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American Influence on Chinese Physics Study in the Early Twentieth Century

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Abstract

To save China from the perils she faced in the early twentieth century, the majority of the Chinese seemed to agree that it was necessary to strengthen the country by developing shiye or industry and commerce. For this purpose, they overhauled China’s education system and sent a large number of students to study overseas. Many of them enrolled in American colleges, sponsored either by governmental grants or by private funds. As American physics advanced rapidly during the early twentieth century, Chinese physicists studying in top US institutions received first-class professional training. They later went on to become a main driving force in Chinese physics development. The study-in-America programs were apparently more successful than other study-overseas programs. Among other factors, the historical lessons learned from the aborted Chinese Educational Mission in the 1870s, the prevalent and long-time presence of American mission schools in China, and stable public and private funding contributed to their success. American-trained Chinese physicists not only advanced physics study in China but also played leading roles in the development of Chinese science and technology during the twentieth century. This fertile and far-reaching American influence has been embedded in all their accomplishments.

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  2. Both Yang and Lee remained Chinese citizens when they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1957. To help researchers find records and publications of these early Chinese physicists, I use their own Romanizations of their Chinese names that they used when studying and publishing in the West, wherever available. Guangzhao Zhou completed his graduate studies at Peking University in 1954, when doctorates were not available in China (they were first awarded in 1981), but it is reasonable to argue that Zhou earned a doctorate equivalent. 董光璧 Dong Guangbi, 中国现代物理学史 [A History of Physics in Modern China] (Jinan Shi: Shandong jiao yu chu ban she, 2009), 58.

  3. 李佩珊 Li Peishan, “20世纪前半叶科学技术从美国向中国的传入及其影响 [The Transmission of Science and Technology from America to China during the First Half of the 20th Century],” 美国研究 [American Studies] 4 (1991), 98–115, on 100.

  4. According to Xie, ninety-four students returned in 1881. Of the rest, twenty-six died, departed earlier, or refused to return to China. See “The Chinese Educational Mission,” CEM Connections, accessed September 19, 2015, http://www.cemconnections.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1; 谢长法 Changfa Xie, 中国留学教育史 Zhongguo Liu Xue Jiao Yu Shi [The Educational History of Chinese Students Studying Abroad] (Taiyuan Shi: Shanxi jiao yu chu ban she, 2006), 1–13.

  5. Xie, Chinese Students Studying Abroad (ref. 4), 22–24. On the first appearance of Chinese students in Japan, see John K. Fairbank and Kwang-Ching Liu, eds., Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part 2, vol. 11, The Cambridge History of China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 348.

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  7. These crises include the failed 1898 100-day Reforms, 1900 Boxer Uprising, and the occupation of Beijing by the foreign powers.

  8. The Chinese term wuli 物理 in traditional classics means a rationalized knowledge of all matters, including those involving the natural world. In the 1870s, the Japanese began to use this ancient Chinese term, in the same two Chinese characters 物理, to render the modern Western concept of “physics” with a much narrower coverage on limited number of special subjects such as mechanics, acoustics, optics, thermodynamics, and electromagnetism. This new Japanese jargon in Chinese characters was simply adopted by Chinese intellectuals around 1900 with a brand new connotation completely different from that of its ancient predecessor. For a more detailed discussion of the origin of wuli, see 胡升华 Shenghua Hu, “物理学”名称考源 [Examining the Origin of the Chinese Term Wu-Li-Xue (Physics)],” 科学 [Science] 50(1) (1998), 41–44. An erratum to this paper was published in 科学 [Science] 50(2) (1998), 15.

  9. 胡大年 Danian Hu, 爱因斯坦在中国 Aiyinsitan Zai Zhongguo [Einstein in China] (上海 Shanghai: 上海科技教育出版社 Shanghai ke ji jiao yu chu ban she, 2006), 42.

