Li Shu-hua

Who's Who in China 4th ed. (1931)

Li Shu-hua (Chinese: 李书华; pinyin: lǐ shū huá, 23 September 1890–5 July 1979) was a Chinese physical scientist from Peking University and educator came from Qinhuangdao, Hebei. He was the brother of Li Shu-tien.

He worked at Academia Sinica and the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China.

He went to France in 1922 and received a doctorate degree, before moving back to China.

In 1949, he became a Chinese expatriates in France, Germany and later the United States. He died in New York in 1979.

Background

Li Shu-hua studied Chinese Classics with private tutors from 1896–1905. In 1907 he studied in the Ch'ang li Hsien Higher Elementary School and the following year he entered the Chihli Higher Agricultural School in Paoting, Hopei. Upon graduation in 1912 he got a scholarship from the Chihli provincial government to study in France. He received the certificate of Ingenieur Agrricole from the Universite de Toulouse in 1918, and the degrees Licensie es Sciences Physiques and Docteur es Sciences Physiques from the Universite de Paris in 1920 and 1922, respectively. Following his return to China in 1922 and up to 1930 he served as professor of physics at Peking University. In 1929, he became vice president of the National Academy of Beijing, a post he held until 1949. Between 1930 and 1931 he concurrently served the Ministry of Education first as vice-minister and then as minister. He became a member of the Research Council, Academia Sinica in 1935 and was its director-general in 1943. From 1935-1949 he was concurrently chairman of the Chinese delegation of the Commission Mixte des Oeuvres Franco-Chinoises. In 1945 he was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang and participated in the conference for the founding of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In 1946, 1947, and 1949 he attended the general conferences of the UNESCO as a Chinese delegate. While residing in Paris from 1949 to 1951, he did research work at the Institute de Biologie Physico-Chimique, Universite de Paris. In the academic year of 1951-1952 he taught Chinese language and culture at the University of Hamburg in Germany. In 1952 he served as chairman of the Chinese delegation to the Seventh General Conference of UNESCO. In 1953 he relocated to New York. Between 1953 and 1960 he wrote many articles on Chinese invention and discovery in science. He won a research award from the Society of Sigma Xi and the Scientific Research Society in 1958.

— from C. Martin Wilbur, Preface to The Reminiscences of Li Shu-Hua as told to Minta Chou Wang, 1960-61, as part of Columbia University's Chinese Oral History Project

Li Shu-Hua studied under a number of renowned professors, among them Paul Sabatier (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1912), Gabriel Lippmann (Nobel, 1908) and Marie Curie. He also worked in the lab of Jean Perrin (Nobel 1926). In 1926 he was awarded the "officier de la Legion d' Honneur" by the French Government. He was twice elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Chinese Society of Physics, and once of the Chinese Society of Astronomers. He served on the Boards of Directors of the Beijing Natural History Museum and the Beijing National Central Museum. From The Reminiscences of Li Shu-Hua as told to Minta Chou Wang, 1960–61, as part of Columbia University's Chinese Oral History Project.

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