Letter from Qubing Xie

A Tribute to Professor Rudy Hwa – On His Happy 80th Birthday

by Xie Qubing, Shandong University

(A) Soon after Deng Xiaoping came to power with the downfall of the “Gang of Four”, he sought opportunities to break China’s long-term isolation and to send young and middle-aged scientists to study in developed countries, in order to accelerate China’s modernization of science and technology. In 1979, Deng reached an agreement with the then U.S. President Jimmy Carter to send scholars and students to study in the United States. A few months later, the International Theoretical Particle Physics Conference was held in Conghua, Guangzhou, China, January 4 through 10, 1980. More than 50 overseas Chinese scholars from 4 continents gathered together with 100+ colleagues from across China to discuss the latest development in particle theory. Professor Rudy Hwa from US and Professor Meng Dazhong from Germany were among the participants. During the meeting, I listened with great interest Professor Hwa’s talk on his Valon model, an attempt to combine constitute quarks and parton model for high-energy reactions. After the meeting, Professor Meng visited Shandong University. When he learned that the Chinese Ministry of Education (then called the "State Education Commission") was going to send me to study abroad and that I was arranging a visit to CERN, Professor Meng strongly advised me to work with Prof. Hwa. He even volunteered to contact Hwa for me. Things went smoothly as I received Prof. Hwa’s invitation letter on February 14, got the approval from Shandong University on March 5, and received the IAP66 Form and the Appointment Letter signed by President Paul Olum of the University of Oregon on May 5. I didn’t wait for too long to fly across the Pacific on August 29^th to Eugene. Prof. Hwa was kind enough to send his postdoc Zhang Fang to pick me up at the airport and helped me settle down.

I met Prof. Hwa the first time in US in his office on September 1. He read through my recent work in China and said to me: “your research approach was good, so you may continue your work here.” In response, I said, “I came to US to learn from others, especailly from you; otherwise why would I come to the US?” So we started collaboration thereafter.

Generally speaking, I encountered two obstacles in the US. The first was the language barrier. Russian was the first foreign language for my generation from middle school to college. We picked up English through secret self-study – mostly by reading research literature, so our English was never proficient. Furthermor, various political movements, especially the ten-year "Cultural Revolution", had made our research progress far behind the international level. I felt the gap was more than a decade and the pressure of catching-up was heavy on me. Prof. Hwa was very understanding about my struggle. In the next few months, he allowed me to attemp a few different research topics with his step-by-step guidance, and analyzed the results with me. Oftentimes I went to the computer center at midnight to check out the "homework", and see the results. Though I did not achieve anything after nearly four months’ struggle, I learned about Prof. Hwa’s research ideas and methods, and I familiarized myself with Valon model as well as the frontier of our field. Combining with the new knowledge and my previous research, I had a meaningful new discovery in less than a month. Prof. Hwa was pleased and asked me to write an article about the work. He carefully edited the article I wrote, but insisted on not listing himself as the co-author since he had not been a part of the research. I submitted the article to the Physic Review. Hwa immediately contacted the organizing committee of the 12th International Conference on Multi-particle Dynamics to invite me to give a talk in the soon-to-be-held Notre Dame conference. He also reported my work in detail in the March 8-14 Partons in Soft-Hadronic Processes Confernece, held in Erice, Italy.

My original plan was to work with Hwa for one year in Eugene. However, he told me in early 1981 that he was going to take a sabbatical leave and work for a year at Los Alamos National Lab starting the coming summer. He took the initiative to contact Professor Charles Chiu at the University of Texas in Austin for me to work with Prof. Chiu after June. He drove me to the Eugene Airport on June 21 to see me off (Photo 1). To recall the brief 10 months with Prof. Hwa, on or off job, I felt a deep sense of a family. With his selfless help, I was able to publish my first article in an international scholarly journal, to give my first talk at an international conference, and have become acquainted with many experts actively involved in the field, such as Van Hove at CERN, Bo Andersson at Lund University, Sweden, W. Kittel at Nijmegen University, the Netherlands, and many others.