  10. Generally well-known Japanese educated Chinese physicists include, Fangbai Li 李芳柏, Changshou Zhou 周昌寿, Yihui Zhang 张贻惠, and Yuanmo Wen 文元模, all of whom played an active role in the introduction and dissemination of Einstein’s theory of relativity in China in the 1920s.

  11. Danian Hu, China and Albert Einstein: The Reception of the Physicist and His Theory in China, 1917–1979 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 47–58.

  12. Sheng Xuanhuai (1844–1916) appeared to be the first to send students to the US in large groups in 1900, see Xie, Chinese Students Studying Abroad (ref. 4), 74.

  13. 袁同礼 Yuan Tongli, “Doctoral Dissertations by Chinese Students in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1916–1961,” Chinese Culture: A Quarterly Review 4(4) (1963).

  14. 屈儆诚 Qu Jingcheng, “Chinese Physicists Educated in Germany and America: Their Scientific Contributions and Their Impact on China’s Higher Education (1900–1949)” (PhD diss., The Ohio State University, 1998), 47, 137.

  15. Xie, Chinese Students Studying Abroad (ref. 4), 71–75.

  16. Ibid., 75.

  17. Weili Ye, Seeking Modernity in China’s Name: Chinese Students in the United States, 1900–1927 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 55. Here, Shixue means technical knowledge.

  18. 欧七斤 Qijin Ou, “略述中国第一位物理学博士李复几 [A Short Biography of Li Fo-Ki, China’s First PhD in Physics],” 中国科技史杂志 [The Chinese Journal for the History of Science and Technology] 28(2) (2007), 105–113, on 106.

  19. Fo Ki Li, “Spektroskopische Untersuchungen über P. Lenards Theorie der Specktren der Alkali-Metalle” (PhD diss. Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, 1907). Li’s experimental study negated Lenard’s theory. According to Li’s “Lebenslauf,” he spent the year of 1905 doing “hands-on experiments of mechanics (praktischen Versuchen der Mechanik),” probably at Haniel Company in Düsseldorf. (See Ou, “Biography of Li Fo-Ki” (ref. 18), 107.)

  20. In present pinyin, “Yuanli Hsia” is also spelled as “Xia Yuanli.” See the detailed discussion on Hsia (Xia) in Hu, China and Albert Einstein (ref. 11), 89–98 and “Two Chinese Pioneers of Relativity [在中国传播相对论的两位先驱],” supplement, 自然科学史研究 [Studies in the History of Natural Sciences] 24(S1) (2005), 90–110.

  21. Like Hsia, Chang also graduated from Nanyang College in Shanghai before finding an opportunity to study at Yale. Chang joined Hsia at Peking University in 1913 when Hsia was the Dean of the School of Science. For Chang’s career before 1917, see Frank G. Burke Jr. et al., eds. Class History 1909, Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University, vol. 1 (Rutland, VT: The Tuttle Company, 1909); Guok-Tsai Chao, ed., Who’s Who of American Returned Students (Beijing: Tsing Hua college, 1917). Ph.B. degree: John L. Bagg, ed., Class History 1909, Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University, vol. 2 (Rutland, VT: The Tuttle Company, 1915), 28. Chang left Peking University for “the College of Salt Administration in 1920”: see John B. Wallace Jr., ed. Quarter Century Record, 1909, Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University, vol. 4 (New Haven, CT: The Class Secretaries Bureau, 1935), 48. On the first American PhD in physics, see Ralph P. Rosenberg, “The First American Doctor of Philosophy Degree,” The Journal of Higher Education 32 (7) (1961), 387–94.

  22. R. A. Millikan, “The Isolation of an Ion, a Precision Measurement of Its Charge, and the Correction of Stokes’s Law,” Science 32(822) (1910), 436–48. Quoted from Qu, “Chinese Physicists Educated in Germany and America” (ref. 14), 142.

  23. John Yiu-bong Lee, “Determination of the Value of ‘E’ by Millikan’s Method, Using Solid Spheres” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1915).

