The experts, including Russia's Zhores Alferov and David Gross, John Hopcroft and Robert Kahn from the United States, answered questions and exchanged views on diversified matters with students selected from several of Beijing's leading universities. [Photo: CRIENGLISH.com]

Four Nobel Laureates and US Turing Award winners were invited to a lecture Wednesday, where they answered questions and exchanged views on diversified matters with students selected from several of Beijing's leading universities.

The experts included Russia's Zhores Alferov and David Gross, John Hopcroft and Robert Kahn from the United States. Their academic and research domains cover quantum physics, computer sciences and electronics.

As a law and English-major student from Beijing Foreign Studies University, Ji Xiaomeng couldn't clearly understand the advanced theories raised by the experts, but he thought he could learn something else from being there.

"We can learn from them some basic expertise about what we need to do in order to improve our study and work in the future. From their speeches, we learnt that dedication and an unswerving passion are both essential for our successful development."

Ji said he was mostly impressed by John Hopcroft, a 1986 Turing Award winner who is an IBM professor of Engineering and Applied Mathematics in Computing Science at Cornell University in the U.S.

"Although his area of academia is far from my field of study, he came across clearly and was inspirational when he explained his ideas to us and instructed us about our studies."

Less than 30 students out of a possible 4,000 from Ji Xiaomeng's school were given the chance to attend the meeting.

Ji confirmed his participation two weeks ago and since then, has been racking his brain to come up with suitable questions for the experts.

"I had planned to raise some questions about the Nobel Prize and solicit some suggestions from them about self-improvement among college student as well as the state of academia in Chinese universities."

Ji's schoolmates conceived more than 50 questions for the experts, covering everything from philosophy to motivation for academic development.

Xing Tao is a junior student studying international relations and English from Ji Xiaomeng's school. He was also excited to have the chance to listen to the world's leading experts face to face.

"The experts showed a respectable charm. Their instructions are very useful to help us as they talked about overcoming difficulties in our lives, as well as fulfilling our study goals."

Xing was also fascinated with Professor John Hopcroft who he described as knowledgeable and witty.

"He is really a man deserving of respect as he talked about his work being his greatest interest and the most important part of his life. His attitude towards science and his humour also impressed me very much."

The student said the meeting was one of the most important he has been a part of, and it will have a decisive influence on his, and his classmates, future development.