Nobel laureate in physics Yang Zhenning, who couldn't wait to visit his mentor when he returned to China for the first time in 1971, was rejected by the relevant departments.
Without him, the fate of Tsinghua University and the scientific development of New China would have been put under a big question mark.
In 1935, some teachers and students of the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University took a group photo, and there were 11 future academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in this photo. The fourth from the left in the front row is Ye Qisun.
He never married, had no children, and treated his students as if they were his own children.
It is no exaggeration to say that he and his students have supported most of China's scientific community, but have you ever heard of such a master-level master?
I'm afraid few people know about itBecause he was once regarded as a "national sinner", the news of his death was not allowed to be published in all newspapers and magazines. He was once reduced to begging in Zhongguancun, and was forbidden to publish a newspaper when he died.
Even Chai Jing exclaimed: "And I only knew about his existence today."
He is Ye Qisun, a true intellectual, and "China's last master".A master who is the latest we know and the furthest abandoned by the times.
Ye Qisun in his early years
In the last year of the Qing Dynasty, Ye Qisun was admitted to the first batch of places in Tsinghua Academy, and he was less than 13 years old.
In 1913, Ye Qisun took a photo when he applied for the Tsinghua School.
Later, he traveled across the ocean to study with Nobel laureate Bridgeman and measured the most accurate Planck constant h value in the world at that time. The experimental results were published in the Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences and the Journal of the Optical Society, and were quickly recognized by the international scientific community and used for 16 years. This year, he was 23 years old.
At the age of 27, he returned to China and founded the Department of Physics at Tsinghua University. At the age of 31,He founded the School of Science at Tsinghua University, including 6 faculties of arithmetic, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and geoscience.
At that time, I couldn't hire a teacher. He set the salary of Wu Youxun, a teacher who had worked so hard and was not as old as his own, to be higher than himself. Later, in his prime, he successively recommended Wu Youxun to replace him as the head of the physics department and the dean of the School of Science.
In the thirties of the last century, Tsinghua University was just an academic blank preparatory school for studying in the United StatesIt was the Faculty of Science that brought Tsinghua to its current status.
Ye Qisun in the 30s of the 20th century.
Ye Qisun said: Wherever talented people are produced, they must be places where scientific culture is most prevalent, where scientific soil is the most fertile, and where scientific atmosphere is the strongest. For example, Göttingen and Munich in Europe and Chicago in the United States.
China's scientific research has been stagnant for thousands of years, because Ye Qisun has a hot ambition for the first time: "In addition to cultivating talents for the application of science, we are still seeking to establish a center for scientific research, so as to achieve China's academic independence." ”
Ye Qisun's students
He is the founder of nuclear physics in our countryWang Ganchang, is his big **.
China's "father of satellites".Zhao Jiuzhang, the "father of the hydrogen bomb".Peng Huanwu (one said to be Yu Min)., the "father of the atomic bomb".Qian Sanqiang, the "father of missiles".Qian Xuesen, "Father of Mechanics".Qian Weichang, as well as the "father of optics".Wang Daheng, are all students he cultivated with his own hands.
Deng Jiaxian, Zhou Guangzhao, Zhu GuangyaThese heavyweight names are also his protégés.
In 1946, Ye Qisun sent the 19-year-old Lee Tsung-dao to the United States for further study, and when applying for a passport, he was even questioned, "How is it a child?" ”。Half a century later, Lee Tsung-dao returned to China and couldn't help choking up when he saw the yellowed exam paper that he had treasured all his life.
Above is Ye Qisun's handwriting: Lee Tsung-dao, electromagnetism, 58 + 25 = 83 points. He is also known for his strictness in coaching. He allowed the student not to listen to his lecture "because you read a better reference book than mine," but "if you don't do your experiment seriously, you will be deducted 25 points."
He no longer asks for harvest, only for hard work.
he no longer asks for harvest, but for cultivation.
The first Chinese elected to the American Academy of Sciences was his studentLin Jiaqiao。The first Chinese elected to the American Academy of Engineering was his studentDai Zhenduo
Mathematics master Hua Luogeng said: "I have been loved by him all my life. ”Hua Luogeng only has a junior high school education, and it was Ye Qisun Li who overruled the public opinion to let him teach in the Department of Mathematics of Tsinghua University, and then sent him to Cambridge University for further study. Chern Shiingshen, who was as famous as Hua Luogeng, also benefited from his earnest teachings, and later became the greatest geometer of the 20th century and the father of modern differential geometry.
The No. 7 residence in the North Courtyard in Tsinghua Park has been lived here since 1925, and he left in 1952 when the college was adjusted.