  24. 中国科学技术协会编 [China Association for Science and Technology, ed.] 中国科学技术专家传略 理学篇 物理学卷 I [Short Biographies of Chinese Specialists in Science and Technology. Collections of Scientists: Physicists I] (Shijiazhuang Shi: Hebei jiao yu chu ban she, 1996), 19.

  25. Ibid., 34. Zhang Wei, however, believes that Yen “entered the University of Chicago around 1910.” See Zhang Wei, “Millikan and China,” in Chinese Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, ed. Dainian Fan and R. S. Cohen, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996), 440. The date for Yen’s master’s degree at Cornell is from “颜任光 Kia-Lok Yen (1888–1968),” accessed July 21, 2015, http://www.shtong.gov.cn/node2/node2245/node4503/node55842/node55844/node56336/userobject1ai41997.html.

  26. Kia-Lok Yen, “The Mobilities of Gaseous Ions,” Physical Review 11(5) (1918), 337–62; “An Absolute Determination of the Coefficients of Viscosity of Hydrogen, Nitrogen, and Oxygen,” London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science 38 (227) (1919), 582–97. Qu, “Chinese Physicists Educated in Germany and America” (ref. 14), 145–46.

  27. Robert Andrews Millikan, The Autobiography of Robert Andrews Millikan (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1950), 89.

  28. Kia-Lok Yen, “The Traditional and the Scientific Trends in the Logic of Leibnitz” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1918); “The Bases of Democracy in China,” International Journal of Ethics 28 (1917), 197–219. So far, these two pieces of work by Yen seem to have escaped historians’ attention. In the latter essay, Yen explained to the Western readers why a republic had “come into existence in China,” attempting to demystify the common stereotypes of China in the West and accounting “not only for what China has accomplished up to the present, but also for what she may accomplish in the future.”

  29. Qu, “Chinese Physicists Educated in Germany and America” (ref. 14), 145–47.

  30. Ibid., 311–15.

  31. Short Biographies of Chinese Specialists (ref. 24), 67–75; Boxer scholar, 68.

  32. Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China, 2nd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999), 233.

  33. Michael H. Hunt, “The American Remission of the Boxer Indemnity: A Reappraisal,” The Journal of Asian Studies 31(3) (1972), 539–59, on 541–42.

  34. Ibid., 543–47.

  35. The first American remission in 1908 was actually $11,961,121.76, which was 48.9% of actual American indemnity of $24,440,778.81. See Xie, Chinese Students Studying Abroad (ref. 4), 98.

  36. Hunt, “The American Remission” (ref. 33), 547–57.

  37. Ibid., 554–55. Xie, Chinese Students Studying Abroad (ref. 4), 99.

  38. Xie, Chinese Students Studying Abroad (ref. 4), 100–105, 167–68.

  39. The total number of Boxer Indemnity students is the sum of 47 (1909), 70 (1910), 63 (1911), 1109 (1912–1929), 25 (1933), 20 (1934), 30 (1935), 18 (1936), 16 (1940), and 22 (1943); see ibid, 101–7, 135, 158, 159, 160, 179. The number of physics majors is drawn from: China Institute in America, A Survey of Chinese Students in American Universities and Colleges in the Past One Hundred Years: In Commemoration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Graduation of the First Chinese from an American University, Yung Wing, B.A., Yale 1854. A Prelim. Report (New York, 1954), 35.

  40. Qu, “Chinese Physicists Educated in Germany and America” (ref. 14), 137.

  41. Chinese Physical Society, “中国物理学会胡刚复, 饶毓泰, 叶企孙, 吴有训, 王淦昌物理奖章程 [The CPS Bylaw for Kang-Fuh Hu, Yu-Tai Yao, Chi-Sun Yeh, and Y. H. Woo Prizes],” accessed May 26, 2015, http://www.cps-net.org.cn/twotile/jlxx/wjzc.htm; “中国物理学会胡刚复, 饶毓泰, 叶企孙, 吴有训, 王淦昌物理奖历届获奖人员名单 [All Previous CPS Awardees of the Kang-Fuh Hu, Yu-Tai Yao, Chi-Sun Yeh, and Y. H. Woo Prizes],” accessed May 26, 2015, http://www.cps-net.org.cn/twotile/jlxx/wjtj.htm. A fifth prize was added in 2000 to commemorate Kan-Chang Wang.

