Luke Chia-Liu Yuan

Luke Chia-Liu Yuan was born on April 5, 1912, in Anyang County, Henan province, China; his family’s ancestral home was Xiangcheng, Henan.⁠[1][2]

His grandfather was Yuan ShikaiYuan ShikaiYuan Shikai (1859–1916) was a Chinese army leader and reformist minister of the late Qing dynasty and the first president of the Republic of China, from 1912 to 1916. The modern army he trained at Xiaozhan, Tianjin, grew into the Beiyang Army; in 1915–1916 he proclaimed a monarchy with himself as emperor, cancelled it in March 1916 and died on June 6 of that year.Open the full entry, China’s president from 1912 to 1916, and his father, Yuan KewenYuan KewenYuan Kewen (1890–1931), art name Hanyun, was the second son of Yuan Shikai, known as a poet, calligrapher and collector of Song and Yuan printed books, old coins and stamps, and as an amateur performer of Peking opera and Kunqu. He remonstrated in verse when his father prepared to take the throne; the physicist Luke Chia-Liu Yuan was his son.Open the full entry, was Yuan Shikai’s second son. Wang Zhenliang’s article in the newspaper Cangshu Bao lists four sons of Yuan Kewen, of whom he was the third. Ding Jiu’s article in the magazine Mathematical Culture likewise calls him Yuan Kewen’s third son and gives Yuan Kewen’s dates as 1889–1931. His younger cousin Yuan Jiati, a daughter of Yuan KeduanYuan KeduanYuan Keduan (died 1951) was the fourth son of Yuan Shikai; a skilled calligrapher, he was a counselor in the Dayuanshuai Fu (generalissimo’s headquarters) of Zhang Zuolin and a nominal director of the Kailuan Kuangwuju (Kailuan mining administration).Open the full entry, said in a 2008 interview in the magazine Huanqiu Renwu that Yuan Kewen was one of the four young masters, naturally romantic and brilliant, who lost the family fortune late in life.⁠[3][4][5][2][6][7][8]

A magazine profile carried on Taiwan’s Sci-Tech Vista website states that his grandfather died when he was three and that he grew up with his grandmother. The profile adds that his grandfather often fed him chicken soup himself and held him on his lap to tell him stories, and that, as a gifted child, he came to be called a prodigy. An article in the Beijing newspaper Jinghua Shibao in 2003 states that after his grandfather’s death the family’s fortunes declined and he lived as a dependant in other people’s households. The Mathematical Culture article states that although he was born into an official family he did not receive the family affection that Chien-Shiung Wu enjoyed as a child.⁠[5][9][7]

The obituary published by SFGATE gives his birthplace as a palace in Beijing. The Mathematical Culture article states instead that he was born in Yuanzhai administrative village, Wangmingkou township, Xiangcheng, Henan province.⁠[3][7]

The Mathematical Culture article states that at the age of 13 he moved to Tianjin with his mother and younger sister and entered Nankai Middle School, which he left after little more than a month for Xinxue Shuyuan, a church school run by missionaries from London; three years later he passed the entrance examination of Gongshang Daxue (a university of industry and commerce) to study engineering, and he later transferred to Yenching University and switched to physics. The Jinghua Shibao article states that he entered a mission school in Tianjin at 13. The Sci-Tech Vista profile dates his first contact with physics to his junior middle school years at a school it calls Xinshu Xueyuan, whose principal stressed basic science and taught physics from the first year. In 1930 he entered Yenching University in Beijing, where he studied under the theoretical physicist Xie Yuming.⁠[4][5][3][7][9]

His Academia Sinica academician record lists a B.S. from the university in 1932 and an M.S. in 1934, and a post as assistant in physics from 1932 to 1934.⁠[10]

The Sci-Tech Vista profile relates that the university’s president, John Leighton Stuart, thought highly of him and obtained a scholarship for him to study in the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry. Bai Junhe, a son-in-law of his sixth uncle, Yuan KehuanYuan KehuanYuan Kehuan was the sixth son of Yuan Shikai; he went to Europe in 1913 and attended Cheltenham College in England. His son-in-law Bai Junhe says in an oral account that he entered industry in North China in 1926, served as assistant manager and then general manager of Qixin Yanghui Gongsi (the Qixin cement company), and died in 1956.Open the full entry, says in an oral account that Qixin Yanghui Gongsi (the Qixin cement company) gave Luke Chia-Liu Yuan financial help when he went abroad to study. The Jinghua Shibao article states that in 1936 he set out alone for the United States on John Leighton Stuart’s recommendation. The Mathematical Culture article states that his mother had died two years before he went abroad. Yuan Jiati said in the interview that she and her second paternal aunt had brought him the money for his fare and his metal trunk when he went abroad, and that she remembered him standing on the ship straight and motionless like a statue and resolved then to be like him.⁠[5][11][9][7][8]

In 1936 he went to the United States and studied physics at the University of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) is a campus of the University of California system; the University of California was founded in 1868 through a merger of two institutions and moved to Berkeley, California, in 1873.Open the full entry. The Mathematical Culture article states that he had been admitted to the university and had registered with its physics department two or three weeks before Chien-Shiung Wu arrived in San Francisco. A page on the website of Nanjing University’s Pukou campus states instead that in 1936 he went to the United States to enter the graduate school of the California Institute of Technology. An article in The Paper and an essay by his granddaughter, Jada YuanJada YuanJada Yuan is a journalist who was a contributing editor at New York magazine, served in 2018 as the first “52 Places Traveler” of The New York Times and was afterward a reporter at The Washington Post until February 2026; she is a granddaughter of the physicists Chien-Shiung Wu and Luke Chia-Liu Yuan.Open the full entry, both state that he went by the name Luke.⁠[3][5][12][7][2][13][14]

