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Fang Lizhi, Physicist and Dissident the Second World War and the Civil Was Enough

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Fang Lizhi, Physicist and Dissident the Second World War and the Civil Was Enough Reviews physicsworld.com Richard McCray Fang Lizhi, physicist and dissident the Second World War and the civil was enough. Fang summarizes the war that followed. Then, toward the events that followed with charac- end of 1948, Nationalist troops occu- teristic irony, calling it “a splendid pied his high school and Fang joined success: in a single blow an entire the Federation of Democratic Youth, gang that had planned one whole let- an underground organization with ter that had never been mailed was links to the Communist Party. The completely annihilated”. All three following year, after the Nationalist were expelled from the party, and defeat, Mao Zedong proclaimed the although Li was permitted to remain AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives/Ge Ge founding of the People’s Republic at Peking University under a cloud, of China. At about the same time, Ni was fired from his academic post Fang’s aptitude for science began to and sent to do labour reform. Fang, shine, and he entered Peking Uni- meanwhile, was banished to an versity three years later, flush with impoverished village, where he did excitement about physics and patri- manual labour for eight months. otic fervour. For the next 15 years, Fang’s career While still an undergraduate, oscillated between extremes. After Fang was invited to join an elite he returned to Beijing in 1958, he group whose core task was to calcu- was appointed to the newly founded late a model for neutron diffusion University of Science and Technol- in a breeder reactor. Nowadays, this ogy (USTC), where he embarked calculation could be done with an on a picaresque odyssey in physics, iPhone in less than a second; then, beginning with nuclear and elemen- it took 300 of the brightest young tary particle physics, then solid-state physicists in China several months physics, then laser physics and finally to work it out with abaci. But phys- cosmology. In 1961 he and Li married, ics was not his only passion, and his and they later had two sons. However, memoir becomes a love story as he both Fang’s research and his family describes meeting a brilliant and life were regularly interrupted, as he spirited classmate, Li Shuxian. Their was repeatedly sent away to labour Great educator On the evening of 6 June 1989, two shared passions for physics and Com- as a farmer, a coal miner, railway Fang Lizhi converses days after the massacre at Tianan- munism fed a growing romance, and builder and brick maker. His descrip- with his students in men Square, an official from the US when they (first Li, then Fang) were tions of these assignments – particu- Beijing, 1987. embassy invited the astrophysicist invited to join the Communist Party, larly the bizarre attempts to increase Fang Lizhi and his wife, Li Shuxian, their future looked golden. farm productivity during the Great The Most Wanted to take refuge at the US embassy Upon graduation, Fang was Leap Forward – are both comical Man in China: in Beijing. For the next 13 months, assigned to a “work unit” of the Chi- and horrifying, as they resulted in My Journey from under the precarious protection of nese Academy of Sciences, while Li the death by starvation of more than Scientist to Enemy the US ambassador, they remained was given a post as an interpreter 20 million people. Fang also gives a of the State inside the embassy, until delicate for visiting Soviet physicists. Mean- first-hand report of the persecutions Fang Lizhi, negotiations yielded an arrange- while, though, a string of incidents during the Cultural Revolution, translated by ment by which they were permitted was leading Fang and Li first to which caused many gifted intellectu- Perry Link to depart China for the UK. Dur- question Communist orthodoxy, als to commit suicide. 2016 Henry Holt ing this period of exile, Fang and Li and ultimately to become completely The death of Mao in September £21.99/$32.00hb were not allowed to communicate disaffected with the party. In 1957 1976 precipitated a dramatic change 352pp with the outside world. With time on Mao Zedong announced his “Let a in Fang’s fortunes. In February 1979 his hands, Fang began to write this hundred flowers bloom” policy. This he was reinstated as a member of the memoir, which is one of the most supposed attempt at liberalization Communist Party. He was allowed insightful accounts we have of the quickly revealed itself as a cynical to travel abroad, which he did fre- chaotic period of Chinese history plot to ferret out and persecute any- quently and with relish, becoming that began with the founding of the one with the temerity to question the something of an international celeb- People’s Republic of China and cul- party line. Fang and Li walked right rity for his outspoken views on