正在UCLA的数学研究中心参加从癌症数据分析和数学模型到临床应用的会议。

http://www.ipam.ucla.edu/programs/cdm2014/

很有意思的是，不少与会者都是从物理研究，尤其是理论物理研究转行进入生命研究领域的。鸿飞在最近的博文中调侃说，生物领域是物理学家退休以后的理想职业。到底物理学家为什么会转行呢？物理学家进入癌症领域能做什么呢？关于为什么癌症研究需要物理学家, 我有博文如下：

为什么癌症研究需要物理学家？

与会者中有前辈读了Sui的文章，感触良多，细细讲述了为什么物理学家会转行进入生命研究领域：

I have had now the chance to read your article on the role of theoretical physics (and physicists) in cancer research. Congratulations – it is very eloquent and inspiring. I was particularly "touché" by the last paragraph, which describes my own attitude quite accurately and in highly non-complimentary manner. I have been assimilated completely.

Let me try to explain the reason for this. As you see things, physicists worry about the big picture and seek the fundamental universal laws. In a sense this is correct and in some sense it is not. 95% of the theoretical physicists spend more than 95% of their time calculating something. This something may be the approximate solution of some model or some equations. In some sense you may be able to connect this activity to the quest for deep principles, but in the vast majority of cases the connection is very tenuous. My own background was in Statistical Physics, phase transition, critical phenomena. The renormalization group, introduced by Wilson, provided a very deep philosophical and technical tool to understand and unify many phenomena and systems. Many of us rushed in the early seventies to the field, calculated everything calculable and in the process testing the theory to its limits. After 10 years we took off to other fields – there were no deep problems to worry about (which had some hope of being solved).

At the same time another thing happened –physics ran out of phenomena. To see something interesting you have to dig a 27 km long tunnel 100 m under the earth and run a super-sophisticated apparatus for 10 years with 5000 people involved. Or – send very expensive equipment to outer space to collect data. There are some exceptions but they are very few. Most theory became some form of mathematics.

To me biology was a total surprise in terms of the accessibility and immediacy of phenomena, and I was captivated by the ease with which simple analysis and modeling can throw light on something that can be easily observed, is absolutely fascinating and – not well understood (even on what you call the mechanistic level). At the same time I was annoyed and turned off by several physicist-turned biologist colleagues who did good biology and modeling but shrouded everything in sentences like "design principles" – I felt that it was using high language to describe rather straightforward mechanistic studies. I think that trying to understand isolated interesting phenomena is a challenge and if one succeeds – it is good science. Also, my very few attempts at formulating some basic principle (I can give you one example, if you ask for it) – were totally ignored by the community of biologists, whereas some more technical (albeit – theoretical) studies were embraced and cited. This in itself is not a reason to abandon "deep thinking" – but combined with the other things I mentioned – perhaps it is.

I have no idea why I threw all this at you – perhaps felt uneasy about the implications of the last paragraph of what you wrote.