The Sci-Tech Vista profile relates that he set out with only 40 dollars, spent the 16-day voyage from Tianjin to San Francisco in third class, and had 25 dollars left when he landed. The profile adds that he had been diligent and thrifty since childhood, that he stayed in his bare third-class cabin throughout, ate stinking salted fish when he was hungry, would not spend even one yuan on a bowl of rice porridge, and had lost more than ten kilograms by the time the ship reached San Francisco. The Jinghua Shibao article gives the length of the voyage as nearly 20 days, and the Mathematical Culture article gives his weight loss as more than ten jin (a jin is half a kilogram). The Mathematical Culture article likewise states that he set out for the United States in July 1936 with only 40 dollars, travelling third class.⁠[5][9][7]

When Chien-Shiung Wu first came to Berkeley, he escorted her around the campus and introduced her to the physicist Ernest LawrenceErnest LawrenceErnest Lawrence (in full Ernest Orlando Lawrence, 1901–1958) was an American physicist who invented the cyclotron and received the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics for its invention and development and for the results obtained with it. He founded and directed the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, and led the electromagnetic separation of uranium isotopes for the Manhattan Project; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and element 103, lawrencium, are named after him.Open the full entry. The Mathematical Culture article states that Victor Yang, the American-born president of the Chinese Students’ Association at Berkeley, chose him, a newly arrived graduate student in physics, as the most suitable person to accompany her throughout her visit, and that he left her with the impression of a warm-hearted, honest and helpful man; it adds that she was much better off as a student abroad than he was, since he depended on a scholarship that waived his tuition and gave him a room in the international students’ residence, and was very short of money.⁠[12][7]

The Sci-Tech Vista profile states that after he had held a scholarship there for a year the university’s board reduced the amount, which it attributes to discrimination against Asians; he then applied to the California Institute of Technology, whose head, Robert A. Millikan, personally cabled him the award of a scholarship. The Jinghua Shibao article states instead that after Japan’s war of invasion against China broke out in 1937, discrimination in the United States against Asians, and especially the Chinese, grew worse and his grant was cancelled, and that Robert A. Millikan personally wrote back to welcome him to the California Institute of Technology. The Mathematical Culture article states that Millikan’s cable asked him to reply at once. His granddaughter, Jada Yuan, writes that he could not get a decent-paying position at Berkeley and was then offered a plum post at the California Institute of Technology.⁠[5][9][7][14]

His Academia Sinica record lists him as an assistant in physics at the California Institute of Technology from 1937 to 1940, with a Ph.D. in 1940, and as a research fellow there from 1940 to 1942.⁠[10]

Brookhaven National Laboratory’s bulletin of May 14, 1958, likewise dates his Ph.D. to 1940, whereas the National Academy of Sciences’ biographical memoir of Chien-Shiung Wu gives 1937. The Mathematical Culture article states that he received his doctorate in the same year as Chien-Shiung Wu and then spent two years at the California Institute of Technology as a postdoctoral researcher.⁠[15][12][7]

In May 1942 he married Chien-Shiung Wu; the wedding was held in the garden of Robert A. Millikan’s home. The Mathematical Culture article, the Jinghua Shibao article and an article on the website of the Chien-Shiung Wu College of Southeast University all date the wedding to May 30, 1942; the Mathematical Culture article states that Millikan presided and that the ceremony took place at the president’s residence. The Sci-Tech Vista profile describes the wedding as thoroughly Chinese in style and states that many distinguished guests came and that local American newspapers carried the news that President Yuan’s grandson had married. The Jinghua Shibao article places the wedding in Millikan’s home.⁠[4][5][7][9][16]

Because of the fighting in the Pacific, neither family could attend the wedding.⁠[17]

That year he took an appointment at RCA in Princeton to work on radar development, and the couple moved to the East of the United States. His granddaughter, Jada Yuan, writes that he then took a job in New JerseyNew JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the eastern United States on the Atlantic Ocean, bordered by New York State, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, with the Hudson River forming its northeastern boundary and the Delaware River its western boundary; its capital is Trenton and its largest city is Newark. One of the original 13 colonies, it became the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on December 18, 1787, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 9,288,994.Open the full entry developing radar for the U.S. Defense Department and that the couple married and moved east, the one time that Chien-Shiung Wu followed his career. The National Women’s History Museum’s biography states instead that the two moved to the East Coast when Chien-Shiung Wu got a job teaching physics at Smith CollegeSmith CollegeSmith College is a liberal arts college for women in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. Chartered in 1871 under the bequest of Sophia Smith and opened in 1875, it is one of the Seven Sisters schools.Open the full entry. The National Academy of Sciences memoir states that in 1943 she left Smith College in order to live closer to him.⁠[12][14][18]

His Academia Sinica record lists him as a research physicist at the RCA laboratory from 1942 to 1946.⁠[10]