(B) In 1982, after I came back to China, I started a particle physics theory group in the Department of Physics, Shandong University. The goal of the group was to continue research on high-energy reactions and multi-particle production mechanism, as well as to promote national and international academic exchanges and collaborations. The group did enjoy some successes. We held the first China High-Energy Multi-particle Production conference in Beijing University December 24 through 26, 1984. We had the honor to have Professors Yang Chen-Ning and Meng Da-zhong among our guest speakers. In early 1985, I received a letter from Prof. Hwa stating that he had just participated in the Conference on Multi-particle Production in the US, where delegates from many countries suggested having a series of international conferences on multi-particle production. All agreed to take his suggestion to have the 2^nd conference in China. Prof. Hwa asked me if I could organize the conference and he would help me with all his effort. After nearly two years’ preparation, the Second International Multi-particle Dynamics Conference was successfully held from June 28 to July 6, 1987 in Jinan, China, attended by nearly 60 delegates from around the world. It was the first time for China to host such an international conference; it was also the first visit to China for many participating scientists. With Prof. Hwa’s thorough preparation and great organization, the conference was a great success with broad academic discussions and exchanges. Photo 2 shows Hwa presiding over one of the meetings in Shandong. Through this conference, we have established broader and closer ties with domestic and foreign colleagues, which led to a variety of international conferences, exchanges, and collaborations.

(C) I was Porf. Hwa’s first visiting scholar from mainland China, followed immediately by Professor Liu Hanzhao of Nankai University, Professor Huang Tao of Instutue of High Energy Physics in Beijing, and more at later times, such as Professors Wu Yuanfang and Yang Chunbin from Central China Normal University. Prof. Hwa provided sincere care and guidance to each of us. After returning home, these scholars recommended their outstanding students, such as Chen Wei and Wang Xin-Nian, to study with Prof. Hwa. For more than thirty years, the academic collaborations between Mainland China and the US, as well as other countries, has been broadened steadily. The quality of research and researchers in China has been improving continuously. All these advances are closely tied with Prof. Hwa’s tremendous contributions

On personal perspective, Prof. Hwa’s scholarly achievement and his charisma have won our great admiration from many of us, which is beyond description. I can only share with you some precious memories here.

Finally, I like to congratulate him on his 80th birthday, and wish him good health and longevity. I hope he will visit Shandong in October this year.

难忘的回忆 – 祝华家照教授80寿辰

山东大学 谢去病

一、 打倒四人帮 邓小平掌权后，为了尽快实现科学技术的现代化，就着手打破长期闭关鎖国的局面，派中青年科学工作者到发迖国家学习。1979年邓与美囯卡特总统会谈，达成派中青年科学工作者和学生，赴美访问和学习的协议。1980年1月4日至10日，在中国广州从化举办的粒子理论会，來自海外四大洲50余位华裔、华侨和港澳学者同来自全国各地的一百多位同行共同讨论粒子理论的最新进展，华家照先生和德国的孟大中先生也参加了。会上我听了华先生试图在高能反应中把结构夸克与部分子模型有机联系起来的Valon（价子）啚象，很感兴趣。会后孟先生访问了山东大学，当听说教育部（当时叫“国家教委”）可能派我作为访问学者去国外学习，并己联系CERN时，极力劝我去华家照先生那里，并说由他与华联系。果然2月14日我就收到华先生寄来的邀请信，3月5日学校批准后，5月5号就接到华寄来的IAP66表及由付校长和院长Paul olum簽署的聘请書。8月29我顺利跨越太平洋到迖Eugene, 华派他的博士后张帆到机场接我, 并在他帮助下很快在Eugene安顿下来。

