Wang Ming-chen

Wang Ming-chen (pinyin: Wáng Míngzhēn, November 18, 1906 – August 28, 2010[1]) was a Chinese theoretical physicist and a professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. As one of the first few Chinese female students studying science abroad, she was best known for her work on stochastic process and Brownian motion with George Uhlenbeck[1][5][6] as well as the first female professor of Tsinghua University according to some source.[1][nb 1]

In this Chinese name, the family name is Wang.
Wang Ming-chen
Born(1906-11-18)November 18, 1906
Suzhou, Jiangsu, Qing China
DiedAugust 28, 2010(2010-08-28) (aged 103)[1]
Beijing, China
Education
Spouse
Yu Qizhong
​
​
(m. 1948; until his death 1995)​
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
Doctoral advisorGeorge Uhlenbeck
Other academic advisorsSamuel Goudsmit
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese王明貞
Simplified Chinese王明贞
Wade–GilesWang Ming-chen
Hanyu PinyinWáng Míngzhēn

Wang Ming-chen and her cousin He Zehui were sometimes separately credited as "The Chinese Madame Curie".[1][8]

Biography

Wang was born into a large prominent family in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province on November 18, 1906 (or the 3rd day of the 10th month of year Bingwu / the 32nd year of Guangxu in the Qing dynasty of the Chinese Lunar Calendar)[2][1][3] Her siblings include several renowned Chinese scientists, physicians, and engineers, who pursued western education in the early 1900s.[3] Wang was also among the first Chinese female students,[9] who received undergraduate education in Christian schools Ginling College, Nanjing (first and second year)[2][3][9] and the Yanjing University, Beijing (third and last year).[2][3] She also received her master's degree from Yanjing University in 1932.[2][3]

According to her own autobiography, after missing two scholarship opportunities from Barbour Scholars, the University of Michigan and Sino-British Boxer Indemnity Scholarship to study physics abroad because she was unable to afford the transportation and gender discrimination,[3] she eventually arrived at the US to study theoretical physics at the University of Michigan in 1938, under another application of Barbour Scholars. She taught at Ginling College from circa 1932 to circa 1937,[3] but fled Nanjing for Wuhan on the eve of Japanese invasion of the city (see Nanking Massacre).[3] She moved to the Shanghai branch of Ginling College circa January 1938.[10][11]

She received her PhD in 1942 in the University of Michigan and published several papers in the area of statistical mechanics with George Uhlenbeck and Samuel Goudsmit.[12] During the war time (1943–1945), she worked on noise in MIT Radiation Laboratory. It was then she published the paper "On the Theory of the Brownian Motion II" with Uhlenbeck.[3][2][5] James L. Lawson and Uhlenbeck also acknowledged Wang in the preface of Threshold Signals, a book from the MIT Radiation Laboratory Series, which published the researches of the lab.[13]

After the war, she returned to China in 1946[3] and became a professor of the mathematics and physics department at Yunnan University from 1947 to 1949.[3][1] She married scholar Yu Qizhong (Chinese: 俞启忠) in 1948.[3][1] In 1949, due to the Chinese Civil War, Wang decided to go back to the US and worked in the University of Notre Dame[1] with Eugene Guth[14] until the Korean War broke out. She resigned from Notre Dame and eventually returned to China in 1955.[1] She was not allowed to return to China despite application was filed in circa 1953,[3] as the US was in the McCarthyism period, as well as she had worked in sensitive research area. Nevertheless her husband was allowed to leave or stay with her from 1953 to 1955.[3]

In 1955, Wang became a professor of physics at Tsinghua University, Beijing[1][15] and taught statistical physics and thermodynamics until the Culture Revolution started in 1966. In 1966, Wang was suddenly arrested and imprisoned until 1973.[3][1]

Her husband Yu was also arrested until finally being released in 1975. After the Cultural Revolution ended, the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China announced that Wang and Yu's arrest was completely unjust and was due to political persecution by Jiang Qing, then Mao's wife and a member of the Gang of Four.[3]Early on, Jiang Qing was in a relationship with Yu Qiwei (also named Huang Jing), the elder brother of Yu Qizhong. The whole Yu family were persecuted during the Culture Revolution.

Wang retired from Tsinghua in 1976[3] and lived in Beijing until she died in 2010.

Personal life

Her younger brothers Wang Shouwu,[3] Wang Shoujue,[2][3] brother-in-law Lu Xueshan (husband of Wang Shoucan) were members of Chinese Academy of Sciences;[3] her older sister Wang Shuzhen was a professor in obstetrics and gynaecology and president of the Red House Hospital in Shanghai.[2][3]

Wang Mingzhen's grandmother founded a girl middle school in Suzhou, a predecessor of Suzhou No.10 Middle School, of which Wang was an alumna[3] as well as some of her family members. Wang's father, K.T. Wang (Chinese: 王季同), published the Wang-algebra; according to some historians, K.T. Wang's paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy in 1911,[16] was one of the earliest papers by a Chinese scientist to appear in a foreign journal.[17]

Footnotes
  1. It was reported that Lu Shijia was employed by Tsinghua as a research fellow in the late 1940s, as it was not permitted to hire couple as professors. Her husband was Zhang Wei[7]

