In 1959, a Chinese nuclear physicist led members of a physics team to discover the antiparticle of hyperons from 40,000 pairs of negatives, which caused a shock in the Western scientific community, and more than 100 research institutes sent congratulatory messages to him.
* Praise his research results"Second only to the discovery of positrons and antiprotons".
Peers generally**As long as the scientist continues to research, this year's Nobel Prize "belongs to him".
To the surprise of all his colleagues, this nuclear physicist from China actually "lost contact", and he couldn't find any news ...... about him at all
Tsung-Dao Lee (who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1957), who had just won the Nobel Prize in Physics, sighed"It's a pity that Mr. Wang can't go back to China later. ”Mr. Li Zhengdao's Mr. Wang is actually one of the meritorious people of China's "two bombs and one satellite".Mr. Wong Kam Cheong.
In order to help China develop a "great power," Wang Ganchang resolutely gave up the favorable conditions abroad, causing himself to miss the Nobel Prize three times.
So, what contributions has Wang Ganchang, who has studied car driving and maintenance techniques, made to China's nuclear science?
Figure: Wang Ganchang in his youth.
Wang Ganchang was born in 1907 in a family of traditional Chinese medicine in Fengtang Bay, Changshu County, Jiangsu Province (now Changshu City) (Wang Ganchang's father Wang Yiren was a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner).
Because Wang Ganchang's father has excellent medical skills, there is an endless stream of visitors who come to seek treatment.
If there are poor people who can't afford to pay the medical bills temporarily, Wang Yiren, a doctor with a benevolent heart, is never in a hurry to urge.
Gradually, Wang Yiren became famous in Fengtang Bay.
However, he has been trapped under his knees for a long time and has only three daughters. After Wang Yiren's two eldest daughters got married, he recruited a son-in-law for his younger daughter to join the Wang family, and the son-in-law changed his surname to Wang and his name was Shunchang, and Wang Shunchang followed Wang Yiren to study medicine. (Wang Shunchang is the eldest in line, he is not only Wang Ganchang's brother-in-law, but also his eldest brother).
The old people are old-fashioned, and Wang Yiren always feels that "there is no filial piety."
3. No queen is great". After consulting with his wife, he married another stepfamily when he was 50 years old, but he still did not have children, so he adopted a son named Wang Chang, the second in line.
When Wang Yiren was sixty years old, his step-room suddenly became pregnant, and ten months later, Wang Ganchang fell to the ground, which can be described as an old man.
The old gentleman finally got a baby son, how happy he was, he held a feast at home, warmly entertained the neighbors, and ate the flowing water banquet for three days in a row. The moon is cloudy and sunny, and people have good and bad luck.
Unfortunately, when Wang Ganchang was less than four years old, his father, Mr. Wang Yiren, passed away.
Fortunately, at that time, Wang Ganchang's eldest brother Wang Shunchang continued to practice medicine and concurrently engaged in the medicinal materials business, inheriting his father's business and the family business was booming.
Wang Shunchang, Wang Chang, and Wang Ganchang are not related by blood at all, but the relationship between brothers is very good. After Wang Yiren died, Wang Shunchang was the pillar of the family, and the eldest brother not only had to be busy with the family's business, but also had to take care of his two younger brothers.
In 1913, Wang Shunchang sent Wang Ganchang, who was already 6 years old, to study in a private school.
Other children take at least four years to complete all the courses, but Wang Ganchang only took two years to impress Mr. Private School. In 1915, Wang Ganchang went to Shaxi Primary School to board and study; In the spring of 1920, Wang Ganchang's mother died of illness, and he depended on his eldest brother Wang Shunchang and grandmother.
Figure: Wang Ganchang during his studies.
The Wang family has a lot of wealth, in line with the idea of starting a family first, then starting a business, and finding someone to take care of the younger brother, the eldest brother Wang Shunchang Zhang Luo married a wife for Wang Ganchang.
13-year-old Wang Ganchang is still a child, his parents have died one after another, and his eldest brother Wang Shunchang is his backbone.
In the same year, Wang Ganchang married his daughter-in-law Wu Yueqin, who was three years older than him. Soon after his marriage, Wang Ganchang went to Shanghai Pudong Middle School with the help of his relatives.
