Yu Min (; 16 August 1926 – 16 January 2019) was a prominent Chinese nuclear physicist. He was an academic of

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS; ) is the national academy for natural sciences and the highest consultancy for science and technology of the People's Republic of China. It is the world's largest research organization, with 106 research i ...

(CAS), a lead nuclear weapon designer in the Ninth Academy, and a recipient of Two Bombs, One Satellite Achievement Medal. Though he personally refused to accept the title, he is honored as “the father of heChinese Hydrogen Bomb”. Yu was posthumously bestowed the Medal of the Republic, the highest honorary medal of the People's Republic of China, in September 2019.

Life

He was born in

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

in August 1926. He was famous for his excellent performances in Yaohua High School. Later he was admitted by Department of Electrical engineering of

Peking University Peking University (PKU) is a Public university, public Types of universities and colleges in China#By designated academic emphasis, university in Haidian, Beijing, China. It is affiliated with and funded by the Ministry of Education of the Peop ...

, however, out of the passion for the physical theories, he transferred into Department of Physics to work on theory. From 1949, Yu started his postgraduate research in the Department of Physics of

, and also served as a teaching assistant. In 1951, he became an assistant researcher and associate researcher at Modern Physics Institute of CAS, and began to study nuclear physics theory under the supervision of Peng Huanwu. Early 1958, with China-Soviet National Defense Contract, Yu and his colleagues including Deng Jiaxian, Sun Yuzhang etc. moved to No.221 Factory near

Qinghai Lake Qinghai Lake is the list of lakes by area, largest lakes of China, lake in China. Located in an endorheic basin in Qinghai Province, to which it gave its name, Qinghai Lake is classified as an alkaline lake, alkaline saline lake, salt lake. The ...

. From the end of 1960, Yu was involved in the theoretical research of nuclear weapons. In 1961 he joined as a member of the Light Nucleus Theory Group set up by Peng the previous year. The working group merged with the Ninth Academy in 1965. Yu's major contributions included the solutions to a series of fundamental and critical theoretical problems of nuclear weapons, which led to the breakthrough of the

hydrogen bomb A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lo ...

. He gained reputation and became the academician of Chinese Academy of Science for his design of the hydrogen bomb. Yu's involvement with China's nuclear weapons program remained secret until his retirement in 1988. He was awarded the national top science award in January 2015. With the RMB 5 million prize, Yu founded the Yu Min Foundation to support scientific development in China. The following year, he became a laureate of the

Asian Scientist 100 The Asian Scientist 100 is an annually published list of 100 prize-winning Asian researchers, academicians, innovators and business leaders from across the Asia-Pacific region and a range of scientific disciplines. Recipients "must have received ...

by the ''

Asian Scientist ''Asian Scientist'' is an English language science and technology magazine published in Singapore. History and profile ''Asian Scientist'' was launched as a blog in March 2011 by Juliana Chan. The blog's popularity eventually led to a partnersh ...

''. Yu died in Beijing on 16 January 2019.

Personal life

Yu married Sun Yuqin (), the couple had a son, Yu Xin (), and a daughter, Yu Yuan ().

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yu, Min 1926 births 2019 deaths Yaohua High School alumni National University of Peking alumni Chinese nuclear physicists Members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Physicists from Tianjin Recipients of the Order of the Republic (China) Highest Science and Technology Award winners