Special education centre and sign language

Theoretical physics has been my aim since childhood, but at USTC I found that pure theory could sometimes feel dry, and I wanted to engage with the world around me. In my first year I began volunteering at a special education centre. There I have tutored physics and mathematics, walked around the campus with students, chatted by typing on our phones, and shared music. I also learn and teach sign language, including classes built around songs. Preparing a song means spending time with its words, its music, and the images it brings to mind. What I love in music is those images, and the strong feeling and sense of being alive that come with them.

Performances and film

Music is also a reason to go out and see a performance. I have cycled to Swan Lake for a musical, and joined a trip to Baohe Theatre for a comedy full of British jokes. A quartet concert was a different experience from the symphonies I had mostly heard, which I love for the tension of their many voices. To me, the quartet felt less intense, simpler and clearer. I could see all four players at once, and their exchanged glances were like a round-table conversation. In a symphony, the players make eye contact with the conductor. I enjoy films too. The documentary 《窗外是蓝星》 moved me with its women's perspective and its attention to everyday life. I hope filmmakers will develop ways of shooting in low gravity, perhaps opening a new kind of cinema.

Language and formal systems

My exchange at Berkeley made the influence of language on thought much more tangible to me. I have wondered whether English gives me more freedom to express emotions, though the feelings themselves were ones I felt in Chinese. I have since been trying to make the same room in Chinese. I also ask when I should speak in my own words and when in someone else's. I like architecture as well. Buildings and languages are both full of insight into formal systems, and to me formal systems are the best satire of the absurdity of reality.

Vibe coding and AI

More recently, some of my spare time has gone into vibe coding. I have become rather hooked on treating Codex as a wishing machine and making small projects, including a tool that helps me prepare the sign-language song classes, and this homepage. The same advances that make this possible also leave me with questions. When I hear about AI breakthroughs in mathematics, I feel both excited and a little lost, and I can already see it changing how I learn. If AI makes it easier to work through formal proofs, what will it mean to learn mathematics or do theoretical research? I keep coming back to the work of reformulating analytical or numerical results in terms of clear physical pictures and a coherent story. And beyond research, as these tools become more capable, how do we want to live, learn, create meaning, and understand ourselves?