From 1946 to 1949 he was a research associate at Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private university and Ivy League member in Princeton, New Jersey. Chartered on October 22, 1746 as the College of New Jersey, it moved to Princeton in 1756 and adopted its present name in 1896. Undergraduate education leads to A.B. and B.S.E. degrees and emphasizes small-group discussion, independent research and residential college life. Graduate education spans the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering. As of October 2026, Christopher L. Eisgruber was president. Its 2026–27 operating budget was $3.407 billion, including $342 million for undergraduate aid.Open the full entry.⁠[10][12]

At Princeton he studied the origin of cosmic-ray neutrons. The Sci-Tech Vista profile relates that he flew in a B-29 bomber to an altitude of 7,000 meters to carry out experiments, which showed that the neutrons in cosmic rays are secondary rather than primary particles.⁠[5]

In 1949 he joined Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he became a staff member of the Cosmotron Department and specialized in high-energy particle interactions. The Mathematical Culture article states that he left Princeton University for a post as senior physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York, for the convenience of family life.⁠[15][7]

The Sci-Tech Vista profile states that he went to the laboratory at the invitation of a Princeton University colleague to help build a high-energy proton accelerator and took part in its construction in 1950; the profile calls the machine the first high-energy proton accelerator ever built. The Mathematical Culture article states that he took part in preparing the construction of the 3 GeV high-energy proton accelerator, the most energetic in the world at the time, and was responsible for designing and building its radio-frequency system.⁠[5][7]

Working with Lindenbaum on resonance physics, he used high-energy pion–nucleon scattering to produce the Δ++ and Δ0 resonance states; the Sci-Tech Vista profile describes this as the first production of these two resonances.⁠[5]

His research ranged over nuclear physics, high-energy physics, accelerators, particle detectors, cosmic rays, radio waves and radar systems. His Academia Sinica record lists his specialties as “High Energy Physics, Electronics”. Xinhua’s dispatch of 2003 states that he made new discoveries and achievements in fields including the origin of neutrons, high-energy proton accelerators and resonance physics.⁠[1][10][4]

In 1954 he and Chien-Shiung Wu became citizens of the United States.⁠[2][17]

The Mathematical Culture article states that in 1956 he travelled from Geneva through several Western European countries and on to India, and on July 19 reached Taipei, which the article calls his first return to Chinese soil. Chiang Kai-shek received him and asked his opinion on developing an atomic bomb; with a scientist’s frankness he advised against it and recommended developing the peaceful uses of atomic energy. He also proposed to Mei Yiqi, president of Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, that an atomic reactor be planned and built.⁠[7]

In 1958 the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation awarded him a Guggenheim Fellowship, which Brookhaven National Laboratory announced in its bulletin of May 14 that year. The Nanjing University Pukou campus page gives the year of his Guggenheim award as 1972 and states that he twice won major American science and technology awards for his achievements.⁠[15][2]

He planned to continue his work on high-energy particle interactions for the year starting in July 1958 as a visiting professor at the Centre d’Etudes Nucléaires at Saclay, France, and at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland.⁠[15]

In 1959 he was elected an academician of Academia Sinica at its 3rd convocation, in the mathematics and physical sciences division; the record also lists a “Science Achievement Medal, R.O.C.” for that year.⁠[10]

For 1962 the record lists an “Achievement Award, Chinese Institution of Elec. Eng, U. S. A.”⁠[10]

His Academia Sinica record lists him as visiting professor at CERN from 1972 to 1978 and at the nuclear research center at Saclay, France, from 1972 to 1976, at the Institute of High Energy Physics in the Soviet Union in 1979 and at the University of Paris in 1982. The Mathematical Culture article states that in 1972, when a delegation of Chinese scientists and engineers came to Switzerland to visit an exhibition of nuclear equipment and instruments, he, then a visiting scholar at CERN, accompanied the delegation around the center.⁠[10][7]

From 1978 to 1987 he sat on the board of directors of the Adelphi University Energy Research Center.⁠[10]

In June 1973, when a delegation of Chinese high-energy physicists toured the five main high-energy physics laboratories in the United States, he, Chien-Shiung Wu, Tsung-Dao LeeTsung-Dao LeeTsung-Dao Lee (1926–2024) was a Shanghai-born American physicist who taught for decades at Columbia University. In 1956 he and Chen Ning Yang proposed that parity might not be conserved in weak interactions, for which they shared the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics; from the 1970s he helped advance high-energy physics and the training of physicists in China.Open the full entry and other physicists of Chinese descent hosted it. In October 1973 he and Chien-Shiung Wu returned to China. The SFGATE obituary states that he had been unable to revisit China until this trip, to which he was invited together with his wife. The Mathematical Culture article dates this return to September 1973 and gives its length as 53 days; the article on the website of the Chien-Shiung Wu College dates it to September 22, 1973.⁠[13][3][19][7][16]

