Wu Youxun

Wu Youxun

Wu Youxun , also quoted as Yui Hsun Woo and YH Woo, (born February 26, 1897 in Gao'an , † November 30, 1977 in Beijing ) was a Chinese physicist. He was a prominent exponent of modern physics in China and influenced numerous students in China.

Wu studied at the University of Chicago , where he received his doctorate in 1925 with Arthur Holly Compton with a thesis on the Compton effect . The Compton effect has been the subject of many papers by Wu, he examined it in different materials and its temperature dependence. In 1926 he was back in China, where he became a faculty member at Jiangxi University . In 1928 he became a professor at the University of southeast China , at the Beijing University and the Tsinghua University . From 1937 to 1945 he was Dean of the College of Science at the National Southwestern Associated University in Kunming . In 1946 he became a professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University and in 1950 he became director of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, of which he was vice-president until his death.

In 1935 he became a member of the Leopoldina . From 1958 to 1977 he was Vice President of the China Association for Science and Technology.

In 2000, the Chinese Physical Society founded the Wu Youxun Prize in Nuclear Physics.

Web links

• Michael F. L'Annunziata, Radioactivity: Introduction and History, From the Quantum to Quarks, Hall of Fame Part III, p. 231, Google Books
• Member entry of Yui Hsun Woo (with picture) at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on March 5, 2017.

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Wu is the family name here, Youxun is the first name.