Prof. Dr. Đàm Thanh Sơn: Focusing on building a top-tier university is an urgent need

15:38:13 02/02/2007

 As a theorist, my research tools are quite simple – scratch papers, a pen, and a trash can to dump my wrong calculations or useless stuff (of which the trash can could be of most importance). Besides, I use a PC with internet connection.

So in the context of Vietnam, should we concentrate in development of theoretical physics and only when we have had a strong foundation of theoretical physics and sufficient economic conditions we can embark on investing in experimental research?

That path sounds quite appealing. Unfortunately, things are not so simple. To explain this I have to say a word or two about what a theoretical physicist does.

A good researcher in theoretical physics must have a basic knowledge about modern physics, such as quantum mechanics, physio-statistics. However, merely knowledge is not enough. More important is to be able to “scent” where new laws of nature could be found. A theoretical physicist must have two skills - calculus skill meaning ability to do a sophisticated calculation without errors, and ability to know what is important for doing a calculation. The first skill can be obtained through drilling. The latter requires lots of experience, which not every one can possess. How can one know what is important and what is not?

The crucial point lies in the fact that physics is an experimental science. It’s important that thing are directly relevant to the world of nature. A good theoretical physicist knows the current status of experimental physics: what theoretical predictions can be tested by experiments? What experimental results are requiring a theory for explanation? A theoretical physicist must know not only the works published on newspapers and journals but must be able to filter them – which are reliable and which are not. Because many experimental results turn out to be wrong after some time.

An example is the invention of particle Theta+.

How a theoretical physicist can be able judge which results are reliable and which have to be suspected from a chaotic multitude of experiments? In order to do that, theorists must rely on their assistants, colleagues, including their co-workers who do experiments. Through those people the theoretical physicist will obtain official and/or unofficial information, or even rumors (like “I heard that in location A they are testing B’s experiment …”). In science a telephone machine can be a very helpful research tool.

Thus, if Vietnam would be pursuing only theoretical physics without the supports of experimental physicists, the theoretical physicists could hardly orientate themselves in research. Some may have connections to their colleagues abroad but I’m sure they are not so many. In addition, without experimental physics as “a glue” to bring the two types of physicists together, they would work separately and without cooperation (as theoretical physicists often have high level of individualism), which will not form basis for development in a long run.

What do you believe is most urgent for developing science in Vietnam?

There are many researchers currently working abroad and clinging to the country, and they wish to come back to work in Vietnam, but they haven’t come yet. The problem is not salary. The majority of those who are pursuing academic career do not view material benefits as their highest priority (or otherwise they would be in other industry from the beginning). Life in Vietnam has many appealing things, and the government is paying its attention to attracting brains from abroad. But above all it is their  motherland where are their family and relatives. So why haven’t they come back? To me, besides the research environment as I mentioned above, there are some other reasons. I want to focus my conversation on education problems.

No one can deny the great achievements in Vietnam’s education. Once being a country with the majority of its population being illiterate, Vietnam now has a compulsory lower secondary education. And my observation is that the K-12 graduates in Vietnam, or at least from the schools I know in Ha Noi, have fundamental knowledge in science that is no worse than that of their counterparts in developed countries. But their knowledge at higher education level is by far not comparable. 

I see that the government has been enabling students to pursue their graduate study abroad through funds of its own or from external sources. However, that’s only an initial support in terms of finance. In terms of science, there has been no university in Vietnam that is able to equip its students with essential knowledge and skills and that has its reputation sufficient enough to recommend them to the top-tier universities in the world. At the mean time, Chinese students are also facing the same difficulties in their study as Vietnamese students, but China has several universities that have good reputation and are highly appreciated internationally. Those universities have the best students in China. Despite of some limitations in their both teaching and researching activities, the students from those universities are competent enough to pursue their study in the US. And China has professors that are able to objectively assess the strength and weaknesses of each student, and their reliability are recognized by the US professors. That makes a springboard for Chinese students to further their study in other countries.

Hence, I believe that the most urgent need for Vietnam now is to concentrate on building an excellent university in order to attract the best students, professors and researchers in Vietnam. Beside its training and educating functions, it must be a research center and take the responsibility to develop the country’s young talents, and create an international reputation to serve as a springboard for those talents to advance their career in science.  

In order to build up such a university one must move away from the philosophy of equal sharing or egalitarianism which seems to be still popular in Vietnam. In October 2006, the German Minister of Education and Research decided to concentrate investments in its three elite universities instead of all universities as previously. I think number three is still a little bit too many in the context of Vietnam.

Thank you professor very much for the interview.

 The chance for a student graduated with honor from a China’s well-known university to further his study in a top American university is very high. But very few students graduating from the University of Natural sciences, Hanoi National University, have the same chance. Why?

Let’s assume there are two students. Student X graduated from Tsinghua and student Y from the University of Natural Sciences (UNS). Both of them were applying for a graduate program to several American universities, including MIT and Harvard University. Let’s examine how their applications are processed.  

This year professor R was assigned to review all PhD program applications. His first responsibility is to eliminate over half of the applications right in the first round. Applicants must survive this round to be eligible for being screened by an admission committee. When reading X’s application the professor found a noticeable document. It’s a recommendation letter from professor L from the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University, stating that student X is one of the two best students in the department in the past 5 years.

This caught professor R’s attention because Tsinghua University is one among the few best China’s universities and it’s very hard to be admitted to the university. And if a student is one of the two best in the past 5 years then it’s really remarkable. But how could professor R know what professor L wrote in his letter is reliable? He asked his colleagues and learned that professor has ever recommended a number of excellent students to MIT and many other schools, and what he wrote is reliable. To confirm the information, however, professor R asked a professor in Beijing to meet and talk with student X. After an interview that professor confirmed that student X is really talented. And a month later student X got an admission letter from MIT and Harvard University for the next academic year. X can choose either university to study at. In the mean while, professor R does not know anything about the UNS, nor he has any connections in Vietnam that could help him to verify the recommendation letter for student Y, and hence his application was excluded.