  42. Short Biographies of Chinese Specialists (ref. 24)

  43. 王守武 Shouwu Wang, “王守竞 [Shou Chin Wang],” in 《中国现代科学家传记》[Biographies of Modern Chinese Scientists] (Beijing: Kexue Chubanshe, 1992), 90; Shou Chin Wang, “The Problem of the Normal Hydrogen Molecule in the New Quantum Mechanics” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1928), “Vita.”

  44. Wang, “Normal Hydrogen Molecule” (ref. 43), “Vita”; John S. Rigden, Rabi, Scientist and Citizen, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Series (New York: Basic Books, 1987), 42.

  45. Katherine Russell Sopka, Quantum Physics in America, 1920–1935 (New York: Arno Press, 1980), 3.102; for Kronig’s recollection concerning the group, see ibid, 3.49–3.50.

  46. Wang, “Normal Hydrogen Molecule” (ref. 43); John S. Rigden, Rabi, Scientist and Citizen (ref. 44), 39.

  47. At the end of his thesis, Wang thanked A. P. Wills “for his encouragement and kindness in going over the manuscript,” suggesting that Wills might have played the key role in persuading the physics department to accept Wang’s thesis. See Wang, “Normal Hydrogen Molecule” (ref. 43), 586. On the first five American doctoral theoretical theses on quantum mechanics, see Sopka, Quantum Physics in America (ref. 45), 3.59–3.60 and 3.102. According to Web of Science (accessed on June 2, 2015), Wang’s thesis has been cited an impressive 320 times.

  48. A complete list NRC fellows in physics before 1944 can be found in National Research Council (U.S.), National Research Fellowships, 1919–1944: Physical Sciences, Geology and Geography, Medical Sciences, Biological Sciences (Washington, D.C., 1944), 24–39.

  49. On NRC fellowships, see David C. Cassidy, A Short History of Physics in the American Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011), 37. In an email exchange on Oct. 7, 2015, Prof. Cassidy informed me that “the top 15 percent of graduates in physics” in his book can be interpreted as those in the United States and Canada.

  50. My brief discussions concerning the nationality requirement for the National Research Fellows are based on the following sources: “Tentative Plan for the Promotion of Research in Physics and Chemistry in the United States” (page 2) attached to the letter, George E. Hale to George E. Vincent, February 6, 1919, (Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC), RF, RG 1.1, Series 200, Box 169, Folder 1095): “These fellowships shall be open to candidates of all nationalities between the ages of 22 and 35”; “National Research Fellowships in Physics and Chemistry Supported by the Rockefeller Foundation,” Science, New Series 49(1265) (1919), 302–3, on 303: “The research fellowships will for the most part be awarded to persons who have had training at an American university or scientific school equivalent to that represented by the doctor’s degree;” “National Research Fellowships in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics” (fellowship announcement booklet published on October 1, 1925, page 4) (RAC, RF, IEB, Series 1.1, Box 9, Folder 128): “The Research Fellowships are for the most part awarded to American citizens who have had training equivalent to that represented by the Doctor’s degree;” “Memorandum to Dr. Russell,” March 2, 1927, The Rockefeller Foundation Inter-Office Correspondence (RAC, RF, RG 1.1, Series 200, Box 170, Folder 2068): “Awards for the most part are made to American citizens (Canadians also eligible);” and National Research Fellowships (ref. 48, page 2): “The National Research fellowships are open to citizens of the United States or of Canada.”

  51. “Memorandum to Dr. Russell” (ref. 50).