References
  1. 郭少峰 (September 7, 2010). 清华大学首位女教授王明贞去世. 新京报 [The Beijing News] (in Chinese (China)). Retrieved August 6, 2018.
  2. 应纯同 [Ying Chuntong]; 卓韵裳 [Zhuo Yunshang] (2001). 王明贞 [Wang Ming-Chen] (PDF). 中国科学技术专家传略 (in Chinese (China)). Vol. 理学编 物理学卷2. 中国科学技术出版社 [China Science and Technology Press] – via cpsjournals.org.cn.
  3. Wang Ming-Chen (2006). "Zhuǎn shùn jiǔ shí zài" 转瞬九十载 [Twinkling Ninety Years]. 物理 [Physics] (autobiography) (in Chinese (China)). 35 (3): 0. ISSN 0379-4148.
  4. Wu Ta-You (April 2001) [n.d. for the original speech]. 早期的物理學機構 [Early physics institutes]. In 沈君山; Wu Ta-You Foundation (eds.). 早期中國物理發展的回憶 [Memoirs of early development of Chinese physics] (speech transcript) (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Organizers: 黃偉彥, 葉銘漢, 戴念祖. Taipei: 聯經出版事業 [Linking Publishing]. p. 82. ISBN 9570822171.
  5. Wang Ming-Chen; Uhlenbeck, G.E. (April–July 1945). "On the Theory of the Brownian Motion II". Reviews of Modern Physics. 17 (2–3): 323–342. Bibcode:1945RvMP...17..323W. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.17.323. ISSN 0034-6861.
  6. Ford, George W. (2009). George Eugene Uhlenbeck 1900–1988: A Biographical Memoir (PDF). Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences. p. 13.
  7. Wang Bing (2015) [first edition published in 2003]. Lee, Lily X.H.; Stefanowska, A.D. (eds.). Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: The Twentieth Century. Abingdon-on-Thames, New York City: Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group). p. 388. ISBN 9780765607980.
  8. 李尔燕 (July 11, 2011). 何泽慧：为什么如此低调. 中国青年报 (in Chinese (China)). p. 2.
  9. 杨笛 [Yang Di] (January 2016). 冲破科学的性别樊篱 [Breaking through the Barriers of Science and Gender]. Collection of Women's Studies (in Chinese (China)) (133). ISSN 1004-2563.
  10. Hu Hualing; Zhang Lian-hong, eds. (2010) [original diaries written in 1937–1940 and 1937–38 respectively]. "Notes". The Undaunted Women of Nanking: The Wartime Diaries of Minnie Vautrin and Tsen Shui-Fang. Translated by Hu Hualing; Zhang Lian-hong. Carbondale, Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press. p. 215. ISBN 978-0-8093-2963-2.
  11. Tsen Shui-Fang (2010) [written on January 22, 1938]. "Life and Problems inside the Ginling Camp". In Hu Hualing; Zhang Lian-hong (eds.). The Undaunted Women of Nanking: The Wartime Diaries of Minnie Vautrin and Tsen Shui-Fang. Translated by Hu Hualing; Zhang Lian-hong. Carbondale, Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press. p. 115. ISBN 978-0-8093-2963-2.
  12. Goudsmit, S.; Wang Ming‐Chen (1940). "Introduction to the Problem of the Isochronous Hairspring" (PDF). J. Appl. Phys. 11 (12): 806–815. Bibcode:1940JAP....11..806G. doi:10.1063/1.1712740. hdl:2027.42/70943.
  13. Lawson, James L.; Uhlenbeck, George E., eds. (1950) [Preface written in November 1949]. "Preface". Threshold Signals. MIT Radiation Laboratory series. Vol. 24. Cambridge, MA: McGraw-Hill Book.
  14. Wang Ming-Chen; Guth, Eugene (1952). "Statistical Theory of Networks of Non‐Gaussian Flexible Chains". The Journal of Chemical Physics. 20 (7): 1144–1157. Bibcode:1952JChPh..20.1144W. doi:10.1063/1.1700682.
  15. 我校祝贺王明贞先生95岁华诞. 清华新闻网 (in Chinese (China)). Beijing: Tsinghua University. November 20, 2001. Retrieved August 6, 2018.
  16. Wang, K.T. (1911–1912). "The Differentiation of Quaternion Function". Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Section A. 29: 73–80. JSTOR 20490611.
  17. 郭金海 [Guo Jin-hai] (2002). 王季同与四元函数的微分法 [K.T. Wang and the Differentiation of Quaternion Functions]. 中國科技史料 [China Historical Materials of Science and Technology] (in Chinese (China)). 23 (1).

Further reading
  • 童蔚 (2008). 一代女才 玉汝以成——记我的邻居王明贞. In 史际平; 杨嘉实; 陶中源 (eds.). Jia zai qing hua 家在清华 [Home in Tsinghua] (in Chinese (China)) (1 ed.). Jinan: 山东画报出版社 [Shandong Pictorial Publishing House]. ISBN 9787807136576.
  • 戴念祖 [Dai Nianzu]; 葉銘漢 [Ye Minghan] (April 2001). 註釋 [Footnotes]. In 沈君山; Wu Ta-You Foundation (eds.). Zao qi zhong guo wu li fa zhan de hui yi 早期中國物理發展的回憶 [Memoirs of early development of Chinese physics] (speech transcript) (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Taipei: 聯經出版事業 [Linking Publishing]. p. 185. ISBN 9570822171.
  • Xiong, Rosalinda (n.d.). "Ginling College, the University of Michigan and the Barbour Scholarship" (PDF). Retrieved August 7, 2018.
  • "Ming-chen Wang". Barbour Scholars. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan. n.d. Retrieved August 7, 2018.

See also
  • Qian Xuesen, fellow Chinese scientist who also studied in the US (MIT, Caltech) and also returned to Mainland China in 1950s
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