On May 9, the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences released an obituary:
Bai Yilong, a famous mechanist in mainland China, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, academician of the European Academy of Sciences, member of the 10th and 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, former deputy director of the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and president of the Chinese Society of Mechanics, died at 9:21 on May 9 in Beijing at the age of 83.
The funeral service is scheduled to be held at 9 a.m. on Monday, May 13, 2024 at the East Auditorium of Babaoshan Funeral Home.
Academician Bai Yilong has made outstanding achievements in the fields of nonlinear mechanics of explosion, solid deformation damage and catastrophic transformation.
The theory of thermoplastic shear zone proposed by him has been recognized as the "white criterion" by the international academic community.
He created the statistical meso-mechanics theory of damage and failure, and made leading contributions to the dynamic behavior of materials.
He put forward the new idea of evolution-induced catastrophe and made important contributions to the needs of major national projects.
The death of Academician Bai Yilong is a great loss to the Chinese mechanics community!
Shocked by the bad news, netizens left messages of condolences!
In 1940, Bai Yilong was born in a family of clerks in Xiangyun County, Yunnan Province. From 1946 to 1950, he studied in Kunming and Hangzhou. In 1950, he moved to Beijing with his parents.
In 1958, he was admitted to the Department of Modern Mechanics of the University of Science and Technology of China. Here, he was also taught by the famous scientist Qian Xuesen.
After graduating from university, Bai Yilong continued to study in the university, and in 1964, he was successfully admitted to the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences as a graduate student after recommendation and examination.
During his graduate studies, Bai Yilong studied under Mr. Zheng Zhemin, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, one of the leaders of modern mechanics in mainland China. Mr. Zheng studied under Mr. Qian Weichang and Mr. Qian Xuesen, and the academic and scientific research has been passed down from generation to generation.
In 1966, Bai Yilong, who had already obtained a master's degree, stayed in the institute and began to engage in mechanics research. From 1979 to 1981, Bai Yilong also went to Oxford University and Cambridge University as a visiting scholar in the United Kingdom.
Whether at home or abroad, Bai Yilong has an unremitting pursuit of scientific research. He always remembered Mr. Cheng Zhemin's earnest teachings. Zheng Zhemin once said two sentences to Bai Yilong, one is "You have to do sweaty work, don't think about working without sweating, that kind of work is meaningless", and the other is "If you want to do it, you have to do it better than others, if you feel that you can't do it better than others, don't do it".
In the early 80s, Bai Yilong took the lead in establishing the governing equation of thermoplastic shear deformation and a series of innovative conclusions, which were cited by some famous international literature, known as "white model" and "white criterion".
In addition, he has also made outstanding achievements in many fields such as spacecraft materials, evolutionary mutagenesis, and explosion method to produce diamonds.
In order to solve the problem of a large number of micro-damage caused by the loading of real materials, he established the sub-microsecond stress pulse technique, and proposed the theory of statistical mesoscopic damage mechanics and evolution-induced mutagenesis. He participated in the research of the strength of blasting dies and the explosion method for the manufacture of diamonds. In view of the propagation of nuclear blast waves, the attenuation mechanism of stress waves is explained.
It is also because of his outstanding contributions to scientific research that Academician Bai Yilong has won many scientific research awards and honors in his life. For example, he has won the second prize of the National Natural Science Award, the Ho Leung Ho Lee Science and Technology Progress Award, the Zhou Peiyuan Mechanics Award, the John Rinehart Award of the TMS Society of America, and the Chen Kah Kee Mathematical Science Award.
In particular, Academician Bai Yilong is the first Chinese scientist to receive the John Rinehart Award. In order to show respect for Academician Bai Yilong, the award committee also sent a special representative to China to reissue the award.
Academician Bai Yilong is a strategic scientist and outstanding leader of nonlinear mechanics in China.
He has served as the director of the State Key Laboratory of Nonlinear Mechanics, the 6th President of the Chinese Society of Mechanics, and the Chairman of the 23rd International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. He organized major scientific research projects on nonlinear mechanics and led the strategic planning of the development of mechanics in China, which greatly enhanced the status of Chinese nonlinear mechanics in the international academic community.
He is an example of learning and practice for scientific researchers, who focuses on scientific research and relentlessly pushes the boundaries of mechanics. His papers and books are like monuments, recording the process of Chinese mechanics from following to leading.
Academician Bai Yilong was the deputy editor-in-chief of Science China and Science Bulletin, as well as the editor-in-chief of Advances in Mechanics and the executive editorial board member of Acta Mechanica Sinica. He is also a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Impact Engineering and a member of the Advisory Board of the French journal DYMAT.
This is a top scientist, however, Academician Bai Yilong is most praised not only for his academic achievements, but also for his selfless dedication to the cause of science and the careful cultivation of younger generations. He is well aware of the importance of knowledge inheritance, and has always insisted on devoting himself to education in addition to scientific research. He is willing to be a ladder for others, and has cultivated a large number of outstanding talents in the field of mechanics.
Academician Bai Yilong's life is the persistence and inheritance of the scientific spirit. He has dedicated his life to the cause of science and technology in the motherland, and I have to say that this is the "star" that young people should chase!
Although the superstar has fallen, his spirit and achievements will forever inspire those who come after him. It's really precious to do only one thing in your life!
Academician Bai Yilong through the ages!
Go all the way!
Content source: WeChat public account of the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences / Chinese Society of Mechanics / Baidu Encyclopedia / Netizen comments, etc. Cover: Picture worm
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