  52. Kronig spent his 1927–28 fellowship at the Universities of Copenhagen, Utrecht, and Zurich; Bitter worked at Princeton University and Caltech during 1928–30; and Zemansky divided his three-year 1928–31 fellowship tenure at Princeton University and Kaiser Wilhelm Institute für Physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie. For more details of these NRC fellows from the Columbia group, see National Research Fellowships, 1919–1944 (ref. 48), 25, 31, 37, 39. On NRC’s favorite candidates for fellows, see Cassidy, A Short History of Physics in the American Century (ref. 49), 37. In addition to the four NRC fellows mentioned above, Rabi, the organizer of the Columbia group and a future Nobel laureate, won an International Education Board (IEB) fellowship (also funded by Rockefeller Foundation) in 1928, which was at least as prestigious as the NRC fellowship. A folder of correspondence concerning Rabi is deposited at Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC, RF, IEB, Series 1.3, Box 57, Folder 937). For detailed criteria in selecting IEB fellows, see George W. Gray, Education on an International Scale: A History of the International Education Board, 1923–1938 (New York: Harcourt, 1941), 19–20.

  53. The 26 NRC fellows in physics were: Allen V. Astin, Willard H. Bennett, Francis T. Bitter, Charles J. Brasefield, Frank W. Constant, Austin M. Cravath, Jane M. Dewey, James L. Dunham, Theodore Dunham, Jr., John G. Frayne, Joseph H. Fraser, Gaylord P. Harnwell, Preston M. Harrie, Edward L. Hill, Sydney B. Ingram, Rudolph M. Langer, Julian E. Mack, Louis R. Maxwell, Joseph E. Mayer, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Boris Podolsky, Edward O. Salant, Caspar Shapiro, Shou Chin Wang, John G. Winans, and Mark W. Zemansky (NRC Research Fellowship Board Meeting Minutes, October 8, 1928, RAC, RF, IEB, Series 1, Box 9, Folder 132). The three theorists were mentioned in Sopka, Quantum Physics in America (ref. 45), 3.62. Boris Podolsky was noted later on his work with Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen on entangled wave functions and the EPR paradox.

  54. John Van Vleck’s Quantum Principles and Line Spectra (Washington, DC: National Research Council, 1926) “provided a timely, authoritative review of the field and also spotlighted the increasingly critical difficulties in the interpretation of spectra.” Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 197. For Wang’s research topic in 1928–29, see National Research Fellowships, 1919–1944 (ref. 48), 37. On Wang’s work in Madison, see John H. Van Vleck, “Fine Structure of Molecular Spectra in Madison and Interstellar Space (Julian E. Mack Lecture)” (Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, May 1, 1979), 13. I am very grateful to Chun C. Lin, John and Abigail Van Vleck Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, for providing me a copy of Van Vleck’s 1979 lecture.

  55. For Wang’s original research program as a NRC fellow, see NRC Research Fellowship Board Meeting Minutes (ref. 53), page 5. For actual hosting institutions for Wang in 1928–29, see National Research Fellowships, 1919–1944 (ref. 48), 37. On Heisenberg’s lectures in Chicago and his textbook, see David C. Cassidy, Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the Bomb (New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2009), 184–185.

  56. Dong, Physics in Modern China (ref. 2), 22.

  57. Hu, China and Albert Einstein (ref. 11), 117–18. The title of Chou’s dissertation was “The Gravitational Field of a Body with Rotational Symmetry in Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation.” The dates for Wang (June 7) and Chou (June 8) receiving their PhDs come from the author’s interview with Chou’s daughter, Dr. Ruling Chou in May 2005.

  58. Hu, China and Albert Einstein (ref. 11), 118–19, 121. Chou’s specialty in turbulence study proved useful to the US Navy in the mid-1940s. Chou’s IAS Membership: P. Y. Chou’s files at the IAS Archives. The date of Chou’s return to Beijing comes from Chou’s letter to A. Einstein, 7 July 1938, Albert Einstein Papers (photocopy), Special Collections, Mugar Library, Boston University, Boston, MA: 52-785-1.

