physics

Wang Daheng

Wang Daheng is a physics 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 Wang Daheng rather than just read about it. In short: Wang Daheng (Chinese: 王大珩; 26 February 1915 – 21 July 2011) was a Chinese optical physicist, engineer, and inventor widely considered the "father of optical engineering" in China. He was a founding academician of both the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Wang Daheng (Chinese: 王大珩; 26 February 1915 – 21 July 2011) was a Chinese optical physicist, engineer, and inventor widely considered the "father of optical engineering" in China. He was a founding academician of both the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He was the founder of the Changchun Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Changchun University of Science and Technology, and the Chinese Optical Society.

Early life and education Wang was born on 26 February 1915 in Tokyo, Japan, with his ancestral home in Suzhou, China. His father Wang Yingwei (王应伟) was an astronomer then studying in Japan. Wang graduated from the Department of Physics at Tsinghua University in 1936. In 1938, he won the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship to study in England. After earning his master's degree from Imperial College London in 1940, he began his doctoral studies at the University of Sheffield in optical physics and technology.

Career

United Kingdom After World War II broke out in 1939, Nazi Germany, a major maker of optical glass, banned the export of the strategic product. The British government offered support for domestic companies to develop and manufacture the product, and Wang decided to abandon his studies and join Chance Brothers, a leading British glass manufacturer. His research at the company led to the development of new types of optical glass and precision instruments.

China In 1948, Wang returned to China and established the Department of Applied Physics at the former Dalian University (now part of the Dalian University of Technology). In 1952, Wang established the Changchun Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (originally named the Institute of Instrumentation) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Changchun. He is also considered the founder of Changchun University of Science and Technology, a spinoff of the institute. He worked at the institute from 1952 to 1983, and served several times as its president. At the institute, he made a number of inventions and developed China's first electronic microscope and laser. Under his leadership, the Changchun Institute played a crucial role in the development of strategic weapons, developing high-precision optics for missile guidance systems. It enabled major breakthroughs for China's submarine-launched ballistic missile program. Wang was elected a founding member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 1955. In 1992, he and five other scientists advocated the creation of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) independent from the CAS. When the Chinese government accepted their proposal and established the CAE in 1994, Wang was again elected as a founding academician and a member of the presidium. He was a fellow of SPIE and chaired a number of SPIE symposiums and conferences. In March 1986, Wang Daheng and three other prominent scientists—Wang Ganchang, Yang Jiachi, and Chen Fangyun—wrote a letter to Deng Xiaoping advocating the development of strategic technologies. Deng accepted their proposal, which gave birth to the influential 863 Program, named after the date of their letter. Wang died on 21 July 2011 in Beijing, at the age of 96. He was buried at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery.

Honours and recognition Wang was awarded the Two Bombs, One Satellite Meritorious Medal in 1999 for his role in developing the technology to trigger nuclear fusion using laser. He was also conferred the Special Prize of the State Science and Technology Progress Award and the Ho Leung Ho Lee Prize for Achievement in Science and Technology. The asteroid 17693 Wangdaheng, discovered by the Beijing Schmidt CCD Asteroid Program in 1997, is named after him.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Wang Daheng

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Wang Daheng claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, 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 Wang Daheng 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 Wang Daheng 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 Wang Daheng

In research: Wang Daheng appears in physics 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 Wang Daheng 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: Wang Daheng is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1915 births, 2011 deaths, 20th-century Chinese inventors, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Wang Daheng 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 Wang Daheng in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Wang Daheng 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 Wang Daheng out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Wang Daheng in simple terms?

Why does Wang Daheng matter?

Because it connects several physics 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 Wang Daheng?

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 Wang Daheng.