Kerson Huang (; 15 March 1928 – 1 September 2016) was a Chinese-born American

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experi ...

and translator. Huang was born in

Nanning Nanning; is the capital of the Guangxi, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in South China, southern China. It is known as the "Green City (绿城) " because of its abundance of lush subtropical foliage. Located in the South of Guangxi, Nanning ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

and grew up in

Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. He earned a B.S. and a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in physics from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT) in 1950 and 1953, respectively. He served as an instructor at MIT from 1953 to 1955, and subsequently spent two years as a

fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

. After returning to the MIT faculty in 1957, Huang became an authority on

statistical physics In physics, statistical mechanics is a mathematical framework that applies statistical methods and probability theory to large assemblies of microscopic entities. Sometimes called statistical physics or statistical thermodynamics, its applicati ...

, and worked on

Bose–Einstein condensation Bose–Einstein may refer to: * Bose–Einstein condensate, a phase of matter in quantum mechanics ** Bose–Einstein condensation (network theory), the application of this model in network theory ** Bose–Einstein condensation of polaritons ** B ...

and

quantum field theory In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines Field theory (physics), field theory and the principle of relativity with ideas behind quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct phy ...

. At MIT, he had many PhD students in theoretical physics including Raymond G. Vickson who became a professor in Operations Research at the University of Waterloo. After retiring in 1999, he wrote on

biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...

and was also a visiting professor at

Nanyang Technological University Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is a public research university in Singapore. Founded in 1981, it is also the second oldest autonomous university in the country. The university is organised across numerous colleges and schools, includi ...

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

. Huang was best known to

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

readers as the translator of the ''

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam ''Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám'' is the title that Edward FitzGerald (poet), Edward FitzGerald gave to his 1859 translation from Persian language, Persian to English of a selection of quatrains (') attributed to Omar Khayyam (1048–1131), dub ...

''; while a graduate student in physics, he adapted Edward FitzGerald's famous adaptation into

Classical Chinese Classical Chinese is the language in which the classics of Chinese literature were written, from . For millennia thereafter, the written Chinese used in these works was imitated and iterated upon by scholars in a form now called Literary ...

verse. The book () had been out of print for years, but was reprinted in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

in 1989. With his wife Rosemary, Huang also translated the ancient

divination Divination () is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice. Using various methods throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a should proceed by reading signs, ...

text ''

I Ching The ''I Ching'' or ''Yijing'' ( ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. The ''I Ching'' was originally a divination manual in ...

'' into English. Huang died on 1 September 2016 at the age of 88.

Books

* 2016
Superfluid Universe''
Singapore: World Scientific Publishing. *2014. * 2007
''Fundamental Forces of Nature: The Story of Gauge Fields''
World Scientific. Aimed at educated lay readers. * 2005
''Lectures on Statistical Physics and Protein Folding''
World Scientific. * 2001

Taylor & Francis. * 1998. ''Quantum Field Theory: From Operators to Path Integrals''. John Wiley & Sons.

* 1992. ''Quarks, Leptons and Gauge Fields'', 2nd ed. World Scientific. * 1987. ''Statistical Mechanics'', 2nd ed. John Wiley & Sons. * 1984. ''I Ching, the Oracle''. World Scientific.

References

External links

1928 births 2016 deaths 20th-century Chinese translators 21st-century Chinese translators Academic staff of Tsinghua University Chinese emigrants to the United States Educators from Guangxi English–Chinese translators Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty People from Nanning Physicists from Guangxi MIT Center for Theoretical Physics faculty Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni Writers from Guangxi {{China-translator-stub