Zhou Guangzhao, the “one in a hundred thousand” hero of the two bombs and one satellite
2024-08-19
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On August 17, Zhou Guangzhao, former president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, honorary chairman and former chairman of the China Association for Science and Technology, and vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress, died in Beijing due to illness. He was 95 years old.
During his lifetime, he was a hero of the two bombs and one satellite who "did earth-shaking things and remained anonymous." When he resolutely returned to China, people in the physics community said that "if he had not returned, he would have won the Nobel Prize if he had continued to work."
He served as the president and party secretary of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. A scholar once wrote an article recalling that "Zhou Guangzhao's leadership was not to be an official, but to do things. He established the director responsibility system. This reform still plays an important role in the development of the Chinese Academy of Sciences."
His close friend Li Deyuan said he was a staunch patriot, his student Wu Yueliang appreciated his generosity, and a researcher who had worked with him said, "From him, I learned what a great scientist should be like."
As a hero of the two bombs and one satellite, Zhou Guangzhao had a close friendship with many scientists in the field of physics, including Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao. The three had known each other for decades.
In 2019, on the occasion of Zhou Guangzhao's 90th birthday, Yang Zhenning personally visited the scene and recalled his more than half a century of interaction with Zhou Guangzhao. Yang Zhenning said, "Zhou Guangzhao was a very easy person to like and respect. Zhou Guangzhao was very successful in his life, work, and scholarship." As for his own evaluation, Zhou Guangzhao modestly said, "I have always believed that whether it is an atomic bomb or a hydrogen bomb, it is far from the work of a few people, but the joint work of more than 100,000 people. If you want to evaluate my contribution, it is only one in a hundred thousand."
The Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences published a special mourning topic on its official website. Screenshot of the official website of the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
“Always respond to the call of the motherland”
Zhou Guangzhao was born in Hunan in 1929. In 1941, he entered Nankai Middle School, where he received good mathematical training and developed his self-study ability. In 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. What he saw and heard changed his original intention of studying electrical engineering and aroused his strong interest in nuclear weapons.
In July 1951, Zhou Guangzhao graduated from Tsinghua University and was admitted to Peking University as a graduate student. In the autumn of the following year, he entered the Peking University Research Institute and conducted research in elementary particle physics under the guidance of Professor Peng Huanwu, a famous Chinese theoretical physicist.
Xu Guanhua, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and former Minister of Science and Technology, who had known Zhou Guangzhao for more than 30 years, said in his eulogy that in the spring of 1957, in response to the Party's call, Zhou Guangzhao went to the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, the Soviet Union, to conduct particle physics research with the mission of "marching toward science." "Mr. Guangzhao cherished the precious opportunity given by the country and studied hard. In four years, he won the research award of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research twice, published 33 papers, and achieved achievements that were admired by scholars from all over the world at that time."
In June 1959, the Soviet Union unilaterally tore up the agreement and refused to assist my country in developing the atomic bomb. It then withdrew all its experts in China and took away the drawings and materials. Zhou Guangzhao was indignant when he learned about it and strongly demanded to return to China to conduct atomic bomb research. In his letter of determination to the leaders of the Second Ministry of Machine Building, he wrote: "As a scientist trained by New China, I am willing to give up the basic theoretical research I have done for many years and switch to work that the country urgently needs. We are always ready to listen to the call of the motherland!"
After nearly four years of hard work, Zhou Guangzhao has made outstanding achievements in the emerging field of particle physics. The important theories he derived, such as the "partial conservation theorem of pseudovector flow", have greatly promoted the development of this cutting-edge discipline. He is therefore recognized by the world as one of the founders of important theories in academia. International peers praised his research work as "shaking Dubna".
However, he decided to return to China at the critical moment when his research was about to make further breakthroughs. In people's eyes, if he returned to China at this time and turned to a new field, it would mean that all his previous efforts would be wasted. Although there were endless voices to keep him, Zhou Guangzhao knew very well how important and urgent it was to master nuclear technology for the new China. He firmly believed that a scientific and technological worker returning to China to contribute at this time was more important than any personal awards or honors.
