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In space, there is an asteroid numbered 3462, named "Zhou Guangzhao Star".

On August 17, 2024, Academician Zhou Guangzhao, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress, former President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and winner of the "Two Bombs and One Satellite Medal of Merit", died in Beijing at the age of 95 due to illness. This superstar has since gone to the sky.

From a top student at Tsinghua University and Peking University to a recipient of the "Two Bombs and One Satellite Medal of Merit", Zhou Guangzhao witnessed China's transformation from war-torn and turbulent country to a technological power and was a banner of my country's scientific and technological community.

In 1961, Zhou Guangzhao, who was 32 years old and working abroad, resolutely returned to China. He remained anonymous for nearly 20 years and did a lot of important work on the theoretical design of China's first atomic bomb, first hydrogen bomb and strategic nuclear weapons. In the face of honor, he once said: "The cause of science is a collective cause. I am only one in a hundred thousand."

△Zhou Guangzhao Photo source: Xinhua News Agency

“Always respond to the call of the motherland”

Zhou Guangzhao was born into an intellectual family in Ningxiang, Hunan Province on May 15, 1929. Influenced by his father, he developed an interest in natural sciences from an early age.

In 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. Zhou Guangzhao changed his original intention of studying electrical engineering and became interested in nuclear weapons. In 1946, he was admitted to the preparatory class of Tsinghua University. A year later, he transferred to the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University with excellent grades, where he listened to the lectures of Professors Zhou Peiyuan and Qian Sanqiang.

In 1951, Zhou Guangzhao was admitted as a graduate student in the department. The following year, the departments of colleges and universities across the country were adjusted, and the science department of Tsinghua University was assigned to Peking University. Zhou Guangzhao transferred to the Graduate School of Peking University and studied under the famous theoretical physicist Professor Peng Huanwu, engaging in professional research in elementary particle physics. In 1954, Zhou Guangzhao graduated from Peking University and stayed on to teach.

△ Zhou Guangzhao (second row, second from right) participated in an academic discussion while working at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna. Source: Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Starting from 1957, Zhou Guangzhao went to the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Soviet Union to study with the mission of "marching toward science". He cherished the precious opportunity given by the country and studied hard.

In four years, Zhou Guangzhao won two research awards from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and published 33 papers, many of which attracted great attention from the international physics community. In 1958, he first proposed the helical amplitude of particles and established the corresponding mathematical methods, becoming a rising star in the international academic community at that time. In 1960, he derived the partial conservation theorem of pseudovector flow (PCAC), becoming one of the internationally recognized founders of PCAC.

Because of these achievements, Zhou Guangzhao quickly became famous both at home and abroad. Both Nobel Prize winners Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao have highly praised Zhou Guangzhao's international reputation during this period.

"I studied his papers in the United States at the time, especially his work on partial conservation of pseudovector flow," Yang said. "He was considered the most outstanding young scientist at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna in the United States."

"Zhou Guangzhao is a world-renowned theoretical physicist. Before I met him in the 1970s, I already knew about his many important works in the late 1950s. His work was highly praised by the international scientific community. In addition, his articles were usually written in depth and concisely," said Tsung-Dao Lee.

However, four years later, people discovered that this young Chinese scientist had suddenly disappeared from the forefront of world physics.

It turns out that in the 1950s, the atomic bomb became an important military bargaining chip in the hands of a few countries such as the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union once promised to help China manufacture the atomic bomb, but in the early 1960s, it suddenly withdrew all its experts in China.

After learning that China needed talents for the development of atomic bombs, Zhou Guangzhao and a group of experts volunteered to return to China immediately. In a letter to the then head of the Second Ministry of Machine Building, Zhou Guangzhao wrote: "As a scientist of the new China, I am willing to give up the basic theoretical research work I have been doing for many years and switch to work that is urgently needed by the country. We are ready to obey the call of the motherland at any time."

△Zhou Guangzhao Image source: Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Hiding his identity for nearly 20 years

"Science has no borders, but scientists have a motherland." In 1961, Zhou Guangzhao, then 32 years old, returned to his motherland. Nominally he taught at Peking University, but in fact he served as the first deputy director of the Theoretical Department of the Ninth Institute of the Second Ministry of Machine Building. Together with a group of scientists including Peng Huanwu and Deng Jiaxian, he entered the core department of China's atomic bomb research.