By the 60s of the last century, New China had 23 fathers of the two bombs, half of whom were his protégés. The number of academicians he eventually trained for the country reached 79.
Such a great teacher and pioneer that no one could have imagined his fate.
Ye Qisun in his later years
He never married, but was close to his students, one of whom was named Xiong Dazhen, which was the deepest relationship in his life.
Xiong Dazhen. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the enthusiastic Xiong Dazhen gave up the opportunity to study in Germany and went to the anti-Japanese base in central Hebei to serve as the minister of supply under General Lu Zhengcao. Xiong Dazhen used what he learned at Tsinghua University to manufacture explosives, detonators, radio transmitters and other military materials for the troops, and provided first-class equipment for mine warfare.
The TNT drug mine that once blew up the front of the Japanese locomotive came from Xiong Dazhen's "Technical Research Society", not the peasant soil method in the movie "Mine Warfare" we watched when we were young.
With Chen Daisun and Wu Mi at Lugou Bridge.
In 1939, when the relationship between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party deteriorated, Xiong Dazhen was suspected of being a Kuomintang spy, was secretly arrested, and was stoned to death during the escort without investigation and verification and without legal procedures.
After that, because there was no scientific and technological power to make self-control, the soldiers in Jizhong could only fight with empty guns and stuffed straw in bullet bags for a period of time.
Ye Qisun (middle) and Xiong Dazhen (second from left) took a group photo with the soldiers of the Anti-Japanese War.
A few years after Xiong Dazhen's unjust death, Ye Qisun insisted on avenging the grievances of this student who had relied on him for his life, and finally set himself on fire and was imprisoned.
Ye Qisun spent a year and a half in prison. Huang Yanfu, who has read the arraignment record, said that all his words are actually only one sentence:"I'm a scientist, I'm honest, I don't tell lies. ”
During the ten years of turmoil, after hearing that Yao Tongbin was beaten to death with a stick and his beloved disciple Zhao Jiuzhang committed suicide with hatred, he had a nervous breakdown and hallucinated. When he was later released, his legs were swollen and he could not stand, his body was bent at 90 degrees, he lost his human form, and he once begged on the streets of Zhongguancun.
At that time, many people in the Zhongguancun area had seen him, wearing a pair of broken cotton shoes with a broken head, sometimes going to a small stall, reaching out to the stall owner to ask for one or two small apples, chewing as he walked.
If he meets someone who looks like a student, he stretches out his hand and says, "You have money to give me some."
Ye Qisun in 1962, this is also a rare smiling ** in Ye Qisun's life.
Later he regained some sanity. Once Qian Sanqiang met him on the road in Zhongguancun and immediately ran up to say hello. As soon as Ye Qisun saw him coming, he immediately said, "You leave me quickly, get out of the way quickly, and when you see me in the future, don't pay attention to me anymore and stay away from me." ”
Qian Sanqiang was the deputy director of the Second Aircraft Department at that time, in charge of the atomic bomb project.
His students were well aware of his intentions: "He knew such an important job, and he was most taboo to associate with those who had political problems, and he was afraid that Qian Sanqiang would suffer some misfortune because of it."
His nephew said he had never told anyone about his misery," he saidHis view seems to be that there are many wronged things in the world and history, and there is no need to lament his life
Ye Qisun. He died on January 13, 1977. At the end of his life, when Qian Linzhao went to see him, he took out the "Book of Song" and flipped to the paragraph written by Fan Ye ((A paragraph in the Book of Prison and Nephews:
I am provocative and destroyed, how can I say it again, you should all abandon it as sinners, but your life is already in your heart, and you should still be able to find it, as for whether you can or not, you will understand it, and you may not know it.
Until the 80s, after he was rehabilitated, when Tsinghua wanted to make a statue of him, some people still said, "If you want to make a statue for this person, I will pee on it."
Famous scientists Shi Jiayang and Wang Ganchang (left) unveil the newly completed bronze statue of Ye Qisun at Tsinghua University.
However, his life is already in his arms, and he should still be able to find ......”
In 1929, he was in a post calledThe Past, Present and Future of Chinese ScienceThe article says:
Some people suspect that the Chinese nation is not suitable for the study of science, and I think these arguments are unfounded.
China has only recently come to understand the importance of scientific research, and we have not yet gone through a long period of experimentation, so it cannot be said that we lack the ability to conduct scientific research.
I only hope that everyone will work together to study and research, and then make a judgment after 50 years. You must know that a nation without natural science can never gain a foothold in modern times.
Eighty years have passed, and everything he planted in the blank space has allowed my descendants to live in a world of thick shade, and I only know the existence of Mr. Ye Qisun today.
Remember his name: Ye Qisun (1898-1977).