In 1961, Zhou Guangzhao returned to his motherland. As Zhou Guangzhao's colleague and close friend, Li Deyuan, former director of the Beijing Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, always respected Zhou Guangzhao. He once said in an interview: "Zhou Guangzhao is a patriot. Facts have proved that this is the case. People in the physics community told me that if he continued this work, he would have won a Nobel Prize, but he didn't want any of that. He wanted to come back to work on nuclear weapons and remain anonymous for decades."
Ignite the "Mushroom Cloud"
In May 1961, Zhou Guangzhao went to the office of Deng Jiaxian, then director of the Theoretical Department of the Nuclear Weapons Research Institute, to learn about the current status of the atomic bomb project. Due to the withdrawal of Soviet experts, the lack of data for designing the atomic bomb put the theoretical design into a difficult situation. Accurate data for developing the atomic bomb is the basis of the entire project, but at that time, the only reference materials for Chinese researchers were a few extremely brief data dictated by Soviet advisers before their withdrawal.
Chinese researchers decided to recalculate the data. At first, the recalculation went smoothly and the results were the same as those left by Soviet experts. However, when the recalculation was about to be completed, the result of an important parameter did not match the data left by Soviet experts. After three recalculations, the results were still different.
This became a difficult problem facing scientists. The country's top physicists and mathematicians analyzed the problem based on their respective areas of expertise, until they proposed some improved conditions and conducted a new round of calculations. However, after several calculations, the results still did not match the data left by the Soviet experts.
Zhou Guangzhao took on this difficult problem. After many calculations, he found that there was no problem with the calculation process. Therefore, the Soviet data, which was regarded as authoritative, became the object of his suspicion. At that time, the Soviet data was generally believed to have undergone hundreds of tests. Raising such doubts required sufficient and convincing reasons.
Zhou Guangzhao proposed that the key to the problem was whether the pressure exerted on the nuclear material by the explosives enveloping the nuclear material in the atomic bomb after detonation could reach the Soviet data. Following the direction of the problem, he pointed out that the energy of the explosive explosion must always be dissipated a little. If the explosive explosion is not dissipated, then what is the pressure? This is the maximum pressure. The pressure value was calculated and it turned out that this value was less than the pressure value given by the Soviet experts. This fundamentally proved that the data given by the Soviet experts was wrong.
Zhou Guangzhao quickly solved the obstacles in the theoretical design of the atomic bomb. In 1964, China's first atomic bomb arrived at the Lop Nur nuclear weapons test site. At this last moment, new technical problems arose.
On October 14, 1964, with only one day left before the test date, a message came from the front that there might be a "probability of premature ignition", which would affect the normal detonation of the atomic bomb and even lead to the failure of the entire test. To ensure that everything was foolproof, Zhou Guangzhao was tasked with making the final calculations. At this time, there were less than 16 hours left before the atomic bomb test.
After more than ten hours of calculation, Zhou Guangzhao and his colleagues concluded that "the probability of failure is less than one in a thousand."
After reaching this conclusion, the central government set the time for the atomic bomb explosion at 3 p.m. on October 16, 1964.
Yang Zhenning once said: "Brother Guangzhao's return made China's first atomic bomb one or two years earlier than expected."
Zhou Guangzhao himself said: Making an atomic bomb is like writing a thrilling article. This article was composed by no less than 100,000 workers, PLA soldiers, engineers and scientific and technical personnel. I am only one in a hundred thousand.
After the successful development of the atomic bomb, Zhou Guangzhao and other scientists, under the instructions of the central government, began the research and development of the hydrogen bomb in full swing. On June 17, 1967, the mushroom cloud of China's first hydrogen bomb rose slowly. It took China only 2 years and 8 months from the explosion of the first atomic bomb to the explosion of the first hydrogen bomb.
“Carry out world-class scientific research”
In 1961, Zhou Guangzhao, who had just returned to China, became a researcher at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 1983, he became the director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics.
Zhou Guangzhao applied the "Two Bombs and One Satellite" spirit of "loving the motherland, selfless dedication, self-reliance, hard work, great coordination, and courage to climb" forged during the development of the "Two Bombs" to the actual construction of the Institute of Theoretical Physics. Combining the characteristics of theoretical physics, he proposed the guiding ideology of "open institute", developed the cause of theoretical physics in response to national needs, and led the Institute of Theoretical Physics to serve the country and move towards the world.
