Speaking of famous Chinese scientists, I am afraid that the name Qian Xuesen has never been circumvented. What I remember most clearly is that when I was in college, because I studied engineering, I was often exposed to various formula theorems. These formula theorems are almost all named after foreigners, and looking at these, I am actually quite depressed. Until I saw an aerodynamic formula: Carmen-Qian Xuesen's formula.
Qian Xuesen was born in 1911, he was the 33rd grandson of Qian Yue, the "Ten Kingdoms" of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, and was a famous nobleman at that time. However, he was not satisfied with this kind of life, and around 1911, the society was extremely turbulent. At that time, the country was facing serious internal and external troubles, the internal Xinhai Revolution was already brewing, and there were many external powers that wanted to divide China.
Faced with such a situation, Qian Xuesen was determined to serve the country from an early age, so he studied very hard. At that time, people's concept was, "learning to become a literary and martial art, a commodity and an imperial family", and most people either went to military schools or studied courses such as Chinese studies and literature. Qian Xuesen was no exception, and our great physicists and scientists later studied history and literature very hard. However, seeing foreigners' aircraft cannons running rampant in China, his study direction gradually shifted to science and engineering.
In 1935, Qian Xuesen studied in the United States under the study of von Carmen, a well-known international aerodynamic expert at that time. His scientific talents were quickly revealed, and he solved many other problems that his classmates could not solve, and won the favor of professors. Later, he and Carmen founded the Carmen-Qian Xuesen formula, and became an internationally renowned physicist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The honors were added to Qian Xuesen's body one after another, but he was not happy because of this, because his mind had always been concerned about the motherland. At that time, China was being pressed by the Japanese step by step, a large area of the country had fallen, and countless compatriots were in deep trouble, so Qian Xuesen was very eager to return to the motherland and serve the people. His salary in the United States that year was 200,000 US dollars / year, and the US dollar at that time was not as valuable as it is now. However, as the song "Su Wu Shepherd" sings:
"Su Wu, the Liuhu Festival is not humiliating. Snow and ice, poor for nineteen years. Thirsty for snow, hungry for felt, shepherding sheep on the north side of the Sea. The heart of the Han Society, the fall is still not returned.
What Su Wu could not let go of was the rune of the envoys of the Han Dynasty; what Qian Xuesen could not let go of was a fiery Chinese heart. He didn't even buy enough daily necessities for himself in the United States, but put valuable things in 3 boxes, so that he could carry the boxes and run back to China at any time. His mentor von Carmen went to his house and found that there were few decent pieces of furniture in his home in the United States.
Of course, Qian Xuesen, known as the "King of Rockets," was treated specially by the Americans. On the one hand, they gave Qian Xuesen an ultra-high salary and used money to bribe Qian Xuesen; on the other hand, they closely monitored Qian Xuesen to prevent him from secretly running back to China. However, when the news of the founding of New China reached Qian Xuesen's ears, he could not sit still at all, and he tried his best to return to China, even at the expense of direct conflict with the Americans.
Qian Xuesen's story was learned by China, and at that time, the country was also lacking such high-tech talents, so it tried its best to help Qian Xuesen return to China. Finally, on September 17, 1955, Qian Xuesen crossed many obstacles and returned from the United States to China and the embrace of the motherland. So, qian Xuesen, who earns $200,000 a year in the United States, what kind of salary is paid back to China? The answer is, $335.8.
Maybe everyone thinks that this salary is too low compared to $200,000, right? In fact, this salary was already a very high salary at that time. On the one hand, the price of goods in China at that time was very cheap, so the purchasing power of the renminbi was very strong, and the tuition fee for going to school at that time was only a few cents, compared with tens of thousands of tuition and miscellaneous fees compared to the current school movement, which was equivalent to the purchasing power of the currency at that time was close to more than 100,000 times that of now.
At the same time, the wage system at that time was different from what it is now. Wages are now astronomically high and pitifully low; this was not allowed at the time. The wage standards adopted in 1950 divided the salaries of the organs into 25 levels, of which the highest salary was 594 yuan per month, and the salary of 335 yuan was enough to match the salary of the lieutenant general.
It can be seen that although Qian Xuesen's salary amount seemed relatively small at that time, in fact, his salary at that time was a very high salary in China, and its purchasing power was also very large. At that time, China was poor and weak, so in essence, it was not allowed for some people who were too rich to be too poor, but in order to show respect and attention to scientists like Qian Xuesen, the state directly set his salary to an astronomical amount at that time.
However, Qian Xuesen never returned to China for the renminbi or the US dollar, he himself said: "If the people say that Qian Xuesen has done something for the country and the nation, it is the highest reward, and I am not rare in those foreign honorary titles!" My last name is Qian, but I don't love money. "Loyalty to the country is his pursuit, money is only an accessory product of his pursuit of serving the country and the people, he does not care very much." In addition, he is concentrated on scientific research and does not pay much attention to material enjoyment, so the influence of money on him is not very large.
If Qian Xuesen really loved money, he would not come back from the United States. I hope that in the future, if our country has a little more great scientists like Qian Xuesen, who integrate wisdom and patriotism, then our country will be even stronger!