  59. After an interruption of forty-one years, Chou resumed his study in general relativity and cosmology and published fifteen more papers when he was in his eighties (Hu, China and Albert Einstein (ref. 11), 121.)

  60. Dong, Physics in Modern China (ref. 2), 44, 63, 54, 282. For Lin’s data, see “Chia-Chiao Lin,” Wikipedia, accessed May 29, 2005, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chia-Chiao_Lin. IAS members’ data can be found at https://www.ias.edu/people/cos/.

  61. See Xiaodong Yin and Danian Hu, “王竹溪留学剑桥 [Studying in Cambridge: Jwu-Shi Wang’s Story],” 自然科学史研究 [Studies in the History of Natural Sciences] 33(4) (2014), 460.

  62. Dong, Physics in Modern China (ref. 2), 63. Chen Ning Yang, Selected Papers, 1945–1980, with Commentary (San Francisco, CA: W. H. Freeman, 1983), 14, 41–42; Yin and Hu, “Studying in Cambridge” (ref. 61), 461.

  63. Dong, Physics in Modern China (ref. 2), 54–55. For Chang’s date of departure from IAS, see “Chang, Tsung S.,” Institute for Advanced Study, accessed September 19, 2015, https://www.ias.edu/people/cos/users/4173. On Needham and Chang, see 尹晓冬 Xiaodong Yin, “李约瑟与张东荪父子两代人的交往 [Joseph Needham’s Association with Chang Tung-Sun and Chang’s Sons],” Journal of Dialectics of Nature 34(4) (2012), 33–35. Chang’s appointment in Pittsburgh is recorded in the Records of the Office of the Director/Member Files/Box 19/Chang, Tsung-Sui, Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ. Decades later, C. N. Yang praised Chang as “a most brilliant physicist.” See Chen Ning Yang, Selected Papers II, with Commentaries (Singapore: World Scientific, 2013), 142. (In Yang’s article, T.S. Chang’s name is spelled as “Zhang Zhong-Sui.”)

  64. Dong, Physics in Modern China (ref. 2), 282; Albert Einstein, Max Born, and Hedwig Born, The Born-Einstein Letters: Friendship, Politics, and Physics in Uncertain Times: Correspondence between Albert Einstein and Max and Hedwig Born from 1916 to 1955 with Commentaries by Max Born, new ed. (New York: Macmillan, 2005), 142, 153. Max Born, My Life: Recollections of a Noble Laureate (London: Scribner’s Sons, 1978), 289. Peng’s appointment at DIAS: “Annual Report of the Work of the Institute and its Constituent Schools Presented by the Council to the Minister for Education in Respect of the Financial Year 1945–1946,” Dublin Institute for Advanced Study, accessed September 19, 2015, http://www.dias.ie/images/stories/admin/Annualreports/AR%2045-46.pdf, 9.

  65. Chia-Chiao Lin (ref. 60).

  66. “林家翘 Chia-Chiao Lin,” Baidu, accessed August 31, 2015, http://baike.baidu.com/view/47185.htm.

  67. P. Epstein to W. Pauli, 15 October 1943, Records of the School of Natural Sciences/People Series/Box 2/“H” folder/selections: Hu, Ning, Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, USA. For detailed discussion of N. Hu’s work on gravitational radiation, see Daniel Kennefick, Traveling at the Speed of Thought: Einstein and the Quest for Gravitational Waves (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 147–49.

  68. Daniel Kennifick, e-mail exchange with author, August 31, 2015.

  69. I am deeply grateful to Ms. Erica Mosner at Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center of the IAS for generously helping me collect the extremely rich data in the Archives relevant to Chinese scientists working at IAS.

