In October 1937, a beggar suddenly rushed to the gate of Tsinghua Garden and gave the pickle jar in his arms to Principal Mei Yiqi. Inside the jar was radium, the core material of the atomic bomb. This shabby-looking beggar, ragged and ragged, is actually Zhao Zhongrao, the pioneer of China's nuclear physics research cause.
Zhao Zhongyao, born in 1902 in Zhuji, Zhejiang, in 1920, with excellent results, was admitted to Nanjing Higher Normal School (later expanded to Southeast University), and taught at Tsinghua University after graduation, during which he was worried about the backwardness of national science and technology, and resolutely decided to study abroad. During his study abroad in the United States, he became the first physicist to discover antimatter, a great achievement that also established his position in the world physics community. Later, Zhao Zhongyao came to the famous Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom to visit, under the guidance of the famous physicist Rutherford, Rutherford was impressed by his diligence and studiousness, before leaving, he specially gave 50 mg of radioactive radium to Zhao Zhongyao as a gift.
In order to protect the 50 mg radioactive radium from falling into the hands of the Japanese, he gave up going to Changsha with a large army and sneaked back to Beiping instead.
On July 7, 1937, the Japanese army launched a full-scale invasion of China, and a few days later, the war approached Peiping. On September 10, teachers and students received notice to begin evacuating the Pingjin area to a temporary university set up in Changsha. Professor Zhao Zhongyao was also ready to evacuate and go to Changsha, but he did not leave immediately, because he remembered one thing, that is, the 50 mg radium that Rutherford gave him was still preserved in the laboratory of Tsinghua University, at that time, Peiping had fallen, so returning to Tsinghua Garden was a very dangerous thing, but Professor Zhao Zhongyao was worried that once the 50 mg radium fell into the hands of the Japanese army, the consequences would be unimaginable. Later, with the help of Liang Sicheng, he risked being caught by Japanese soldiers at any time and successfully obtained the 50 mg radium.
In order not to let the 50 mg radium fall into the hands of the Japanese, he found a pickle jar, put the lead cylinder containing radium in the pickle jar, dressed himself as a commoner, and marched to Changsha with the fleeing crowd.
In order to protect these radium, he chose to go out day and night, and did not dare to take the main road, only to pick those inaccessible wilderness paths. He threw away almost all his luggage, but never let the pickle jar leave him. For more than a month, the originally personable university professor turned a beggar with tattered clothes, disheveled face, and a stick. Finally, he finally came to the door of the Changsha Temporary University Office, and tears could not help but fall. Just as Principal Mei Yiqi came out of the inner room to send a guest, he shouted "Principal Mei" in a hoarse voice, and he cried bitterly. Mei Yiqi did not recognize this "beggar" at first, but when she took a closer look, she found that it was Professor Zhao Zhongyao, who rushed forward to hold his hand, and tears came out of her eyes...
The 50 mg radium was later brought to the Southwest United University, but due to the simple scientific research environment at that time, high-energy physics experiments could not be carried out normally, and the radium that Zhao Zhongyao desperately saved failed to play its due role, but could only be quietly sealed. Until 1959, when the first particle accelerator project in China, which he participated in designing, was successfully completed, the 50mg radium on the display finally burst out of the dazzling and charming brilliance.
Zhao Zhongrao, together with his teacher Ye Qisun, trained a group of talents who later made important contributions to China's atomic bomb cause: Qian Sanqiang, Deng Jiaxian, Cheng Kaijia, nobel laureates in physics Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao also trained under Zhao Zhongrao.