sci- minated with the Tiananmen massa- into the trap: together with a friend, ence and intellectual freedom. In cre. It is also a revealing portrait of Ni Wansun, they began drafting a 1981 he became a member of the a courageous scholar whose role in letter to the Party Central Commit- Chinese Academy of Sciences, and history has been compared to that of tee calling attention to some of the in 1984 he was appointed vice-presi- Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union harm the “Anti-Rightist” crackdown dent of the USTC. or Galileo in 16th-century Florence. was doing to the party. Warned by This might have been Fang’s Born in Beijing in 1936, Fang had a friends not to send the letter, they happy ending but for, as he puts childhood that was remarkably tran- abandoned their plans, but copies of it, his “addiction to trouble”. The quil, given the Japanese occupation, Ni’s outline were distributed. That reform movement that followed 46 Physics World July 2016 physicsworld.com Reviews Mao’s death gained momentum rap- embassy period in his memoir, but However, Sakharov also enjoyed idly, becoming especially popular Perry Link, a noted scholar of East a privileged life in the company of among students, who regarded Fang Asian languages and culture, has some of the greatest physicists of the as a hero and often invited him to enriched his beautiful translation time, including Lev Landau, Vitaly speak at their gatherings. Initially, with an insightful foreword and Ginzburg and Yakov Zel’dovich. party leaders had encouraged these afterword. In the latter, we learn Fang had no such peers. Yet with reforms, but by early 1987 Deng that, after their release, Fang and virtually no contact with the inter- Xiaoping had had enough. Fang was Li spent several months at the Uni- national research community – and expelled from the party for a second versity of Cambridge before moving with the almost constant distractions time and sacked from his position at to the Institute for Advanced Study of the Maoist chaos – he succeeded the USTC. He obtained another job, in the US. In 1992 Fang accepted in educating himself and his col- teaching cosmology at the Beijing an appointment at the University of leagues in modern astrophysics. Observatory, but by this time, the Arizona, where he remained until As I write this review, I have just democracy movement had caught his untimely death in 2012. returned from a visit to some of the fire with students throughout China, What will be the legacy of Fang? leading centres for astrophysics in and attempts to suppress it only He has been called a brilliant scien- China. Several of the leaders at these fanned the flames. The movement tist, and he was certainly a prolific institutions are former students of culminated in May 1989 with the researcher, but I cannot identify any Fang. Many younger scientists have occupation of Tiananmen Square singular contributions with a lasting been inspired by the example of and its brutal suppression on 4 June, impact on astrophysics or cosmol- his life, so eloquently documented when some 300 000 troops opened ogy. It is instructive, though, to com- in this memoir. That, surely, is his fire on the crowd, killing thousands pare his circumstances with those true legacy. of demonstrators and sending Fang of Sakharov. Like Fang, the Soviet and Li into their 13-month exile at dissident and nuclear scientist was Richard McCray is an astrophysicist at the the US embassy. persecuted by his government for University of California at Berkeley, US, Fang does not cover the post- defending intellectual freedom. e-mail [email protected] Between the lines Fighting misinformation their own debunking. That does not output – spread across journal As an astronomer, educator and make book worthless. Far from it: papers, grant proposals, peer science advocate at Columbia there is a long and noble tradition reviews, technical reports and University in the US, David of using popular-science writing to administrative documents – is Helfand has spent his career encourage fellow-combatants in the fairly typical for a senior scientist. iStock/Linda Steward iStock/Linda knocking down faulty arguments fight against pseudoscience (Carl Since writing is such a significant and misleading “facts” that cling Sagan’s 1995 book The Demon- part of a scientist’s working life, on despite the huge amount of Haunted World is another example). it’s important to do it well, and information available to modern The deeper problem is one that Heard’s book The Scientist’s Guide audiences. In his book A Survival Helfand hints at near the end of the to Writing: How to Write More Easily Roughly speaking Guide to the Misinformation book, where he describes a study and Effectively Throughout Your One method of Age, Helfand explains how the showing that people who reject (say) Scientific Career promises to help dealing with same “habits of mind” that make theories of evolution or climate you do just that.
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