After graduating from high school, Wang Ganchang entered a foreign language class to learn English, thinking that he could go abroad for further study in the future.
In 1925, Wang Ganchang became obsessed with car driving and maintenance technology, and went to an auto repair shop in Shanghai to eat and live with a repairman to learn auto maintenance. In the same year, Wang Ganchang was admitted to Tsinghua University. Before entering college, students have to consider which major they should major.
Wang Ganchang wants to continue to study automobile maintenance technology, but Tsinghua University does not have relevant courses, and the course similar to automobile maintenance technology is mechanical engineering.
After going around and around, Wang Ganchang chose to major in physics and minor in engineering.
Perhaps even Wang Ganchang himself did not expect that he would become a top physicist in the world in the future, making a "great power" for the motherland.
Physics is different from other subjects in that it is a subject that tests students' knowledge of science, especially mathematics.
Other subjects are at most difficult to get started, but it is much easier to learn, or they are easy to get started and not easy to profound; Physics is difficult to get started, and it is even more difficult to study it in depth
Wang Ganchang has been brilliant since he was a child, and he has learned a lot of knowledge, and as soon as he came into contact with physics, he felt that the difficulty of learning this course was not trivial.
This just inspired Wang Ganchang's desire to win. Over the years, Wang Ganchang has been admitted all the way from a rural private school in Changshu to Tsinghua University, a top university in China, which just proves that he will never admit defeat and will not be impressed by difficulties.
As a result, Wang Ganchang devoted all his energy to the study of physics, and his academic performance improved by leaps and bounds.
In 1929, Wang Ganchang became the first graduate of the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University and served as an assistant to Mr. Wu Youxun, one of the founders of modern physics research in China.
Wu Youxun has studied abroad for many years, and is a good friend of the famous physicist Mrs. Currie, and his subordinates are rich Sanqiang, Qian Weichang, and Li Zhengdao, ......
With the help of Mr. Wu, Wang Ganchang completed his graduation "The Intensity and Daily Changes of Radon Gas Around Tsinghua Garden", which filled the gap in the experimental research on atmospheric radioactivity in China.
In 1930, Wang Ganchang was carefully taught by Wu Youxun and further developed his research in physics.
Constrained by the scientific conditions in China at that time, if Wang Ganchang wanted to go further, he could only study abroad, broaden his horizons, and achieve greater achievements.
At the suggestion of his teacher, Wang Ganchang was admitted to the Jiangsu Provincial Government as an international student and went to the Wilhelms-Royal Institute of Chemistry of the University of Berlin in Germany for further study under the supervision of atomic physicist Liezer Meitner.
Meitner was the first female professor at the University of Berlin in Germany, and was influenced by Marie Curie to break new ground in atomic physics.
At that time, Meitner had already made significant contributions to the scientific community, and Chemical Element 109 was named after her; Albert Einstein called her:"A female scientist with a talent comparable to Marie Curie. ”
Newton said"The reason why I see farther than others is precisely because I stand on the shoulders of giants. ”
Wang Ganchang, who was only 24 years old at the time, was able to worship under the disciple of Meitner, the "pioneer of nuclear physics in the world", which must be very helpful for his future studies.
Wang Ganchang is alone in a foreign land, and in addition to writing letters to contact relatives, friends, and teachers in China, he spends almost all his time on scientific experiments.
Pictured Wang Ganchang with his wife and children.
Several times, Wang Ganchang, who had no distractions to study, was locked in the research room because he forgot the time, so he had to climb over the fence and return to the dormitory.
Although Wang Ganchang graduated from Tsinghua University, he also studied under Mr. Wu Youxun. However, looking at the entire University of Berlin in Germany, Wang Ganchang's research results are somewhat insufficient.
Wang Ganchang is not impatient, he works hard to learn basic physics knowledge, and at the same time actively participates in the talks and lectures of his classmates and teachers.
In the first half of 1931, Professor Boult and his student Beck of the University of Berlin bombarded beryllium with alpha particles produced by polonium, and finally discovered an electrically neutral and penetrating "radiation" to obtain high-energy gamma photons.
Bot and Baker presented this discovery at an academic symposium, which aroused the interest of Wang Ganchang.
Wang Ganchang suggested to his mentor Meitner twice that the experiment be repeated in a cloud room to thoroughly understand the essence of this "radiation".
