On August 28, 2010 (July 19, 2010 in the lunar calendar), Wang Mingzhen, the first female professor known as "Madame Curie of China", passed away. Wang Mingzhen, one of China's earliest female physicists and the first female professor at Tsinghua University, died on August 28, 2010 at the age of 104. Yesterday, Tsinghua University held a memorial service to commemorate the school's first female professor and one of the earliest female physicists in my country, Professor Wang Mingzhen. On August 28 this year, Professor Wang Mingzhen passed away due to illness in Beijing at the age of 104. After her death, she kept her promise with her husband Yu Qizhong and donated her body to the Third Hospital of Beijing Medical University for medical research. Wang Mingzhen, a physicist. He has in-depth and systematic research on statistical physics, especially Boltzmann equations and Brownian motion. For the first time, the Brownian motions of free particles and simple harmonic oscillators are independently derived from the Fokker-Planck equation and the Kramers equation. He collaborated with his mentor G.E. Uhlenbeck to write the article "Theory of Brownian Motion". This article has been used as one of the most important references for understanding and studying Brownian motion. Since 1953, Wang Mingzhen has made unremitting efforts to return to the motherland. She has a doctorate in physics and works at the Radar Research Institute. She participated in the development of radar in the United States during World War II. It was a confidential work. The Immigration Bureau could not let her return to China, so she resolutely resigned. At that time, Wang Mingzhen left only enough living expenses for half a year, thinking that he could make the trip within half a year. Who knew that the return date would be so long? The hostility and containment attitude of the United States caused their plan to be shelved for two years, and they had to rely on their educated husband to work as a hotel manager to make a living. During these two miserable years, Wang Mingzhen's home has become a gathering place and contact point for young people who aspire to return to China and travel to the United States. In 1955, under the direct care of Premier Zhou, she and her husband returned to the motherland, accompanied by dozens of students. In September of the same year, Wang Mingzhen came to Tsinghua University as a professor. At that time, there were no conditions for scientific research on campus. She interrupted her research on Brownian motion and "noise theory" and devoted herself to education. She teaches theoretical physics courses such as "Thermodynamics and Statistical Physics" and "Mathematical Theory of Inhomogeneous Gases", striving to adapt to the new teaching system for her, organizing the course system and content according to the requirements of the syllabus, and carefully preparing lessons. In teaching, she introduced every concept accurately and strictly, deduced all formulas strictly, and there was no error in the value of each coefficient. Wang Mingzhen's serious teaching attitude and rigorous scientific style have won the respect and admiration of the majority of students. She encourages students to ask more questions and discuss them with them in an equal manner. This approachable and tireless teaching style has been loved by students. The students said: "Mr. Wang is not only our strict teacher, but also our friend." When her students talked about Wang Mingzhen, they always respected her deeply and still kept in touch with her. In 1968, the 62-year-old professor Wang Mingzhen was persecuted and imprisoned by the Gang of Four. Five years and eight months of life behind bars were added to the humble old intellectuals who loved the motherland. The hardships of life and the suppression of spirit did not crush her. In prison, she thought that she had never done anything to let the motherland and the people down, and made up her mind to exercise and persist in living. Later, when Wang Mingzhen was released, her interrogators refused to say the cause of the incident, only saying that "there was a reason for it, but there was no evidence." After being released from prison, the 67-year-old man did not complain, but seized the time and immersed himself in his work. The professor, who has always been strict, works according to his schedule every day and does not receive visitors. Even the niece who takes care of her (Wang Mingzhen has no children) is told that he can only visit her home on Sundays. The above picture was taken in the early 1960s. The first person on the left is my great-aunt Wang Mingzhen, the second person on the left is my grandfather Wang Mingli, the second person on the right is my grandmother Chen Shunli, and the first person on the right is my uncle and in-law Ms. Huang Shunming. Academic papers known as "Madame Curie of China" have been quoted so far. This scientist with the reputation of "Madame Curie of China" was once ignored in the domestic physics community. Her most important scientific research papers were published while studying and researching in the United States. The ten most important major works listed by her student Ying Chuntong, professor of the Department of Engineering Physics at Tsinghua University, were all published between 1940 and 1954. Her paper on the theory of Brownian motion is still regarded as one of the authoritative documents in the field. The paper she collaborated with Uhlenbeck was published in the 1945 Modern Physics Review. In the next 60 years, this paper was included and cited by SCI more than 1500 times. Academician Zhu Bangfen, former director of the Department of Physics at Tsinghua University, said that it was cited 19 times last year, and there are