Tai Chi, a Chinese martial art developed based on the laws of nature, emphasises how to conquer the unyielding with the yielding. The recent observation of star formation shows that gravity, turbulence and magnetic fields may all play a role in star formation. Their detailed interaction, however, is always a topic of controversy due to the difficulties in both observations and simulations, especially when magnetic fields are involved. Is cloud turbulence super-or sub-Alfvenic ? Is molecular cloud mass magnetically super- or sub-critical? I will review our recent quest of the answers of these central questions in star formation. And how Tai Chi may give us some inspiration.

Hua-bai Li was born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1974. He received the Ph.D. degree in astrophysics from Northwestern University in 2006. Afterwards, he had worked in the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Max Planck Institute for Astronomy. In Aug. 2013, he started his professorship in the Department of Physics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research group study how magnetic fields and turbulence regulate star formation; they use various novel methods in observations, numerical simulations and instrumentation.