Physics in Red China

APR 01, 1960

The following article has been reprinted in full from the October issue of the Chinese Communist journal Scientia Sinica (Vol. 8, No. 10, 1959) where it appeared under the title “Ten Years’ Development of Physics in China”. Those listed as joint authors are Chang Chih‐san, Huang Kun, Maa Dah‐you, Shih Ju‐wei, Tsien Ling‐chao, Wang Jwu‐shi, Wang Shou‐wu, and Woo Yu‐hsun. Scientia Sinica is published monthly in English by the Academia Sinica in Peking, with T. C. Yun as the chairman of its editorial committee. This journal, which covers other sciences as well, is in its eighth year and is currently publishing about 1400 pages per year, of which 250 or more are devoted to physics. The total number of scientific publications in Communist China (there are now some 450) is reported to have increased 500% over the past five years. Publication is largely the affair of the Academy, which in organization is understood to have been patterned after the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3056910

Physics Today

Physics, being a subject which underlies all branches of science and technology, has, with its tremendous advance in this century, contributed greatly to the development of modern science in general. Moreover, the progress of physics, through its revolutionary impact on modern technology, is bringing profound changes to man’s mode of life. However, while China was under the corrupt rule of the old regime, the mode of production remained in a most backward state, and modern science found very little development. Scattered researches in physics first appeared in this country around the nineteen thirties. These early researches were severely limited in personnel and equipment and the subjects investigated were confined largely to some work in the field of theoretical physics, x‐ray physics, spectroscopy, and radioactivity. Then, with the beginning of the war against Japan, whatever research work that had existed was in effect discontinued.

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