  70. Sources for Table 5: Qu, “Chinese Physicists Educated in Germany and America” (ref. 14), 138; Tongli Yuan, A Guide to Doctoral Dissertations by Chinese Students in America, 1905–1960 (Washington: Sino-American Cultural Society, 1961). I replaced Ying Fu (傅鹰) with Kuang-ya Chu (朱光亚) because Fu is generally considered to be a chemist and the latter’s dissertation was actually completed in June 1949, despite the 1950 copyright on the dissertation’s cover. See Kuang-Ya Chu, “A Study on the Decay Schemes of Gold-198 and Hafnium-181 by Means of a Beta-Ray Spectrometer and Coincidence Measurements” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1949).

  71. I say “at least twelve” because it is apparent that both Yuan and Qu classified some physicists into other categories, which requires further study to clarify. Sources for Table 6: “Former Chinese Barbour Scholars,” University of Michigan. Barbour Scholarship for Oriental Women Committee, box 1, folder Recipients, 1914–1983, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI; Yuan, Dissertations by Chinese Students (ref. 70); all original dissertations except Chao-lan Kao’s (the identification of Kao’s adviser is based on her co-authored paper, R. A. Oetjen, Chao-Lan Kao, and H. M. Randall, “The Infra-Red Prism Spectrograph as a Precision Instrument,” Review of Scientific Instruments 13(12) (1942); Dong, Physics in Modern China (ref. 2). I thank Prof. Xiaodong Yin at Capital Normal University in Beijing for sharing with me her knowledge about Chinese Barbour Scholars and Chinese physicists at the University of Michigan.

  72. The Barbour Scholarship for Oriental Women was created through the generosity of Levi L. Barbour. Barbour was a graduate of the University of Michigan (1863) and the Michigan Law School (1865) who went on to become a successful Detroit real estate developer. “Finding aid for Barbour Scholarship for Oriental Women Committee,” Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, accessed May 31, 2015, http://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/bhlead/umich-bhl-861142?view=text. For its detailed background, see “The Barbour Scholarships for Oriental Women at the University of Michigan,” University Bulletin (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan, 1922).

  73. M. C. Wang and G. E. Uhlenbeck, “On the Theory of the Brownian Motion-II,” Reviews of Modern Physics 17(2–3) (1945); C. S. Wang Chang and G. E. Uhlenbeck, “Transport Phenomena in Polyatomic Molecules” (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Publication, 1951); “On the Propagation Sound in Monatomic Gases,” in Studies in Statistical Mechanics (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1970).

  74. Ming-chen Wang, “转瞬九十载 [90 Years in a Flash],” 物理 [Physics] 35(3) (2006). In China, Wang spent nearly six years in jail during the Cultural Revolution and never fully realized her talent in theoretical physics.

  75. Dong, Physics in Modern China (ref. 2), 85, 150–51. Like his wife, W. Y. Chang also graduated from Yenching University. He then spent three years (1935–38) at Cambridge University studying with Sir Ernest Rutherford, Charles D. Ellis, and John D. Cockcroft before joining the physics faculty at the Southwest Associate University. In 1943, he came to the United States, working in the Palmer (now Joseph Henry) Lab at Princeton University (1943–50), where he discovered the first muonic (or mu-mesic) atom (W. Y. Chang, “A Cloud-Chamber Study of Meson Absorption by Thin Pb, Fe, and Al Foils,” Reviews of Modern Physics 21(1) (1940), 166–80. Chang accepted an appointment at Purdue University in 1950 and left America for China in 1956. See: 张文裕 Wen-yu Chang, “关于选著及有关的回忆 [On the Selected Papers and Relevant Memoirs],” in 张文裕论文选集 [Selected Papers of Wen-Yu Chang] (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 1989), 286–96. In the following three decades, Chang was a leader of China’s high-energy physics community.