still articles cited this year. Ying Chuntong, Wang Mingzhen's first student at Tsinghua University, said that in addition to studying Brownian motion and noise theory, this article has also been cited in articles on DNA and even stock market research. Han Jingyang, deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Tsinghua University, recalled that when some foreign experts came to Tsinghua for exchanges, they only asked the university to see Professor Wang Mingzhen. Academician Gu Binglin, President of Tsinghua University, also recalled that at a conference on statistical mechanics organized by Xiamen in the 1980s, the keynote speaker recommended by foreign experts was Wang Mingzhen, who had always been buried in China. Wu Nianle, a professor of physics at Tsinghua University, the scientist who took the initiative to request a downgrade, is a close friend of Wang Mingzhen. Wu Nianle recalled that Wang Mingzhen was the kind of person who would not trouble others if he could. I remember one spring, Wang Mingzhen's husband, Yu Qizhong, was seriously ill and admitted to the school hospital."I made an appointment with another teacher in the department to visit Mr. Wang to see what they could do to help Mr. Wang. After the heavy snow that day, the road was very slippery, so I asked the driver to drive us to Mr. Wang's house." Wu Nianle said that as soon as he passed Mr. Wang's house, he saw Wang Mingzhen walking back from the school hospital himself."I was so ashamed that I wished I could have a hole in it." When he took the initiative to lower the professor level to teach at Tsinghua University, Wang Mingzhen was hired as a second-level professor by the school. In fact, the school also had enough reasons to hire her as a second-level professor: in addition to that paper, she was also regarded as one of the pioneers in noise theory research. The results of Wang Mingzhen's collaboration with Uhlenbeck were published in the "Radar Systems Engineering" series titled "Threshold Signals". This series of books was called "the greatest project since the Old Testament" by the physicist Rabbi (Nobel Prize winner in 1944). The invention of radar is regarded as the key to turning the tide of World War II. Radar was born in the Radiation Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Among them are three China, Wang Mingzhen is one of them. However, Wang Mingzhen took the initiative to lower the professor level from Level 2 to Level 3. If she did not, she would leave Tsinghua University. Wang Mingzhen later explained to others that Xu Zhang, the theoretical physicist who returned home with her on the same ship, was only a third-level professor, and she could not be a second-level professor herself. If you don't do research, you don't speak. However, in Tsinghua University, because you studied in the Soviet Union at that time, basic courses were separated from scientific research, and Wang Mingzhen also basically divorced from scientific research and turned to physics education. Gu Binglin recalled that when the Statistical Mechanics Conference was held in Xiamen in the 1980s, the organizer of the conference invited Wang Mingzhen through Gu Binglin, hoping that she could deliver the keynote speech of the conference. Wang Mingzhen politely declined the invitation,"I haven't done research work for a long time, so I won't go." Wang Mingzhen, who was once imprisoned in Qincheng Prison, was not accustomed to various sports after returning home. Her colleague Huang Hesheng remembers that at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution,"she said very little, and only spoke when she had to express her position during meetings." But Wang Mingzhen still did not escape this disaster. In 1966, she was imprisoned in Qincheng Prison. She later recalled to her colleague Zheng Fuyu that she exercised every day in prison to "remind myself not to die, to live, and to restore my innocence." After spending more than 2,000 days behind bars, Wang Mingzhen was released from prison on November 9, 1973. Wang Mingzhen is the first female doctoral professor at Tsinghua University. Tsinghua University commented on her: "Mr. Wang Mingzhen has created a precedent for the construction of statistical physics in our school. She integrated her extensive and profound equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical theory into teaching, forming Wang's style. Mr. Wang teaches statistical physics and thermodynamics and has made important contributions to the cultivation of my country's own physicists and engineering physicists." Resume Born in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province in 1906. From 1923 to 1926, he studied at Shanghai Yan Mo's Girls 'High School at missionary school. From 1926 to 1928, he studied at Nanjing Jinling Women's University. From 1928 to 1932, he studied in the Department of Physics at Yanjing University and obtained a bachelor's and master's degrees. From 1932 to 1938, he taught in the Department of Mathematics and Science at Jinling Women's College of Arts and Sciences. From 1938 to 1942, he studied in the Department of Physics at the University of Michigan in the United States and obtained a doctorate. From 1943 to 1945, he served as an associate researcher in the Theoretical Physics Group at the Radar Research Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1945, he collaborated with Uhlenbeck and published a paper "Theory of Brownian Motion". He was a professor in the Department of Physics of Yunnan University from 1947 to 1949. From 1949 to 1952, he served as an associate researcher at Nordham University in the United States. From 1953 to 1955, he resigned from his job in order to return to China. He has taught at Tsinghua University since 1955.