Zhou Guangzhao once said, "If a nation wants 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." He mentioned at many symposiums that "there is only the best in theoretical physics in the world, not the second." To carry out world-class scientific research, we must aim at the forefront of international science and look to the world.
Mr. Zhou Guangzhao. Image source: Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences official website
When the institute was first established, Zhou Guangzhao, like ordinary researchers, often brought lunch boxes to work and soaked rice in boiling water at noon. In the extremely difficult environment at the time, he led everyone to overcome difficulties together with domestic theoretical physics colleagues.
Zhou Guangzhao was gentle, elegant, and approachable. When he was transferred to the Institute of Theoretical Physics, he was already a well-known scientist. Even when he later served as the director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics, the president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the vice chairman of the National People's Congress, he still asked everyone to call him "Guangzhao".
Zhou Guangzhao often stressed that "the Institute of Theoretical Physics is the national institute of theoretical physics". At that time, the funding for international exchanges in the institute was very limited, and he proposed to select the best researchers from the national theoretical physics community when arranging overseas visits.
Scientists such as Peng Huanwu and Zhou Guangzhao also strongly advocated that graduate students participate in scientific research activities, become part of the scientific research team, and take on the tasks of junior and mid-level scientific researchers. This guiding ideology has been continued by the Institute of Theoretical Physics to this day.
Zhou Shangui, director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, once said at the "70th Anniversary of Zhou Guangzhao's Scientific Career" event that "Mr. Zhou Guangzhao is a banner of the Chinese scientific community." Zhou Guangzhao's scientific thoughts not only profoundly influenced and shaped the development of the Institute of Theoretical Physics, but also have far-reaching significance for the development of basic scientific research in my country, including theoretical physics, and the construction of an innovative country.
Zhou Guangzhao served as the president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences from 1987 to 1997. He led the Chinese Academy of Sciences to implement reforms to solve the problem of the disconnection between science and technology and economy, and science and technology and education, and transformed the original closed and immobile scientific research system into an open, mobile, joint and competitive new system. He insisted on the principle that science and technology must be oriented to economic construction and economic construction must rely on science and technology to run the academy, and promoted the combination of scientific research and production; implemented "one academy, two systems" to promote the transformation of scientific and technological achievements into productivity; advocated the combination of the Academy of Sciences and universities, and created incentive mechanisms and competition mechanisms for scientific research talents to stand out; and made important theoretical contributions to the exploration of the laws of science and technology itself, the reform of the science and technology system and the opening up to the outside world.
Rao Yi, a professor at the School of Life Sciences of Peking University, once wrote an article recalling that Zhou Guangzhao's leadership was not to be an official, but to do things. In the early days of his tenure as president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, he faced some voices of misunderstanding, endured humiliation, and insisted on reform. "It can be said that one of the most important reform measures of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the past 30 years is to establish the director responsibility system. This reform still plays an important role in the development of the Chinese Academy of Sciences."
The international scientific community highly praised his research achievements and scientific and technological work. Zhou Guangzhao was elected as a foreign academician by 11 national and regional academies of science, including the Third World Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the European Academy of Sciences. He published more than 80 papers, including "Relative Theory of Polarized Nuclear Reactions", "Partial Conservation of Pseudovector Flows", and "Reactions of Polarized Nuclei with Zero Rest Mass", which had a great impact at home and abroad.
Mills, Zhou Guangzhao (center), and Yang Zhenning (right) together at the "Yang-Mills Gauge Theory" academic conference hosted by the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in December 1984. Image source: Official website of the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Fukuzawa Junior
As a "younger generation", Chen Xianhui, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was deeply influenced by Zhou Guangzhao. He recalled that in the 1980s, when copper oxide high-temperature superconductors were just emerging, Zhou Guangzhao gave great encouragement and support to relevant scientific researchers. Zhou Guangzhao encouraged young scholars that as innovative talents, they should have both ideal pursuits and the courage to face reality. In their research work, they should be good at breaking down topics, grasping the main contradictions, and pointing out the research direction; they should not be overbearing or self-boasting, but should be good at listening to different opinions and cooperating with colleagues. "These have become the mottos of our generation of scientific researchers, and they are still inspiring today," said Chen Xianhui.