  76. Hunt, “The American Remission” (ref. 33), 539.

  77. Dong, Physics in Modern China (ref. 2), 25–26, 33, 55–56. For data on Yang at the IAS, see “Yang, Chen Ning,” Institute for Advanced Study, accessed September 7, 2015, https://www.ias.edu/people/cos/users/6656. The 1946 Mission to US is discussed in 朱光亚 Kuang-ya Chu, “我和政道六十多年的友谊 [My Friendship with Tsung-Dao for More Than 60 Years],” in 李政道教授八十华诞文集 [Collected Papers Honoring the Eightieth Birthday of Professor T. D. Lee], ed. 中国高等科学技术中心 Zhongguo gao deng ke xue ji shu zhong xin (Shanghai Shanghai ke xue ji shu chu ban she, 2009), 243–44.

  78. Dong, Physics in Modern China (ref. 2), 36–37. Lee’s first diploma: 吴大猷 Ta-you Wu et al., 早期中国物理发展之回忆 [The Reminiscences of the Early Development in Chinese Physics] (Shanghai: Shanghai ke xue ji shu chu ban she, 2006), 98. Nobel Prize: “The Nobel Prize in Physics 1957,” accessed September 7, 2015, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1957/. Lee at the IAS: “Lee, Tsung Dao,” Institute for Advanced Study, accessed September 7, 2015, https://www.ias.edu/people/cos/users/6654.

  79. Wu’s IAS membership: “Wu, Ta-You,” Institute for Advanced Study, accessed June 2, 2015, https://www.ias.edu/people/cos/users/8036. Wu as Ma’s mentor: Dong, Physics in Modern China (ref. 2), 168.

  80. China Institute in America, A Survey of Chinese Students (ref. 39), 18.

  81. 郭金海 Guo Jinhai, 院士制度在中国的创立与重建 [the Establishment and Reconstruction of the Academician System in China] (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaotong daxue chubanshe, 2014), 235, 323.

  82. Dong, Physics in Modern China (ref. 2), 41.

  83. Ibid., 33; 吴大猷 Ta-you Wu, 吴大猷文录 [Essays of Wu Ta-You], ed. 卢嘉锡 et al., 大科学家文丛 [Essays of Great Scientists] (Hangzhou, Zhejiang: Zhejiang wen yi chubanshe, 1999), 337.

  84. The research work accomplished by Chinese physicists in America also contributed to American science and hence embodied what Zuoyue Wang has called the internationalization or trans-nationalization of American science. (Wang, email to the author, September 5, 2015; Zuoyue Wang, “Transnational Science During the Cold War: The Case of Chinese/American Scientists,” Isis 101(2) (2010), 367–77, on 377.)

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Acknowledgments

I gratefully acknowledge the support of Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro Fund at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), the Simon H. Rifkind Center for the Humanities and the Division of Humanities and Arts at The City College of New York, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany, which made relevant research for this paper possible. I am deeply obliged to Professor Freeman Dyson for his kindness and generosity to share with me his personal knowledge concerning some of the Chinese physicists discussed above. I am grateful to Marcia Tucker, Erica Mosner, Momota Ganguli, Karen Downing, and Terrie Bramley for their generous support at the IAS. Moreover, I thank Eric D. Weitz, David C. Cassidy, David Bello, Daniel J. Kennefick, SUN Lie, Zuoyue Wang, Chun C. Lin, and YIN Xiaodong, Lee R. Hiltzik, Johanna Zacharias, Jerry Kisslinger, and Nancy Rabi Lichtenstein for their assistance at various stages of this project. Last but not least, I wish to thank Peter Pesic, Joseph Martin, and Robert Crease for their careful and thoughtful editorial work on my paper.

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  1. Department of History, The City College of The City University of New York, 160 Convent Avenue, New York, NY, 10031, USA

    Danian Hu

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Correspondence to Danian Hu.

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Danian Hu is an Associate Professor in the Department of History of The City College of The City University of New York. He was Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro Member (2014–2015) at the Institute for Advanced Study and a visiting scholar (April–July 2015) at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany.

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Hu, D. American Influence on Chinese Physics Study in the Early Twentieth Century. Phys. Perspect. 17, 268–297 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-015-0174-8

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