They were received by Premier Zhou Enlai, who asked them to help analyze a cosmic-ray event found at the Yunnan station. An article carried in Renmin Wenzhai relates that on receiving him Zhou Enlai remarked that his grandfather, Yuan Shikai, was a statesman, his father, Yuan Kewen, a man of letters, and he himself a physicist. The article adds that before his return Zhou Enlai instructed the authorities in Tianjin to settle within three days the treatment of Yuan Shikai’s descendants living in that city. The Mathematical Culture article gives the remark as saying that the Yuan family had produced three kinds of jia: a statesman (zhengzhijia) in his grandfather, a man of letters (wenxuejia) in his father and a scientist (kexuejia) in himself, and that there was now also a Communist Party member among the Yuan descendants, so that each generation of the family was more progressive than the last. The article on the website of the Chien-Shiung Wu College states that the couple were received by Zhou Enlai, Deng Yingchao, Deng Xiaoping and other leaders, and the Nanjing University Pukou campus page likewise states that he was received by Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping and other Party and state leaders. The Paper’s article adds that Zhou Enlai urged Zhang Wenyu, director of the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to produce a preliminary design for a high-energy accelerator as soon as possible. Yuan Jiati said in the 2008 interview that he returned in 1973 at the invitation of Premier Zhou Enlai and that, on Zhou Enlai’s instruction, Yuan Shikai’s third-generation descendants gradually regained their freedom. The Renmin Wenzhai article names the bodies instructed to settle within three days the treatment of Yuan Shikai’s descendants in Tianjin as the Tianjin party committee and revolutionary committee.⁠[13][2][20][7][16][8]

Bai Junhe says in his account that on this first visit back in 1973 the couple went to Tianjin to see relatives and called on Chen Zheng, the wife of Yuan Kehuan, a visit at which Bai Junhe himself was present. After that the couple returned to China many times to visit relatives and lecture. The Mathematical Culture article states that when he met his impoverished younger sister, Yuan Jiazhi, in Tianjin he dared not say much and held back his grief until, back in their hotel room, the two wept in each other’s arms; it adds that the couple returned the following year and visited Nanjing University, the successor of Chien-Shiung Wu’s alma mater, National Central University, where they also called on Professor Shi Shiyuan, who had guided her onto the path of science. A 2003 report in the newspaper Xinhua Daily states that from 1973 on the couple also took part in a number of research projects in China.⁠[21][2][11][7]

In December 1977 he, Chien-Shiung Wu and Tsung-Dao Lee wrote jointly to Zhang Wenyu, director of the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, proposing that China choose an economical design with rich physics goals for its high-energy accelerator.⁠[13][22]

In 1979 he was appointed a member of the academic committee of the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.⁠[2]

In 1981, after mainland China’s project for a 40 GeV high-energy proton accelerator was cancelled during a readjustment of the national economy, he and Chien-Shiung Wu conferred with Tsung-Dao Lee on how to move forward with a high-energy physics experimental base in China. Soon afterward Zhu Hongyuan and Xie Jialin of the Institute of High Energy Physics came to the United States to discuss the prospects of high-energy physics in China with Tsung-Dao Lee, W. K. H. Panofsky, Chien-Shiung Wu, him and experts from several American high-energy physics laboratories; the meeting agreed that a 2 × 2.2 GeV electron–positron collider was the best plan for China, costing a third as much as the 40 GeV proton accelerator project (Project 87), rich in physics and also usable for applied synchrotron radiation research. After much effort, in particular frequent exchanges between Tsung-Dao Lee and Deng Xiaoping and Fang Yi, the plan was approved.⁠[13]

He and Chien-Shiung Wu followed the development of the Beijing Electron–Positron Collider and the Hefei synchrotron radiation accelerator, and worked to promote academic exchange across the Taiwan Strait in basic physics and other fields. The Paper’s article states that the couple visited and lectured at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, its institutes and universities many times, made repeated visits to the Institute of High Energy Physics, toured the Beijing Electron–Positron Collider and the Beijing Spectrometer, offered advice on the development of science education and the training of talent in China, and argued for giving weight to basic science and for building a high-energy physics experimental base in China.⁠[4][13]

He was appointed an honorary professor of the University of Science and Technology of China in 1981 and of Nankai University in 1984, and received an honorary doctorate from Nanjing University in 1986.⁠[2][10]

In 1979 he retired from Brookhaven National Laboratory, remaining a consultant to the laboratory afterward.⁠[3][2]

His Academia Sinica record, by contrast, lists him as senior physicist at the laboratory from 1949 to 1982 and as consultant from 1982 to 1987.⁠[10]

In 1981 he and Chien-Shiung Wu proposed that a synchrotron radiation accelerator be built in Taiwan, and the proposal won the support of the premier of the time. The Jinghua Shibao article describes the proposed machine as a third-generation synchrotron radiation accelerator.⁠[5][9]

In 1983 the Executive Yuan agreed to build Taiwan’s first synchrotron light source and set up a steering committee for the Synchrotron Radiation Research Center; chosen by its members, he chaired the committee until 2002, and Chien-Shiung Wu also sat on it. A note in the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center’s publication lists the 12 members of the steering committee, among them Chien-Shiung Wu, Samuel C. C. Ting and Yuan T. Lee. In an interview carried by that publication, Samuel C. C. Ting recalls that what impressed him most in the early days was a gathering at the home of Chien-Shiung Wu and Luke Chia-Liu Yuan, also attended by Deng Changli and Yuan T. Lee, where he met Yuan T. Lee for the first time. The Sci-Tech Vista profile states that he was meticulous, telephoning the committee members one by one to discuss matters before every meeting, and that he insisted that whatever was done should be the best in the world.⁠[23][5]

His Academia Sinica record words the post as “Chairman, Board of Directors” of the Synchrotron Radiation Research Center.⁠[10]

