engineering

Nie Li

Nie Li is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Nie Li rather than just read about it. In short: Nie Li (born September 1930) is a retired Lieutenant General of the Chinese People's Liberation Army and the first woman to hold the rank. Early life Nie was born in Shanghai in 1930.

Key takeaways

Nie Li belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Nie Li to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Nie Li from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Nie Li (born September 1930) is a retired Lieutenant General of the Chinese People's Liberation Army and the first woman to hold the rank.

Early life Nie was born in Shanghai in 1930. She was the daughter of Nie Rongzhen, who was a Marshal of the PLA, and Zhang Ruihua. As her father was from Jiangjin, Sichuan, she is considered a Jiangjin native by Chinese convention. When she was four years old, Nie was imprisoned along with her mother by the Kuomintang. They were released two years later and Zhang Ruihua sent her daughter to be raised with a family in the countryside. At age 14, Nie was sent to work in a cotton mill.

Education Zhou Enlai dispatched people to take Nie to a Communist-controlled area in Beijing in 1945. On arrival, 15-year-old Nie entered the first year of elementary school. In 1955, Nie went to Leningrad to study at the Leningrad Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics. She graduated and returned to China in 1960.

Career On her return, Nie was assigned as a technician to a lab in the Ministry of National Defense of the People's Republic of China, researching missile technology. Over the years, Nie held various roles in the Ministry's Fifth Institute (Chinese: 五院; pinyin: wǔyuàn), as well as the Ministry of Aerospace Industry and Ministry of Science and Technology. She worked on projects including the earliest Yuan Wang-class tracking ship, launched in 1977, as well as the first Chinese supercomputers, Yinhe models I and II, throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1988, Nie was presented with the rank of major general. Nie and another four women promoted at this time were the first female generals since Li Zhen's commission in 1955. Nie was promoted to lieutenant general on 24 July 1993. She served twice as deputy chairperson on the All-China Women's Federation. Nie was a representative at the 7th National People's Congress, as well as the 8th National People's Congress.

Personal life Nie met Ding Henggao whilst studying in Leningrad. The two married in 1962 in Guangzhou and the ceremony was described by Tao Siliang, Tao Zhu's daughter, as, "solemn and also so simple." At the time, people were surprised that the daughter of a marshal had not married someone of equal or higher status. Ding was later awarded the rank of full general. Nie and Ding had one daughter.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Nie Li

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Nie Li claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Nie Li before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Nie Li ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Nie Li

In research: Nie Li appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Nie Li in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Nie Li is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1930 births, 20th-century Chinese engineers, 20th-century Chinese women engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Nie Li outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Nie Li in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Nie Li means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Nie Li out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Nie Li in simple terms?

Nie Li (born September 1930) is a retired Lieutenant General of the Chinese People's Liberation Army and the first woman to hold the rank. Early life Nie was born in Shanghai in 1930.

Why does Nie Li matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Nie Li?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Nie Li.