He is the first person in China's optical fiber industry. Your "WiFi freedom" cannot be separated from him! ｜Time Letter

Special Project of Beijing Science Center

Original Scientist Letters

On October 1, 1949, the whole country celebrated, the five-star red flag rose slowly, and accompanied by the rumbling of salutes, the People's Republic of China was founded. On that night, Huang Hongjia, a Chinese microwave electronics scientist, braved the danger of being attacked by Kuomintang warships, boarded a coal freighter in Hong Kong, and arrived in Tianjin through the Taiwan Strait.

Huang Hongjia was one of the first scientists to return to China after the founding of the People's Republic of China. At that time, Huang Hongjia was studying electrical engineering at the University of Michigan. When he was about to pursue his doctorate, he heard the news that the People's Republic of China was about to be established, and resolutely gave up his degree and generous treatment in the United States, and decided to return to China as soon as possible to serve.

In 1948, Huang Hongjia was at the University of Michigan

Source | Senior Scientists Academic Growth Data Collection Project

Before leaving the United States, Huang Hongjia wrote a letter to his American friends, Mr. and Mrs. Wohan, explaining why he was eager to return to China. "The only reason I am eager to return to China is not that I love America less, but that I love China more. I love China as a whole, not only her virtues, but also her poverty and misfortune..."

Letter to the British-American couple Mr. and Mrs. Vaughan on August 28, 1949 Source | Old Scientist Academic Growth Data Collection Project

After returning to China, he actively devoted himself to work. In 1964, Huang Hongjia compiled and edited the first monograph on microwave electronics in my country, Microwave Principles, combining his years of learning and practice. This monograph was once evaluated by the international microwave theory research community as a "book that makes the Chinese proud."

But Huang Hongjia said: "I don't think it is a very important scientific contribution. I didn't create much myself. And because I wanted to be comprehensive, I wrote a relatively long book, two volumes. But I was only in my thirties at the time, and it took a lot of hard work for me to write that."

Source | Senior Scientists Academic Growth Data Collection Project

Afterwards, Huang Hongjia published a series of optical fiber research results, laying a theoretical foundation for my country's optical fiber communication industry. However, Huang Hongjia was not limited to the theoretical level, he also worked hard in application and practice, breaking through one difficult topic after another.

In the 1980s, Huang Hongjia founded my country's first optical fiber research laboratory and completed a series of research that filled the gaps in my country's optical fiber field: he developed my country's first single-mode optical fiber, completed my country's earliest optical fiber communication system, and innovatively invented the broadband optical fiber "Huang's wave plate"...

The scientific research results were recognized by the domestic appraisal committee and published in the Liberation Daily. Source: Liberation Daily

Huang Hongjia in the laboratory Source | Senior scientists' academic growth data collection project

In 2000, a reporter asked Huang Hongjia: What is the relationship between the fiber optic communication you are studying and our lives? He said: "It is very simple. One of the important issues to be solved now is how to deliver optical fiber cables to your home and mine. At that time, we will be sitting in front of the TV, telephone, computer and other signals sent by optical fiber, and we will truly enjoy the blessing brought by multimedia."

"Perhaps what I want to pursue all my life is a little light. Light and heat are closely connected. With light, there is heat, and with heat, we can feel the greatness of light. Light and heat are intersecting and merging with each other in this way."

Huang Hongjia at the Key Laboratory of Special Optical Fibers at Shanghai University Source | Academic Growth Data Collection Project for Senior Scientists

Today, we can enjoy such convenient communication services, which is inseparable from the dedication of older generation scientists like Huang Hongjia.

Huang Hongjia

(1924-2021)

Microwave and optical waveguide scientist

Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Special thanks to this column

Academic growth data collection project for senior scientists

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