On April 13, 1993, the electron beam was successfully stored in the ring, and the light source was dedicated on October 16 of that year.⁠[5]

In 1994 he was awarded the third-class decoration that his Academia Sinica record prints as the “Ching-Hsing Medal, R. O. C.”; for the same year the record also lists a “Distinguished Achievement Award, Nat’l Association of Chinese Americans, U. S. A.” The note in the center’s publication states that the decoration was conferred by presidential order after the Taiwan Light Source went into operation, in recognition of his special contribution to the development of science in Taiwan.⁠[23][10]

The record also lists him as chief coordinator of a feasibility study, carried out jointly with France, of a prototype superconducting-microsphere camera for determining the energy of charged particles by means of transition radiation.⁠[10]

In January 2003 the center was reorganized as a publicly established foundation, the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center.⁠[5]

After Chien-Shiung Wu died in Manhattan, New York City, on February 16, 1997, he carried her ashes, as she had wished, back to her hometown of Liuhe in Taicang, Jiangsu province. His granddaughter, Jada Yuan, writes that Chien-Shiung Wu collapsed in her yellow armchair while he was making her lunch. Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University, formally Columbia University in the City of New York, is a private research university in New York City and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1754 by royal charter from King George II as King's College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in New York State and the fifth oldest in the United States. It was renamed Columbia College in 1784 and adopted the university name and moved to Manhattan's Morningside Heights in 1896. It has 17 schools and four affiliated colleges, with 35,978 students enrolled in fall 2025. Legal scholar Jennifer L. Mnookin became president on July 1, 2026.Open the full entry’s release gives his account that she had suffered a stroke almost two years earlier and another on the day of her death.⁠[24][25][14]

Her memorial garden was built under his supervision. The article on the website of the Chien-Shiung Wu College states that the garden was designed by Southeast University’s department of architecture, with the design reviewed by I. M. Pei, and that two spheres in it express her experimental finding that parity is not conserved in weak interactions; the epitaph was written by Tsung-Dao Lee and the name of the garden by Chen Ning YangChen Ning YangChen Ning Yang (1922–2025) was a theoretical physicist born in Hefei, Anhui, China, who shared the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics with Tsung-Dao Lee for their investigation of the parity laws. In 1954 he and Robert L. Mills formulated non-Abelian gauge theory (Yang–Mills theory), and he worked in turn at the Institute for Advanced Study, Stony Brook University and Tsinghua University.Open the full entry. An article on the website of the China Zhi Gong Party likewise states that the five green characters of the garden’s name were written by Chen Ning Yang and that Tsung-Dao Lee wrote the epitaph in his own hand. An article in China Daily states instead that the epitaph was written by her biographer Chiang Tsai-chien.⁠[1][16][26][25]

He donated many of the couple’s belongings to what became the Chien-Shiung Wu Memorial Hall at Southeast University in Nanjing. The Xinhua Daily report states that after Chien-Shiung Wu’s death he continued, despite his age, to work hard for the development of the Mingde School.⁠[3][21]

A China News Service feature of February 20, 2003, states that in July 2001, while attending a conference in Tianjin, he suffered a sudden heart attack and soon afterward was transferred to Peking Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing; because of an earlier cerebral infarction his memory of the distant past was clear but his memory of recent events was blurred. The Sci-Tech Vista profile states that he spent the last year of his life at Peking Union Medical College Hospital and that in his last two years poor health kept him from returning to Taiwan, though the development and direction of the synchrotron radiation research center were still constantly on his mind.⁠[27][5]

The feature states that after his transfer to the hospital he was cared for throughout by a special-care nurse, Zhang Tao, who had more than 30 years of nursing experience; that he often taught the nurses English, asking for instance how to say “drink water” in English when he drank; that he walked for about an hour every day, often chatting with other patients on the ward, who liked him and called him Yuan Lao (Old Yuan); that he loved Peking opera and watched opera programs on television morning, noon and evening, humming along or calling out in applause when in good spirits; and that calls of greeting came every day from the United States, Britain, Taiwan and elsewhere. He kept to Western eating habits, drinking milk and coffee every day; he was frugal and in his last six months ate very little. Watching a video of the opening of a memorial hall dedicated to Chien-Shiung Wu, he would call out to her figure on the screen and ask how she was; sometimes, when pain kept him from eating and the nurse urged him to eat a little more, he answered that he was not hungry, that it was Chien-Shiung Wu who was hungry, and asked where she had gone. He sometimes remembered the nurse’s name and sometimes forgot it, and when asked who was looking after him, he always answered that she was his closest relative.⁠[27]

The Sci-Tech Vista profile states that in hospital he often went about in a wheelchair looking for ice cream, greeting people and shaking hands, and that although everyone in the hospital knew he was a world-class scientist, he would always say modestly that he simply had more experience than others; and that when relatives and friends visited, he would say with a smile that he was like a child now, forgetting at once whatever he had seen, heard or said each day. The Jinghua Shibao article quotes staff who had long worked with him as calling him a passionate reader, and medical staff as relating that once, when a nurse caught him reading and stopped him, he lost his temper at not being able to read as he wished and threw the book on the floor. The Mathematical Culture article describes the frugality with which he spent his last days in hospital as moving.⁠[5][9][7]

