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This lecture
will explore
China's
reception of the
celebrated
physicist and
his theory of
relativity
between 1917 and
1979. It will
introduce the
pioneers who
introduced and
disseminated the
revolutionary
theory in China;
explain why
relativity was
introduced and
swiftly absorbed
by the Chinese.
The lecture will
emphasize the
significant role
of the May
Fourth Movement
(1917–1923) and
influences from
Japan and the
United States in
the introduction
and assimilation
of relativity.
Within a decade
of the
introduction of
relativity,
Chinese
theoretical
physicists began
to emerge and
tackle technical
problems in the
general
relativity and
unified field
theory. As a
result, the
assimilation of
relativity led
to the rise of
theoretical
physics in
China.
In the late
1940s and early
1950s, due to a
series of
geopolitical
changes, China
was subjected to
a prevalent
influence of the
Soviet Union.
Consequently,
the Soviet
criticism of
Einstein and
relativity by
orthodox Marxist
philosophers was
brought in and
became wide
spread in China
in the 1950s.
Gradually this
imported
criticism
induced
indigenous
attacks on
Einstein and his
theory, which
became
increasingly
radical and
climaxed in the
organized
campaign during
the Chinese
Cultural
Revolution
(1966–1976),
when the theory
of relativity
and its author
was denigrated.
It was not until
the early 1979,
the Chinese
government
sponsored a
grand ceremony
to rehabilitate
the great
physicist, which
not only
restored
Einstein to the
status of a
great icon for
modern science
but also
esteemed him as
a champion for
social democracy
and justice.
For more
information on,
and to purchase
Prof. Hu's book
'China & Albert
Einstein: The
Reception of the
Physicist and
His Theory in
China
1917-1979,'
please visit
www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/HUCHIN.html
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