WANG GANCHANG'S PH.D. THESIS

WANG, KAN CHANG. [or WANG GANCHANG].

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Berlin, Springer, 1934. 8vo. In contemporary halv cloth with gilt lettering to spine. In "Zeitschrift für Physik", Bd. 87, 1934. Entire volume offered. Stamp to front free end-paper and titlepage, otherwise fine and clean. Pp. 633-46. [Entire volume: VIII, 822 pp.].

First printing of Wang's Ph.D thesis on beta decay spectrum under the supervision of Lise Meitner. Wang was one of the initiators of research in China in nuclear physics, cosmic rays and particle physics and figured among the top leaders, pioneers and scientists of the Chinese nuclear deterrent program.

Wang (1907 - 1998), a nuclear physicist from China, went in 1930 to study at the University of Berlin in Germany. As soon as he arrived in Berlin, hearing the Bothe report relating the emission of a new type of high-energy neutral radiation which was non-ionizing but even more penetrating than the hardest gamma rays derived from radium, induced by the bombardment of beryllium with ? particles from a radioactive polonium source, therefore wrongly presumed to be gamma rays, Wang first suggested the use of a cloud chamber to study it. Lacking the support of his supervisor Lise Meitner, the experiment was nonetheless conducted one year later by the English physicist James Chadwick, thus discovering a new type of particle, the neutron, allowing him to win the 1935 Nobel Prize in Physics.

In 2000, the Chinese Physical Society established five prizes in recognition of five pioneers of modern physics in China. The Wang Ganchang Prize is awarded to physicists in particle physics and inertial confinement fusion.

Order-nr.: 49165