One day in November 1937, Mei Yiqi, then president of Tsinghua University, had just arrived at the school gate when a beggar suddenly rushed up and hugged him and cried bitterly. Mei Yiqi was stunned, and when he looked at it carefully, he was even more surprised, this person was actually Zhao Zhongyao, a professor at Tsinghua University.
For Zhao Zhongyao's name, the Chinese people may know very little. But he is one of the world's top scientists, the father of Atomic Energy in China, and the world's first physicist to discover antimatter. Because of the mistakes of the Nobel Prize jury, he lost the Nobel Prize! He is a superstar in the history of human science, and he is a hero worthy of Chinese admiration!
Zhao Zhongyao
On June 27, 1902, Zhao Zhongyao was born in Zhuji, Zhejiang. His father was a private school teacher, a man with the sentiment of "profiting the country to live and die", and when he saw the poor and backward appearance of old China at that time, his heart was indignant. Zhao Zhongyao's father sternly urged Zhao Zhongyao to study hard, hoping that the child could contribute to the future of the country.
In 1920, Zhao Zhongyao was admitted to nanjing higher normal school, and after graduation, he stayed in southeast university, which was expanded and renamed, as a teaching assistant. He works steadily and is willing to study, and is deeply respected by ye Qisun, the predecessor of the physics community. In the summer of 1925, Ye Qisun was ordered to prepare for the undergraduate study of Tsinghua Xuetang University, and went with Zhao Zhongyao to let him take up a post in the newly established physics laboratory.
Group photo with Nanjing Senior Teacher in the winter of 1923, Zhao Zhongyao (middle)
In the early summer of 1926, at the entrance of the Science Museum of Tsinghua University, a row of ye Qisun in the middle row and Zhao Zhongyao, the second right in the back row
But in his work at Tsinghua, Zhao Zhongyao deeply felt the huge gap between China and the West, and his inability to reach the forefront of science and technology in the world made him anxious!
In the summer of 1927, with the financial support of teachers and friends, the 25-year-old Zhao Zhongyao embraced the ideal of knowledge to save the country and went to the California Institute of Technology in the United States to study under Professor Millikan, who had just won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
In 1929, Zhao Zhongyao took a group photo with his tutor while studying at The California Institute of Technology in the United States. In the front row, the fourth right is directly behind Zhao Zhongyao
In 1929, Zhao Zhongyao first discovered in experimental research that when hard g-rays pass through heavy elements, there is abnormal absorption and produce a special radiation. Zhao Zhongyao's work was a pioneer in positron discovery, but unfortunately, it did not receive enough attention at that time. Two years later, Zhao Zhongyao's classmate Philip Anderson won the Nobel Prize in Physics for observing the footprints of positrons, but Zhao Zhongyao, the first person to discover positrons, was left out.
Half a century later, in 1983, Anderson also wrote the story of that year: when the results of his classmate Zhao Zhongyao's experiment came out, he was in Zhao Zhongyao's next office, when he realized that Zhao Zhongyao's experimental results had shown that there was a new substance that people did not yet know, and his research was inspired by Zhao Zhongyao.
Philip Anderson
Professor Aux-Bon, an academician of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and former director of the Nobel Prize in Physics, specifically mentioned Zhao Zhongyao's historical merit in his book, and he frankly said: This is a "very disturbing omission that can no longer be repaired, and Zhao Zhongyao is a real Nobel Laureate in the hearts of physicists in the world!"
In 1931, Zhao Zhongyao visited the famous Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, where he studied under the famous physicist Rutherford. In the process of teaching, Rutherford was impressed by Zhao Zhongyao's spirit of diligent study, and when Zhao Zhongyao returned to China, he specially gave him a 50-gram radioactive experimental radium. Zhao Zhongyao was particularly touched, although this kind of radium was banned all over the world, he still went through all kinds of difficulties and dangers to bring the 50 grams of radium back to China, and stored in the safe of tsinghua university laboratory for research.
Rutherford
In 1931, after completing his studies, Zhao Zhongyao refused to be retained by all parties and returned to China after much hardship to become a professor in the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University. Zhao Zhongyao, together with his teacher Ye Qisun, cultivated a group of talents who later made important contributions to China's atomic energy cause: Wang Ganchang, Peng Huanwu, Qian Sanqiang, Deng Jiaxian, Zhu Guangya, Zhou Guangzhao, Cheng Kaijia, Tang Xiaowei... Nobel laureates Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao were also trained by Zhao Zhongyao.
In 1935, some teachers and students of the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University took a group photo: Zhao Zhongyao, the third left in the front row, and Qisun on the left
In July 1937, the ambitions of the Japanese were exposed, and the entire city of Peiping fell into a state of panic, even the usually quiet Qinghua Garden was not spared, and a large number of books and instruments were looted by the Japanese. In order to preserve the excellent bloodline of the Chinese nation, on September 10, the authorities asked Tsinghua University to move to Changsha.
At the time of the notification, Zhao Zhongyao was lecturing in a foreign country, but he returned to the Tsinghua campus in spite of his safety, because there was an item he had to take with him, that is, the radium given to him by Professor Rutherford.
With the help of Liang Sicheng, Zhao Zhongyao evaded the Japanese guard post and finally took the lead barrel containing radium from the laboratory.
Liang Sicheng
In order to avoid the Japanese search, Zhao Zhongyao put the lead bucket into the pickle jar, pretended to be crazy and stupid all the way, and followed the fleeing people to Changsha. On the way, he lost all his luggage, and only the pickle jar in his hand was inseparable from him.
35-year-old Zhao Zhongyao, holding a pickle jar, his chest was ground out of two bright red blood marks, walked for more than a month, and finally walked from Beijing to Changsha, the university professor who was originally Yushu Linfeng, became a unkempt beggar...
But the doorman saw Zhao Zhongyao holding a wooden stick in one hand and a dirty jar in the other, the whole person was disheveled, his body was emitting a sour smell, and he was a beggar who was alive, so he stopped him from entering.
It just so happened that Principal Mei Yiqi was out to send a guest, and Zhao Zhongyao, as if grasping the life-saving straw, pounced on it, hugged Mei Yiqi, shouted "Principal Mei" in a hoarse voice, and cried bitterly. Mei Yiqi did not recognize this "beggar" at first, but when she took a closer look, she found that it was Actually Zhao Zhongyao, who rushed forward to hold his hand, and tears came out of her eyes...
After Zhao Zhongyao entered the office with Principal Mei, he solemnly put the pickle jar on the desk before he sighed lightly: "Now I can sleep peacefully!" ”
Mei Yiqi
Later, using these 50 grams of radium, Zhao Zhongyao did a series of radioactive experiments, cultivated a group of great "two bombs and one satellite" founders, and founded China's first nuclear physics laboratory, developed a key accelerator for nuclear weapons, and laid a solid foundation for the development of the mainland's nuclear cause.
Professor Zhao Zhongyao was unfortunate, he missed the Nobel Prize and the "Two Bombs and One Star" Meritorious Medal; but he must be happy, 9 of the 22 "Two Bombs and One Star" meritorious scientists were his students!
On May 28, 1998, Zhao Zhongyao died of illness at the age of 96. He who has dedicated his life silently should be well known to the people of the country and should be praised by the world!
Group photo of Deng Xiaoping and other party and state leaders and scientists attending the groundbreaking ceremony of the electron-positron collider in Beijing in October 1984 (the fourth person from right in the second row is Zhao Zhongyao)