For nearly 20 years, Zhou Guangzhao kept his real name and worked in secret. In order to develop nuclear weapons, Zhou Guangzhao worked day and night, exhausted all his energy, and lived in the northwest for many years, with the plateau and desert as his home. The living environment was extremely difficult. However, Zhou Guangzhao and other scientists never complained, were selfless and fearless.

Starting from scratch and working hard, Zhou Guangzhao participated in and led major research projects such as explosion physics, radiation fluid mechanics, high temperature and high pressure physics, and computational mechanics. He and other scientists such as Peng Huanwu worked hard, carefully designed, and made strict calculations, and independently completed the theoretical design of China's first atomic bomb.

On the night of October 14, 1964, with only one day left before the atomic bomb test, a top-secret telegram from the Lop Nor nuclear weapons test site was delivered to Premier Zhou Enlai's desk. The telegram mentioned a problem called "premature ignition", which made Premier Zhou Enlai, who was always calm and composed, worried that it would affect the normal detonation of the atomic bomb and even lead to the failure of the entire test.

To ensure that everything went well, Zhou Guangzhao asked physicist Huang Zuqia and mathematician Qin Yuanxun to help him and immediately began to calculate and check. In this race against time, Zhou Guangzhao sorted out the huge amount of data and accurately selected useful parameters for the problem of premature ignition. After calculation, he finally concluded that the failure rate was less than one thousandth and handed it to Premier Zhou Enlai.

At 3 p.m. on October 16, 1964, as a blazing mushroom cloud rose in the depths of the desert, a huge roar quickly came from the sky above Lop Nur, shocking the world.

After the successful explosion of the atomic bomb, Zhou Guangzhao and others immediately began to work on the principles of the hydrogen bomb. On June 17, 1967, the mushroom cloud of China's first hydrogen bomb rose slowly. It took only 2 years and 8 months from the explosion of the first atomic bomb to the explosion of the first hydrogen bomb, a speed that caused a sensation around the world at the time.

It was not until 1980 that Zhou Guangzhao, who had "disappeared from the face of the earth", reappeared in the sight of his international physics peers at the International Particle Physics Conference held in Guangzhou, and soon won high praise from his international peers - the Italian government awarded him the "Sir Medal of the Italian Republic".

“The cause of science is a collective cause”

After the atomic bomb was successfully detonated, some people praised Zhou Guangzhao for his important contribution. Zhou Guangzhao said: "Science is a collective cause. Making an atomic bomb is like writing a thrilling article. This article was written by no less than 100,000 workers, PLA soldiers, engineers and scientific and technical personnel! I am only one in 100,000."

After that, Zhou Guangzhao's scientific work mainly shifted to the study of particle physics theory. Many of his scientific research results attracted widespread attention from scholars at home and abroad. He made outstanding contributions to a series of major scientific and technological work, including promoting the "863 Plan", preparing for the establishment of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, promoting the institutionalization of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, establishing the National Natural Science Foundation, building the Beijing Electron-Positron Collider, promoting the "973 Plan", establishing the China Advanced Science and Technology Center, and promoting the "Huanghuaihai Campaign" in agricultural science and technology.

△The ambition remains, and the sunset is more red. Source: Xinhua News Agency Weibo

Due to Zhou Guangzhao's outstanding contribution to the "two bombs and one satellite" project, in March 1996, the International Astronomical Union's Committee on Minor Astronomical Nomenclature approved the discovery of the asteroid 3462 by the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and named it "Zhou Guangzhao Star". In 1999, Zhou Guangzhao was awarded the "Two Bombs and One Satellite Merit Medal".

Zhou Guangzhao said: "For a nation to stand up spiritually, it must have self-confidence, and it must have great scientists and major inventions to enhance the spirit and self-confidence of the entire nation."

Today, on the journey of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, generation after generation of scientists inherit and carry forward the spirit of scientists, care about the motherland and the people, and continue to contribute to scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement.

Modern Express/Modern+ reporter Lu Heyan comprehensive Li Dan/design