Unfortunately, Meitner admired the Chinese student, but she did not agree to Wang's suggestion because of the high cost of using the cloud room and the fact that the results of the research were too narrow.
In 1932, Mr. and Mrs. Joliot-Curie (Mr. and Mrs. Curie the Petit Curie) discovered that this "radiation" could shoot protons from paraffin.
In February 1932, the British physicist Chadwick repeated the experiment with a cloud chamber similar to Wang Ganchang's proposal, and determined that this so-called "radiation" was a neutral particle with uncharged, mass, and the same as a proton, called a neutron.
Neutrons are the key to making the atomic bomb.
In 1935, Chadwick won the Nobel Prize in Physics for this scientific research achievement, and Wang Ganchang regretted missing the Nobel Prize for the first time.
Mr. Wang Ganchang later recalled"At that time, I was only in my twenties, young and ignorant, and I always felt that it was a pity that I did not do my best to convince my mentor and get her support.
But if I had done it at that time, Wang Ganchang would not be the Wang Ganchang he is today. ”
After Chadwick announced the discovery of neutrons, Meitner said comfortingly to Wang Ganchang"It's a matter of luck. ”
Imagine that if Meitner had supported Wang's proposal in 1931, they would have discovered neutrons in six months at most, and would have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics at the same time.
Then, Wang Ganchang was not yet 28 years old when he won the Nobel Prize, which is enough to be called unprecedented and unprecedented!
Wang Ganchang was not too affected by this incident, although he was lost, he did not have time to grieve at all, because China was being bullied by the Japanese invaders.
He studied diligently, thinking that he would pass the ** defense as soon as possible, and return to China as soon as possible after graduation to resist foreign invaders with his compatriots.
After the "September 18 Incident" in 1931, the Japanese army controlled the three northeastern provinces, and the local people were struggling to make a living. After hearing the news, Wang Ganchang couldn't sleep at night and repeatedly encouraged himself"Why is it shameful, in my student. ”
In 1933, Wang Ganchang published the "On the Upper Limit of RAE Continuous Ray Spectrum", which caused a sensation in the Western physics community.
At the end of the same year, 27-year-old Wang Ganchang received his doctorate, and everyone kept him in Germany.
Wang Ganchang said categorically"I am grateful to the University of Berlin and my mentor Meitner for nurturing me, but I am first and foremost Chinese.
Pasteur said that although science has no borders, scientists have nationality. My country is suffering, and I want to go back to serve her. ”
After leaving the University of Berlin, Wang Ganchang briefly visited laboratories in the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Italy and other countries, and had friendly exchanges with Rutherford, Chadwick and Ellis physicists.
Picture: Wang Ganchang and his beloved wife Wu Yueqin.
In April 1934, 27-year-old Wang Ganchang gave up the superior conditions abroad and returned to his hometown Changshu to reunite with his wife and children after a long absence (Wang Ganchang gave birth to three children with his wife Wu Yueqin before studying abroad).
A few months later, he took up a position at Shandong University and became a teacher of modern physics.
At the beginning of 1935, Wang Ganchang took the initiative to resign; In 1936, Zhu Kezhen took over as the president of Zhejiang University and invited Wang Ganchang to teach at Zhejiang University. Wang Ganchang was not in a hurry to take office, he wrote a letter to Zhu Kezhen, asking about the purpose of running the school.
Zhu Kezhen replied sincerely"I'm promoting a liberal and democratic school ethos. ”
At the age of 29, he became the youngest professor at Zhejiang University, a few years older than the students, and everyone privately called Wang Ganchang "Professor Doll".
It didn't take long for Zhu Kezhen to send Wang Ganchang's wife and children to Hangzhou, relieving him of his worries.
Years of studying abroad have cultivated Wang Ganchang's personable and knowledgeable temperament.
According to the "Hubei Archives" magazine, a female student in Nanjing even wanted to replace Wu Yueqin and fly with Wang Ganchang.
When it comes to family, Wang Ganchang once said that he is very sorry for his wife and children. Because when Wang Ganchang and Wu Yueqin got married, he had just turned 13 years old, and later went to study in various places, and he got together with his family less and left more. It is not easy for Wu Yueqin to take care of Wang Ganchang's grandmother and three children.
