Life
He studied in several schools in Zhejiang (now known as Zhejiang University and Zhejiang University of Technology), then he entered Jiaotong University in Shanghai (now known as Shanghai Jiaotong University), and received B.S in 1944. 1944-1946, he was a technician in a chemical company in Shanghai.
Xu went to USA in 1948, studied in the graduate school of the Washington University in St. Louis from Jan to Jun. 1948-1951, he studied at the Columbia University in New York, and received M.S. in 1949 and PhD in 1951 (under C. D. Beckmann). 1949 Feb, he became a member of Phi Lamda Upsilon. 1950 Oct, he became a member of Sigma Xi.
1951, he went back to China with his wife Gao Xiaoxia - also a chemist. In the same year, he became the associate professor in the Department of Chemistry, Peking University. Soon later he was promoted to be a full professor. He became a dean of the department in 1956, and especially directed the department of radiation chemistry. Xu also was involved in the Chinese nuclear weapon development program, within which he played a role in separating and extracting the nuclear elements, especially Uranium-235.
In 1969 Xu and his wife were accused of being spies for the former Kuomintang government and sent to a labor camp until 1972.
Xu played an important role in the chemistry of rare earths in China. He systematically studied the chemical and physical properties of the rare earths found in China and developed several methods to separate and extract them. Xu also has an important career in Chinese chemical industry.
Jan 2009, Xu received the State Preeminent Science and Technology Award from the President Hu Jintao.
In September, Science News Focus on China's rare earth industry and its worldwide influence, and Xu's significant contributions.
Read more about this topic: Xu Guangxian
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“The animal is one with its life activity. It does not distinguish the activity from itself. It is its activity. But man makes his life activity itself an object of his will and consciousness. He has a conscious life activity. It is not a determination with which he is completely identified.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“There’s something tragic in the fate of almost every person—it’s just that the tragic is often concealed from a person by the banal surface of life.... A woman will complain of indigestion and not even know that what she means is that her whole life has been shattered.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)
“But every insight from this realm of thought is felt as initial, and promises a sequel. I do not make it; I arrive there, and behold what was there already. I make! O no! I clap my hands in infantine joy and amazement, before the first opening to me of this august magnificence, old with the love and homage of innumerable ages, young with the life of life, the sunbright Mecca of the desert.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)