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Physicist's diaries gifted to Fudan University

2014-06-10 12:34 Shanghai Daily Web Editor: Yao Lan
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Hoff Lu (left) and Alfred Nier, a famous physicist and Lu’s tutor at the University of Minnesota, stand together in a laboratory in Seoul in this 1981 file photograph. — Ti Gong

Hoff Lu (left) and Alfred Nier, a famous physicist and Lu's tutor at the University of Minnesota, stand together in a laboratory in Seoul in this 1981 file photograph. — Ti Gong

A collection of diaries, manuscripts and other items once owned by the renowned nuclear physicist Lu Hefu, also known as Hoff Lu, has been donated to Shanghai's Fudan University.

A total of 206 items were given to the university, where Lu worked as a professor for 45 years, by his family to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth, it said yesterday.

"The diaries are precious as very few academics keep them. These are the first we've ever had," Yang Jiarun, an official at the university, told Shanghai Daily.

"Reading them is like watching a film of Lu's life," he said.

The collection was sent to Shanghai from the United States in seven packing cases, and is now in the university's archive, Yang said.

The diaries contain fascinating details of Lu's work and life in the 27 years prior to his death in 1997.

They were divided by Lu into two series — Hong and Zhuan — which translate as "red" and "expert," but together form a phrase coined by Chairman Mao in 1958 to describe cadres who were considered politically sound and professionally competent.

Among the other items donated was a notebook — with a cover made from cigarette packets — in which Lu recorded the meetings he had with foreign guests. Lu liked to smoke, Yang said, adding that his many visitors included two winners of the Nobel Prize for Physics — Yang Zhenning and Tsung-Dao Lee — and several noted scientists from the US.

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