Wang Ganchang categorically rejected the initiative of the "talented girl of Jinling", and he and his original wife Wu Yueqin have been in love for 78 years. In 1938, Zhejiang University moved to many places; In 1940, Wang Ganchang suffered from tuberculosis and went home to recuperate.
During his recuperation, he pondered the verification of neutrino hypotheses and proposed an experimental scheme with international leading level.
In October 1941, Wang Ganchang sent his scientific research idea "A Proposal on the Detection of Neutrinos" to the American journal "Physical Review".
In the spring of 1942, the American scholar James Allen found experimental evidence for neutrinos based on Wang Ganchang's ideas.
Aaron later further refined the experiment and observed the extreme value of the recoil energy of the Li-7 nucleus.
This method is therefore known as the "Wang Allen Method".
In 1952, Rheins scholars at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United States carried out this experiment and confirmed the neutrino hypothesis.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1995.
At that time, Wang Ganchang didn't have time to think about the Nobel Prize, and he was taking the lead in fundraising with his wife to contribute to the great cause of resisting Japan.
Picture: Wang Ganchang at Zhejiang University.
As a professor at Zhejiang University, Wang Ganchang's monthly salary at that time was not less than 200 yuan, and the salary was very high.
What puzzled the students was that Wang Ganchang often shouted that he was hungry during class, and he had to go to herd sheep after class to earn living expenses.
It wasn't until later that everyone learned that in order to support the Anti-Japanese War, Wang Ganchang took out all his savings, and even donated all his wife's wedding jewelry.
I had tuberculosis but had no money for treatment, so I had to take some medicine at home and make a living.
In 1943, when the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression came to an end, Wang Ganchang served as the director of the Department of Physics of Zhejiang University, and the family's life became stable. By 1944, 37-year-old Wang Ganchang was the father of five children.
In August 1945, the United States shocked the world by dropping two atomic bombs.
Wang Ganchang "followed the trend" and drew a diagram of the structure of the atomic bomb, explaining the principle to the teachers and students.
In 1947, Wang Ganchang went to the University of California, Berkeley to engage in research. In less than a year, he published "On the Decay of Mesons", which once again shocked everyone. At the beginning of 1949, Wang Ganchang returned to China.
In the past two years, he and his collaborators have published a series of important academic studies, such as new experimental methods of cosmic ray particles, nuclear forces, and the relationship between baryons, such as the American Journal of Physical Review and the British Journal of Nature.
Soon after Wang Ganchang returned from the United States, he received an invitation from his junior brother Qian Sanqiang.
When Qian Sanqiang studied in France, he and his wife He Zehui jointly discovered the three and four of the atomic nucleus; After returning to China, Qian Sanqiang promoted the establishment of the Institute of Modern Physics in early 1950.
Qian Sanqiang first thought of his senior Wang Ganchang and personally wrote a letter to invite him to go north. After receiving Qian Sanqiang's letter, Wang Ganchang agreed to go north without saying a word and was transferred to the Institute of Modern Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
In 1952, Wang Ganchang served as the deputy director, risking his life to go to the Korean battlefield to investigate whether the US military used radioactivity**.
In 1954, Wang Ganchang built the Alpine Cosmic Ray Laboratory in Yunnan, which made China's cosmic ray research enter the international advanced ranks at that time.
In 1955, Wang Ganchang was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
In September 1956, Wang Ganchang went to the Soviet Union to attend the Dubna Joint Institute of Nuclear Research.
As the leader of the team, he shared the task of finding new high-energy particles with nuclear experts from 12 countries.
In 1959, Wang Ganchang became the deputy director of the institute.
At the end of the same year, Wang Ganchang led a research team to discover an antisigma negative hyperon in 40,000 negatives in the bubble chamber, which was the first complete image of antiparticle generation, decay and annihilation of decay products observed in a high-energy pi meson nuclear reaction.
The research team's discovery of the antisigma negative hyperon further confirmed the existence of antiparticles in the universe and made a big step forward in human understanding of the microscopic material world.
Pictured Wang Ganchang (center), who is working in the Soviet Union
The domestic "People**" and the Soviet "Pravda" reported on this discovery, which received widespread attention.
Foreign counterparts are generally **"As long as Wang Ganchang continues to study in this field, it is only a matter of time before he wins the Nobel Prize." ”
At this moment, Wang Ganchang suddenly disappeared from people's sight.