9月1号我首次与华先生在他办公室见面，他翻阅了我近几年在囯內的工作后说，你的路子不錯，可以在这里继续做下去。我说，我是出来学习的，到你这里首先是跟你学，否则何必出来？

我们这代人，从中学到大学都是学的俄文，英语是工作后为了看文献偷偷自学的，多数是“唖巴英语”；由于各种政治运动，尤其十年“文革”的担误，专业水平与当时国际水平也脫节和落后十年以上，各方面压力都非常大。华先生很理解，在隨后的几个月中，给我几个他想试探的问题，指导我一步步进行试探，一同分析结果。我也经常半亱到计算中心“交作业”，验结果。虽然经过近四个月的试探“一事无成”，但通过这段与华先生的合作，亲身体验和学习了他的研究思路和方法，熟习了他的Valon模型及夲领域前沿。在这新的基础上，和我以前的思路一结合, 不到一个月就得到有意义的新发现。 华先生知道后非常高兴, 叫我马上写出来。 文章写好经他仔细審定后, 他坚持自已未参加工作, 不肯署名， 但隨即把文章发给Physic Rev, 并马上与即将在美国中部Notre Dame 召开的第12届多粒子动力学国际会议组委会联系, 建议邀请我参加并作大会报告。 还立即在3月8-14日意大利 Erice举办的 Partons in Soft-Hadronic Processes 会议上详细介绍了我这工作.

原来是到 Eugene 跟华先生工作一年的，1981年初，华先生告诉我，他这年暑假开始，有一年学术休假，已约定去 Los Alamos National Lab 工作, 所以他主动与徳州大学的邱道彬教授联系,建议我六月开完会后, 直接去 Austin访问。6月21号, 他亲自开车送我到机场, 照片(一) 就是当时在Eugene机场拍的。 在 Eugene 与华先生相处的十个月, 我感受到的是浓浓的亲情。在他无私幚助下，我笫一次在国际学术刋物上发表工作，笫一次登上国际会议的讲台，笫一次结识了许多活跃在当时夲领域最前沿的专家，如CERN的Van Hove，瑞典 Lund大学的Andersson B，荷兰Nijmegen大学的Kittel，W等等。

二、 1982年我回国后，在山东大学物理系组织了一个粒子物理理论小组，继续高能反应和多粒子产生机制的研究，并发展与国內外的学术交流。1984年12月24-26日我们在北大举行了国内的第一届高能多重产生会，杨振宁和孟大中教授也出席作了报告。1985年初我接到华先生来信，说他刚参加了在美国举办的多粒子产生会，各囯参会代表建议把多粒子产生作为一个系列国际会议，他建议第二次到中国开，大家都很赞成，问我能不能承办，他可全力幫我。经过近两年的醞酿筹备，1987年6月28至7月6日，笫二届囯际多粒子产生会在中囯济南市召开，有来自全球的近60名代表参加，这是在中囯首次举办，也是很多同行首次访问中国。在华先生的精心组织下，会议的学术交流讨论，非常成功。照片（二）是华先生在山东主持会议。通过这次会议，我们及国內同行与国外同行建立了更广泛更密切的联系，参加隨后各种相关的国际会议及互访与合作。

三、我是第一个从大陆到他那里学习和工作的访问学者, 紧跟着南开大学的刘汉昭教授, 高能所的黄涛教授, 也到了 Eugene。以后就更多了，如华中师大的吳元芳杨纯斌等。这些人回国后，也把自已的一些好学生，推荐给华先生，如陈伟，王新年等等。华先生都对他们给予了热忱的关怀指导。三十多年以来，大陆中国与美国及世界各国的学术交流合作，日益发展与密切，科研队伍与水平，不断壮大与提升，是与华先生所作的贡献分不开的。华先生的学术成就和人格魅力，更是大家敬仰所在，不用我嗷述。我只是通过亲身经历的几段回忆，祝贺他的80华诞，祝他健康长寿，并希望今年十月他能再来山东