He died on the afternoon of February 11, 2003, at Peking Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing. A China News Service feature of February 20, 2003, and the Jinghua Shibao article give the time of death as 1:27 p.m. Xinhua’s dispatch, the Sci-Tech Vista profile, an article on the website of the China Zhi Gong Party and a China News Service article of February 14, 2003, give his age at death as 91; the SFGATE obituary gives it as 90.⁠[4][3][27][9][5][25][28]

The Sci-Tech Vista profile gives the cause of death as heart failure. The China News Service feature of February 20, 2003, states that on the evening of February 6 he showed signs of heart failure and was moved to the cardiac intensive care unit. A China News Service report of February 12, 2003, states that Mo Liya, head of the New York bureau of the Hong Kong publication Jingbao (Mirror), received a telephone call on the morning of February 11 from his nephew Wu Su, who said that he had died in Beijing on the afternoon of the 11th of a heart attack and kidney failure. The China News Service article of February 14, 2003, also gives the cause of death as heart failure.⁠[5][27][29][28]

He had lived in New York City and had been hospitalized after falling ill more than a year earlier while visiting relatives in China. The obituary gives his granddaughter, Jada Yuan, as the source of this account. Jada Yuan later wrote that he died six years after Chien-Shiung Wu, after being hospitalized on a trip to China.⁠[3][14]

At noon on February 20 his ashes were received at the Mingde School in Taicang, where more than 100 people, among them provincial and local officials and relatives of Chien-Shiung Wu, attended the ceremony. The Xinhua Daily report states that teachers and students of the Mingde School received the ashes, which in accordance with his wishes were to be buried with Chien-Shiung Wu; his son, Vincent YuanVincent YuanVincent Yuan (born 1947) is a physicist whose research has been carried out at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the son of Chien-Shiung Wu and Luke Chia-Liu Yuan; he took part in the TRIPLE Collaboration’s research on parity violation in neutron resonances and was first author of an experiment that measured the temperature of a shock wave by neutron resonance spectroscopy.Open the full entry, said at the ceremony that he had at last fulfilled his father’s wish to be with his mother and that the family would come to Liuhe often and continue to support the school. The report adds that after his death Taicang and the Mingde School sent representatives to Beijing to pay their respects. The Jinghua Shibao article states that during his last illness he kept saying that he wanted to go back to see his old home in Xiangcheng, Henan, and that his family said he would be buried with his wife at the Mingde School. The China News Service report of February 12, 2003, states that Chinese people of all circles in New York mourned his death.⁠[21][9][29]

On the morning of April 5, 2004, his ashes were interred at a ceremony in Taicang, Jiangsu, where he was buried with Chien-Shiung Wu beneath a crape myrtle tree; more than 300 people attended. His son, Vincent Yuan, came from the United States with his wife and daughter and placed the urn in the grave himself. The dispatch adds that the ceremony began at 10:30 a.m. and was attended by officials of Jiangsu’s overseas Chinese affairs office and federation of returned overseas Chinese, of Nanjing University, Southeast University and Henan University, of his home town of Xiangcheng, Henan, and of Suzhou and Taicang; it states that he had often said that Taicang was his second home town and that after his death he would return to Chien-Shiung Wu’s side, that looking at the cylindrical marble tomb he had asked to be buried with his wife in the same tomb beneath the crape myrtle, and that on that day his last wish was fulfilled.⁠[1]

The grave lies on the grounds of Mingde Middle School in Liuhe.⁠[30][25]

The inscription on his tombstone was written by Yuan T. Lee and the epitaph composed by Samuel C. C. Ting. The epitaph quoted in the Mathematical Culture article describes him as a devoted husband and loving father, the son of Yuan Kewen and grandson of Yuan Shikai, who lived with Chien-Shiung Wu in New York, a distinguished physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory who specialized in radiation detection and later worked to establish the synchrotron radiation research center in Taiwan, and who died in his homeland, mainland China.⁠[25][7]

He and Chien-Shiung Wu had a son, Vincent Yuan, whom the release that Columbia University issued on Chien-Shiung Wu’s death identifies as a research scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The National Academy of Sciences memoir states that their son, Vincent (Wei-Cheng Yuan), was born in Princeton in 1947 and also became a physicist, working on parity nonconservation in compound nuclei; the Mathematical Culture article states that Vincent Yuan was the couple’s only child and was born in February 1947. The National Park Service’s profile states that the son also became a nuclear scientist; the SFGATE obituary describes him as a nuclear physicist living in New MexicoNew MexicoNew Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States. Its capital is Santa Fe and its largest city is Albuquerque. It was admitted to the Union on January 6, 1912, as the 47th state, and had a population of 2,117,522 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, and the Columbia University release gives his home as Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Sci-Tech Vista profile notes that the whole family held doctorates in physics. The Mathematical Culture article states that Luke Chia-Liu Yuan took on much of the housework and may have looked after their son more than Chien-Shiung Wu did.⁠[24][3][1][12][7][17][5]

