Wang Ganchang

Wang Ganchang (May 28, 1907 – December 10, 1998) was a Chinese nuclear physicist.

He was one of the founding fathers of Chinese nuclear physics, cosmic rays and particle physics.

Wang was also a leader in the fields of detonation physics experiments, anti-electromagnetic pulse technology, nuclear explosion detection, anti-nuclear radiation technology, and laser stimulated nuclear explosion technologies.

For his numerous contributions, Wang is considered among the top leaders, pioneers and scientists of the Chinese nuclear weapons program.

He was elected a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and was a member of the Chinese Communist party.

Wang Ganchang was born in Zhitang (支塘镇枫塘湾), Changshu, Jiangsu Province on May 28, 1907.

In 1924, he graduated from Pudong High School (浦东中学) in Shanghai.

Subsequently, he studied English for six months while driving and repairing cars to sustain himself.

He passed the entrance examinations for Tsinghua University in August 1928.

He graduated from the Physics Department of Tsinghua in June 1929, and served as an assistant professor from 1929 to 1930.

In his thesis "On the daily change of radon gas" (《清华园周围氡气的强度及每天的变化》), he was the first Chinese scientist to publish on atmospheric research and radioactive experiments.

In 1930, Wang first proposed the use of a cloud chamber to study a new type of high-energy ray induced by the bombardment of beryllium with α particles.

In 1930 he went to study at the University of Berlin in Germany.

As soon as he arrived in Berlin, he became aware of the Bothe report (博特报告) relating to the emission of a new type of high-energy neutral radiation induced by the bombardment of beryllium with α particles from a radioactive polonium source, which was non-ionizing but even more penetrating than the strongest gamma rays derived from radium.

These were (wrongly) presumed to be gamma rays.

Wang suggested the use of a cloud chamber to study these particles.

However, he could not perform this experiment during his time in Germany, since he lacked the support of his supervisor Lise Meitner.

Instead, it was conducted one year later by the English physicist James Chadwick, who discovered a new type of particle, the neutron.

In 1934, Wang Ganchang received his Ph.D. with a thesis on β decay spectrum (German: Über die β-Spektren von ThB+C+C; Chinese:《ThB+C+C的β能谱》) under the supervision of Meitner.

He returned to China in April of that year.

He first worked at Shandong University as a physics professor from 1934 to 1936.

Chadwick was subsequently awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize in Physics.

During or after his time in Germany, Wang worked briefly at UC Berkeley in the United States.

He then became a professor at Zhejiang University and served as head of the Department of Physics there from October 1936 to 1950.

After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 1937, the Japanese invasion of China forced Wang and other professors to retreat with all the faculty of Zhejiang University to the western mountainous rural areas of China to escape capture.

Despite the difficult conditions, he nonetheless tried in 1939 to find evidence of tracks of nuclear fission caused by neutron bombardment of cadmium acid on photographic film.

In 1941 Wang first proposed the use of beta-capture to detect the neutrino.

In 1941, he first proposed an experiment to prove the existence of the neutrino by capturing K-electrons in nuclear reactions.

Unfortunately, due to the war he was unable to conduct this experiment.

James Allen employed his suggestion and found evidence for the existence of the neutrino in 1942.

After May 1950, Wang became researcher and vice-director of the Institute of Modern Physics.

He was also vice-director of the Soviet Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.

Frederick Reines and Clyde Cowan detected the neutrino via the inverse beta-decay reaction in 1956, for which, forty years later, they were awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Wang also led a group which discovered the anti-sigma minus hyperon particle at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia in 1959.

From spring of 1969 onwards, Wang held many high-level positions within Chinese academic and political organizations.

He was vice-director of the Ninth Research Institute (二机部第九研究院), predecessor of the China Academy of Engineering Physics, director of the China Institute of Atomic Energy, deputy director of the Nuclear industry Science and Technology Commission (核工业部科技委), and second vice-chairman of the China Association for Science and Technology.

He was also vice-chairman of the Chinese Physical Society and the first chairman of the Chinese Nuclear Society.

In 2000, the Chinese Physical Society established five prizes in recognition of five pioneers of modern physics in China.

The Wang Ganchang Prize is awarded to physicists in particle physics and inertial confinement fusion.

Within the political sphere he was a member of the 3rd through 16th National People's Congress Standing Committees of the Chinese government.