

Often, creativity is not based on the analysis and deduction of a large amount of knowledge, but rather comes from some kind of inexplicable intuition. Professor Xu Yihong once recalled that when he was studying at Princeton, Professor Wheeler, the originator of the concept of black holes, once told him, "You should first use your intuition to figure out the answer, and then calculate it."

However, this intuition does not come out of thin air, but is accumulated through long-term learning. Only by understanding the underlying logic of how things work can we form our own thinking model and calculation method, and invisibly form a certain stubborn intuition, and finally reach the other side of "creation".

In Wu Sheng's view, Zhang Chaoyang and other insight bloggers interpret change with invariance and use model thinking to dispel complexity, which not only brings knowledge but also insights. This kind of insight allows people to see a more complete world, and creation has the opportunity to happen inadvertently.

2. In the era of hard technology, the industry needs more "knowledgeable bloggers"

In the era of hard technology, professional knowledge in basic sciences such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology is becoming increasingly important, and the scientific and industrial communities are developing in clear resonance.

Mi Lei, the founder of the concept of "hard technology", founding partner and co-CEO of Zhongke Chuangxing, believes that unlike the virtual world formed by the Internet economy, "hard technology" belongs to the physical world formed by the atomic economy. It is a high-tech represented by artificial intelligence, genetic technology, aerospace, brain science, photonic chips, new materials, etc. It is a revolutionary technology that can have a profound and extensive impact on mankind. This original technology requires long-term R&D investment and continuous accumulation to form. It has extremely high technical thresholds and technical barriers and is difficult to be copied.

Taking the latest big model wave as an example, it is not uncommon for scientists to step out of the laboratory to start their own businesses. Although many voices are "badmouthing" scientists starting their own businesses, believing that excellent scientists may not necessarily build excellent companies, there are still many scientists who "take risks".

Behind this, it is actually a reflection of the mutual need between the scientific community and the industry. Scientists need the industry to maximize the social value of scientific achievements, and the industry also needs scientists' theoretical thinking of "knowing what it is, and why it is" to guide the direction of industrial transformation.

Zhang Chaoyang once realized during his exchanges with some partners that the product manager's understanding of basic equations and calculation methods are closely related to the product. "In the process of innovation and improvement, it is not enough to apply the previous formulas. Only by fundamentally understanding physics and performing calculations can we truly achieve innovation."

However, the teaching of basic theories used to exist mostly in ivory towers, which were difficult for people outside the ivory tower to touch. Popular science builds a bridge between the profound scientific theories and the general public.

The underlying value of insightful bloggers such as Zhang Chaoyang, Bi Dao, and Li Yongle is to allow the public to see how thousands of industries can promote industrial upgrading from the most basic theoretical cognition.

The popularity of knowledge bloggers has also pushed the entire knowledge service industry into a new cycle of "insight into the industry and co-building expertise".

In the new industry cycle, Sohu Video has become a new leader in the field of knowledge services.

As early as September 2019, Sohu Video launched a series of knowledge live broadcasts, inviting scholars and experts in the fields of emotions, culture, automobiles, law, mother and baby, fashion, and astrology to share knowledge.

In recent years, Sohu Video has gradually extended a series of knowledge live broadcast content with IPs such as "Zhang Chaoyang's Physics Class", "Dialogues Under the Starry Sky" and "Science Lecture Bureau" as the core, focusing on the field of scientific knowledge content, and bringing together senior scientific experts and big names from many scientific research fields such as universe, physics, geology, and genetics, serving as a carrier for the transmission of technology, knowledge, and information.

As a super anchor of Sohu Video, Zhang Chaoyang has also set a pragmatic and down-to-earth tone for the overall content style of the platform.

For example, during the Beijing Auto Show, Zhang Chaoyang brought his physics class to the show, using physics to analyze Chery's hybrid technology and calculate the wind resistance of Xiaomi SU7. In "Dialogue on the Snow Mountain", Zhang Chaoyang also explained the technological advantages of lithium batteries under the new energy wave from a physical perspective.

Sohu Video's content innovation has gone beyond the single "popular science" level. It does not mechanically convey "dead knowledge", but deeply interprets scientific principles in combination with real industry cases. This undoubtedly has a stronger enlightening effect on industry innovation.

Products like Sohu Video can also integrate professional and rigorous knowledge from various disciplines with the hard technology industry, subtly achieving the goal of "insight into the industry and co-building expertise". This will also become a new trend in knowledge services in the hard technology era.

3. Scarce IP promotes the resonance between industry and knowledge

Today, short videos and live broadcasts have become one of the mainstream channels for people outside the ivory tower to learn and disseminate scientific knowledge.

In the new era, it is not surprising that Sohu Video, as an industry leader, has achieved success in content innovation in recent years. But what cannot be ignored is that Zhang Chaoyang played a very important role in the whole process.

In today's online world, Zhang Chaoyang, as a first-generation Internet entrepreneur who has witnessed decades of Internet development, is rare. The reason why "Zhang Chaoyang's Physics Class" is so popular on the Internet is not only because of its professional content, but also because of its scarcity.

In the early days of short video live streaming, "Internet celebrity" was more of a synonym for grassroots, and indeed countless ordinary people changed their own destiny by becoming anchors, which also led to the uneven quality of early short videos and live streaming content. However, the emergence of entrepreneur IPs such as Zhang Chaoyang, Zhou Hongyi, and Yu Minhong has filled the gap in high-tech knowledge content on the Internet in the uneven live streaming content ecosystem.

Today, more and more entrepreneurs and scholars are stepping forward to become Internet celebrities. For them, traffic is just a result, not a purpose. The deeper social significance behind traffic is to leverage the influence of entrepreneurs and convey to society the value thinking that pays more attention to the times, focuses more on innovation, and gathers more industry.

When leaders of various high-tech industries publish their professional interpretations of industry trends online and popularize industry professional knowledge, it will invisibly promote industrial prosperity and enlighten the people.

In fact, many people have already started doing this - Zhang Chaoyang has been traveling to major science-themed press conferences, constantly speaking out for the popularization of basic science; Lei Jun has bent down to open the door for the car owner himself, allowing major friendly companies to see what is truly "user experience-centric"; scholars such as Luo Xiang, Dai Jianye, and Wu Yuren have also built mature IPs and shared professional knowledge in their respective fields.

It can be seen that entrepreneurs and scholars and other scarce IP should release their influence more fully, and even combine forces to maximize their value. Yu Minhong, Wang Shi, Professor Xu Yihong and other scarce IP have entered Zhang Chaoyang's live broadcast room, and the related content has also been widely praised.

As Wu Sheng said: "We need to rely on more professional division of labor in society to turn the scarce and valuable IP like Zhang Chaoyang, who has witnessed the innovation of the Internet, into the companion and partner of our own IP."

In the long run, entrepreneurs and scholars from all walks of life, as one of the groups with the most resources and knowledge accumulation in society, should give full play to their irreplaceable "human creativity" to produce in-depth, high-quality, non-repetitive content and leave valuable digital content assets for the Chinese Internet. This may be the real meaning of entrepreneurs becoming Internet celebrities.