Xiang Tao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that Zhou Guangzhao paid great attention to the special fund for theoretical physics of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and advocated that scientific research should have fierce collisions of different viewpoints, should have confidence, dare to put forward different opinions, and have academic uniqueness, and should not simply follow the existing achievements.
Zhou Guangzhao is the master and doctoral supervisor of Wu Yueliang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Wu Yueliang recalled in an interview with a Beijing News reporter that when he came to the Institute of Theoretical Physics in 1982 and chose Zhou Guangzhao as his supervisor, he thought that he would be asked some difficult questions during the interview and made sufficient preparations, but in the end, he was not asked a single question. Zhou Guangzhao asked him why he chose theoretical physics and whether he was interested in it. Zhou Guangzhao specifically mentioned that theoretical physics requires hard work, and that the best theoretical physicists in the world do not have weekends. Zhou Guangzhao also asked him to persevere and have a spirit of dedication.
Wu Yueliang remembers that when they wrote their first English article, Zhou Guangzhao asked them to make a draft first, but he later changed the draft beyond recognition. Zhou Guangzhao said humorously, "Science and technology need innovation, but foreign languages do not. These sentence patterns need to be memorized."
Wu Yueliang recalled that Zhou Guangzhao treated students very well. Like his mentor Peng Huanwu, he treated students as friends. In addition to strict academic requirements, he also cared about the health of his students. He often paid for students' meals out of his own pocket and sometimes played table tennis with them to exercise. "Sometimes after the weekend discussion, he would take us to a restaurant to improve our meals. He said this was a tradition left by his teacher, Mr. Peng Huanwu."
In terms of scientific research, Zhou Guangzhao also gave Wu Yueliang a lot of inspiration. Zhou Guangzhao's way of thinking about problems is very unique. For example, during the second discussion, students sorted out the problems discussed last time and gave them to him, but he did not read them, but deduced them from the beginning. He said that re-deriving may give new ideas. He told students that when reading literature, they should start with the latest and most cutting-edge papers, and when they encounter something they don't understand, they can look for other references. However, when reading literature, they cannot completely follow the author's ideas. They should be able to think outside the box, form their own ideas, and digest the content of the article to turn it into basic knowledge for their further research.
Zhou Guangzhao was also a scientist with unique personal charm. Even people who did not work in science and technology would always be impressed by him. A staff member who once worked in the National People's Congress recalled that he had accompanied Zhou Guangzhao on a visit to the United States. During the visit, Zhou Guangzhao proposed to visit a university's life science laboratory. The school attached great importance to this visit and specially arranged a scientific researcher to accompany the translation. At that time, life science was still an emerging discipline, and the terms such as DNA and epigenetics used by the translator left the accompanying staff confused. Upon discovering this situation, Zhou Guangzhao personally served as a translator. "Mr. Zhou did not use so many terms, and he spoke concisely and clearly, and finally made us understand what this laboratory was researching and doing." The staff member sighed: "From him, I know what a great scientist should be like."
Xu Guanhua, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, recalled that at the 1996 Academician Conference, Zhou Guangzhao once seriously stated: "The trend of fraud and hypocrisy in society has spread to the scientific and technological community. In recent years, in the work of project establishment, results evaluation, and professional title assessment, there have been frequent cases of lack of rigor and seriousness, and even disregard for scientific norms, lack of scientific ethics, exaggeration, and fraud..." To this day, Zhou Guangzhao's serious criticism at that time is still deafening and thought-provoking.
In response to the phenomenon of blindly pursuing the number of papers included in my country's scientific and technological circles, Zhou Guangzhao sharply criticized: "We should avoid the evaluation system being eager for quick success and instant benefits, and promote the spirit of sharpening a sword for ten years to guide scientists to engage in work with longer-term impact and great scientific significance."
In his commemorative article, Xu Guanhua wrote: "For decades, no matter what position he held or what work he was doing, Mr. Guangzhao always thought of his motherland and his people. He devoted all his energy and efforts to the development of the country's scientific cause with a sincere heart, in return for the cultivation of the motherland and the nurturing of the people. His contributions and virtues deserve our eternal remembrance."
(Comprehensive reports from Guangming Daily, China Science Daily, CCTV News, Beijing News Network, Intellectuals, and the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Beijing News reporter Qiao Chi and Li Bingjie
Edited by Hu Jie, Proofread by Wang Xin