At his death he was also survived by a granddaughter and a brother. His granddaughter is the journalist Jada Yuan. A note in a paper by Nicholas L. Chan in the Journal of Chinese Studies records that he is said to have kept the manuscript of the poetry collection of his father, Yuan Kewen, and that its whereabouts are unknown. Wang Zhenliang’s article names his brothers: the eldest, Yuan Jiagu, whose wife Fang Chuguan was a daughter of Fang Dishan; the second, Yuan Jiazhang, whose wife Lü Shizhu was a daughter of Lü Haihuan, a founder of the Red Cross Society of China; and the youngest, Yuan Jiaji, who served early in life as a junior naval officer of the Kuomintang and after 1949 was a member of the Tianjin committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. The SFGATE obituary gives his granddaughter Jada Yuan’s home as Manhattan and names his surviving brother as Yuan Jiaji of Tianjin. Jada Yuan writes that her grandparents helped many relatives immigrate to New York, that as a child she and her parents visited them in New York twice a year, and that her grandparents, who returned to China many times from the late 1970s on, never took their only granddaughter with them. The Columbia University release states that the couple had lived in the same apartment in New York City for more than 50 years. Yuan Jiati said in the 2008 interview that he and Chien-Shiung Wu suggested that she open a Western restaurant, which she then ran in Tianjin, by 2008 for 15 years; that he stayed with her for seven years, with the restaurant downstairs, which made him especially happy, and that he called this the most luxurious life he had known; and that she looked after him for seven years. She said that she sometimes called him stingy: when she treated him to roast duck he criticized her for three days, and he and Chien-Shiung Wu ate instant noodles for lunch in America and did not know how to spend the money in their pockets. The Renmin Wenzhai article of 2011 calls him the best known of the jia generation of Yuan Shikai’s grandchildren and quotes Yuan Jiacheng, a son of Yuan Shikai’s tenth son Yuan KejianYuan KejianYuan Kejian was the tenth son of Yuan Shikai. He went to the United States to study in 1920; his second son, Yuan Jiacheng, says that he studied at Harvard University and, after returning to China, worked only briefly as an English-language secretary and thereafter lived on the family property. His wife, Lu Yuxiu, was a daughter of Lu Jianzhang, a former military governor of Shaanxi.Open the full entry, who calls him his cousin, as saying that with a good chance he too might have done as well as Jialiu and taken a doctorate like him, and that it was a pity he had not.⁠[3][31][32][6][14][24][8][20]

From 1973 on, he and Chien-Shiung Wu gave money and goods worth about 5 million yuan to Mingde Middle School in Taicang, helping it to put up a science and technology building and set up computer teaching. The Xinhua Daily report states that the couple gave everything they had saved to support the Mingde School, more than 5 million yuan in all, and the China News Service feature of February 20, 2003, likewise puts their gifts to education in the home region at more than 5 million yuan. The Mathematical Culture article notes that, as a professor and a researcher, the two lived all their lives on their salaries and were not as rich as investors, industrialists or businessmen. Yuan Jiati said in the 2008 interview that he left her no inheritance, saying that it would harm her, and that after his death in 2003 he gave his and his wife’s entire life savings to China.⁠[1][21][27][7][8]

The Sci-Tech Vista profile states that the couple gave their life savings to set up three foundations: a scholarship foundation in the United States named for Chien-Shiung Wu’s father, Zhong-Yi WuZhong-Yi WuZhong-Yi Wu (1888–1959) was a Chinese school founder who studied at the Nanyang Public School in Shanghai, took part in the political activities around the 1911 revolution and in 1913 founded and headed the Ming De School for girls in Liuhe, Taicang, Jiangsu. He was the father of the physicist Chien-Shiung Wu.Open the full entry; an academic foundation in Taiwan bearing her name; and a science lectureship foundation in the United States bearing both their names.⁠[5][12]

In the autumn of 1995 four Nobel PrizeNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prize is an international award established under the will of Alfred Nobel, comprising five prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace, awarded since 1901; its funds are managed by the Nobel Foundation, whose Board is based in Stockholm. The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, established in 1968, is not a Nobel Prize.Open the full entry laureates, Chen Ning Yang, Tsung-Dao Lee, Samuel C. C. Ting and Yuan T. Lee, jointly initiated the academic foundation in Taiwan while celebrating Chien-Shiung Wu’s birthday there; its purpose is to nurture young scientific talent, and each year he invited leading international scholars to lecture in Taiwan while the foundation selected more than 130 students, from the second year of senior high school to the first year of university, for a science camp.⁠[5]

The SFGATE obituary states that he started the Wu-Yuan Natural Science Foundation, which sends visiting lecturers to Chinese universities.⁠[3]

He and Chien-Shiung Wu also gave 1 million U.S. dollars to establish a science lectureship fund bearing their names at Southeast University, and later an award for young students and junior faculty. The China Zhi Gong Party article states that the lectureship fund serves to invite world-class physicists to China for academic exchange and that the award encourages promising young students and teachers; the article on the website of the Chien-Shiung Wu College states that the fund pays for leading physicists to lecture at Southeast University and Nanjing University, that the award named after the two honors promising young teachers, and that in 1988 the couple wrote an inscription for Southeast University. The China News Service article of February 14, 2003, states that Chiang Tsai-chien, a senior Taiwanese journalist and Chien-Shiung Wu’s biographer, particularly praised his act of designating in his will 1 million U.S. dollars for the science lectureship foundation bearing his and Chien-Shiung Wu’s names.⁠[25][16][28]

