Pinxian Wang: no place for a ‘gold rush’ in the exploration of the deep sea

Prof. Pinxian Wang (汪品先) of Tongji University, born in 1936, is one of the leading deep-sea scientists in China. As the first co-chief scientist of Chinese nationality in the international Ocean Drilling Program (ODP), he co-led ODP Leg 184 in 1999; and in 2018, at 82 years old, he dived to a depth of 1400 meters in the South China Sea (SCS) in China's manned submersible ‘Deep Sea Warrior’. In recent years, he has also become a star of science popularization in China—he has more than 1.7 million followers on China's video-sharing platform bilibili, and his popular science book Deep Sea in Simple Words is a best seller. In September 2022, Prof. Wang was interviewed by NSR’s Associate Editor-in-Chief, Zhonghe Zhou. In this interview, Prof. Wang summarized his six-decade-long scientific career, talked about the past and future of China's deep-sea research efforts, and explained his opinion on how to promote scientific culture in China.