At that time, Lee Tsung-dao (Lee Tsung-dao studied under Wang Ganchang) felt sorry for the teacher, and wondered why such a big living person suddenly disappeared without a trace?
One day, Wang Ganchang, who was working at the Dubna Institute, received a secret telegram"Stop what you're doing and go back to your home country to take on a new assignment." ”
Wang Ganchang did not ask much questions and returned to China at the end of 1960.
He actually guessed that this return to China should be a study of the "big guy".
Before returning from the Soviet Union, Wang Ganchang handed over all the salary he had saved to the Chinese ambassador to the Soviet Union, and did his best to contribute to the suffering of the country at that time.
In April 1961, in a minister's office in Beijing, Wang Ganchang accepted a new task from the leadershipHe voluntarily renounced all fame and status, severed all overseas contacts, and prepared for a long separation from his wife and children.
To put it more bluntly,There will be no such person as Wang Ganchang in the world.
Before leaving, the minister comforted Wang Ganchang with some embarrassment. But he replied in a sonorous voice"I would like to pledge my country! ”
In the 60s and 70s of the 20th century, the international situation was changing rapidly, and the "big brother" Soviet Union was dissatisfied with China getting too close to Western countries, and withdrew all experts who aided China in one go.
Before leaving, the Soviet expert burned all the documents to ashes and said viciously: "Without the help of the USSR, even in another 20 years, China would not have been able to develop an atomic bomb!" ”
Pictured **Middle) went to Lop Nur to listen to Wang Ganchang (left) report.
These words deeply stung Wang Ganchang, Qian Sanqiang and others, and they unanimously made a decisionHeart: "We must help the motherland develop a big guy, so that those who look down on us are completely dumbfounded." ”
Because it was necessary to keep secret the research work in the development of nuclear weapons, Wang Ganchang changed his name to Wang Jing and has been incognito for 17 years.
His wife Wu Yueqin and 5 children don't know what he has gone to ** or what he is doing.
From 1961 to 1963, Wang Ganchang led thousands of explosive detonation tests of atomic bomb initiating devices.
In order to shorten the development time and improve efficiency, Wang Ganchang, who is in his 50s, overturned the front-line production workshop, ate and lived with the workers, and properly solved many unexpected problems.
The workers only knew that Wang Ganchang's surname was Wang, and he often worked overtime, so everyone called him "Old Man Wang".
From "Professor Doll" to "Old Man Wang", in the past 20 years, Wang Ganchang has made unimaginable efforts to revitalize the motherland.
On October 16, 1964, an exciting thunder roared from the Gobi Desert of Lop Nur, and China's first atomic bomb was successful.
In the same year, Wang Ganchang independently proposed the idea of laser targeting to achieve nuclear fusion, and was one of the founders of the world's laser inertial confinement nuclear fusion theory and research.
Since then, Wang Ganchang has participated in the development of China's first hydrogen bomb without stopping.
On June 17, 1967, China's first hydrogen bomb was successfully launched, and it successfully entered the ranks of "nuclear powers".
In 1978, at the age of 71, Wang Ganchang was transferred back to Beijing, changed his original name, and became vice minister of the Ministry of Nuclear Industry and director of the Institute of Atomic Energy.
That's when people found outThe "old man Wang" in the nuclear ** research base turned out to be the famous "father of the two bombs" Wang Ganchang!
Picture: The grandeur of the success of China's first atomic bomb**.
In 1980, Wang Ganchang became the first chairman of the Chinese Nuclear Society. In 1982, he and his colleagues won two first prizes in the National Natural Science Award.
Wang Ganchang's son, Wang Maoji, won the first prize of the National Natural Science Award in the same year for his research on the Daqing Oilfield.
After the 80s of the 20th century, Mr. Wang Ganchang focused on promoting nuclear technology such as inertial confinement fusion research and nuclear power, and proposed the "863 Plan" for the development of national high technology.
On December 10, 1998, Mr. Wang Ganchang passed away at the age of 91.
In 1999, Wang Ganchang was awarded the "Two Bombs and One Star" Meritorious Service Medal, and his name was made public.
It's a pity that Wang Ganchang couldn't take over the honor in person.
The great man of the country promises the country with his body, this is the "star" that should be chased forever, and future generations will always remember the master.