With Chien-Shiung Wu he edited the book Nuclear Physics, under the name Luke C. L. Yuan. The article on the website of the Chien-Shiung Wu College gives the book as the jointly written Methods of Experimental Physics: Nuclear Physics. The references in the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center’s publication list his memoir of his long friendship with Sun Yunxuan, written for a 1993 volume marking Sun Yunxuan’s 80th birthday, and an interview with him on the origins of the synchrotron radiation project in Physics Bimonthly, volume 15, number 6 (1993).⁠[33][16][23]

He was a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and of the American Physical Society. The Sci-Tech Vista profile calls him a fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences and of the American Physical Society, and the China News Service dispatch of 2004 calls him a member of the American Physical Society and a fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences. His Academia Sinica record also lists him as a member of the Honan Academy of Sciences and gives his New York Academy of Sciences standing as “Member New York Academy of Science”. Xinhua’s dispatch of 2003 states that he received an outstanding achievement award from a nationwide association of Chinese Americans and a science achievement award from an engineers’ association in the United States; the China News Service dispatch of 2004 names the latter as the science achievement award of an association of Chinese engineers in the Americas. The 2008 Huanqiu Renwu article also calls him a winner of the outstanding achievement award of the nationwide association of Chinese Americans.⁠[1][5][10][4][8]

He was also an honorary professor of Southeast University, Henan University and other institutions. Xinhua’s dispatch of 2003 names him an honorary professor of Nanjing University, the University of Science and Technology of China and Southeast University, and his Academia Sinica record also lists an honorary professorship at Zhengzhou University, which the record spells “Chengzhou University Chengzhou, Honan”.⁠[5][4][10]

The Sci-Tech Vista profile states that, even in hard times at the University of California, he remained confident and debonair, was often seen on campus in a well-pressed suit and, as a Chinese student who liked to play the erhu, attracted attention. It names extraordinary perseverance as the outstanding trait of his scholarship and records his frequent saying that a correct experiment can overturn a theory but a theory cannot overturn an experiment, and that a good experimental physicist must first understand physics deeply and second know his instruments inside out. It describes him as open-minded and never averse to novel and unconventional things, and as a man of wide interests who, whenever time allowed on his visits to Taiwan, always went to the National Palace Museum; it adds that he and Chien-Shiung Wu spent 55 years together, devoted and inseparable, and that although he lived abroad for many years he cared about the development of science on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and was glad to help younger scientists.⁠[5]

The Mathematical Culture article describes him as modest and gentle, never overbearing; having grown up in northern China, he was full of praise for the lion’s-head meatballs, chicken soup, greens and wontons that Chien-Shiung Wu cooked; he understood his highly ambitious wife and helped her in every way, caring for her attentively for decades; and it adds that for decades the couple lived simply and never sought personal comfort. The China News Service article of February 14, 2003, states that Chiang Tsai-chien spent a whole year in New York in 1989 gathering material for the biography, sharing the daily life of the Yuan family, and gives his view that although he came from an eminent family he showed no trace of arrogance, and that, while he did not match the academic achievements of Chien-Shiung Wu, known as the Chinese Madame Curie, he was gentle and hard-working, kept house while she concentrated on research, gave her the support and encouragement she most needed and was an important force behind her achievements. Jada Yuan writes that, an accomplished physicist himself, he cooked, drove Chien-Shiung Wu everywhere (she never learned to drive) and often put her needs first, and that she saw her grandfather’s utter devotion to her grandmother. The article on the website of the Chien-Shiung Wu College states that the two respected each other in daily life and encouraged each other in their work.⁠[7][28][14][16]

The China News Service report of February 12, 2003, describes him as an elder of great academic accomplishment who was kind and generous to others; Mo Liya, who had interviewed the couple several times, described him as frugal and unpretentious, a man of lofty character and a model for younger scientists, not fussy about food and fond of light dishes; she said that the couple sometimes came to her home early on a Sunday morning, always with him driving, and stayed the whole day, and she called the two the Curies of their time; Lu Chongqing, a former president of the Lümei Keji Xiehui, an association of Chinese scientists and technologists in the United States, recalled that he came to study in the United States in 1983, attending Columbia University and New York UniversityNew York UniversityNew York University is a private university in New York City, founded in 1831, and one of the largest private universities in the United States.Open the full entry, that at first he lived on Long Island, far from his school in Manhattan, and telephoned Luke Chia-Liu Yuan for help in finding a place to live, and that Luke Chia-Liu Yuan took time from his busy schedule to find him one; and Zhang Yiguo, a former Columbia University student, said that as a student of the humanities he knew little of Luke Chia-Liu Yuan’s research but knew him to be a remarkable and highly respected physicist. The Jinghua Shibao article states that his nephew Yuan Menglin produced a sheet of paper on which a short summary of him was neatly written: kind and benevolent toward others, refined and cultivated in character, and in science devoted to the world and to research in the physics of nuclear energy technology. Xinhua’s dispatch of 2003 states that although he lived abroad for a long time he did not forget that his roots were in China. The China Zhi Gong Party article calls the couple a devoted pair whom people likened to a pair of immortals.⁠[29][9][4][25]

A page in the Famous Persons Garden section of the website of Nanjing University’s Pukou campus introduces him as the planter of a cedar (xuesong); the page does not say when or exactly where the tree was planted.⁠[2]

Brookhaven National Laboratory: Official website: https://www.bnl.gov/about/ (opens in a new window).⁠[34]

National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center: Official website: https://www.nsrrc.org.tw/Chinese/index.aspx (opens in a new window).⁠[35]