About nine years ago, I went to Beijing Science and Technology University to pursue a master’s degree in solid mechanics. My former major was mechatronics, so I didn’t know what mechanics is and how to learn mechanics at that time. Just then, my associate supervisor, Prof. Shang Xin-chun, who once worked in Lanzhou University, told me some fundamental knowledge about mechanics. From him, I began to know that Chou Pei-yuan, Tsien Hsue-shen, Chien Wei-zang and Kuo Yung-huai are the most famous scientists of mechanics in China. I also learned that Lanzhou University is one of the centers of mechanics in China. More over, I firstly knew that the founder of Department of Mechanics in Lanzhou University is Professor Ye Kai-yuan.

    Although my foundation of mechanics was quite weak at first, I worked hard to compensate the relative knowledge. One of the most important books to me is the “Elastic Mechanics”, written by Chien Wei-zang and Ye Kai-yuan. More and more, to learn more knowledge of mechanics, I read some other literatures, including some important papers and books about plates and shells authored by Prof. Ye. Today, I also become a teacher of mechanics in China University of Petroleum, and this teaching position partly attributes to Prof. Ye and Shang.

One day in 2007, when I was a PHD candidate in Department of Engineering Mechanics in Tsinghua University, another center of mechanics, I was surprised to see a little obituary notice about Prof. Ye on a blackboard. I sighed with emotion that such a great scientist had left us for ever, which was a great lost for the mechanics in China. Unfortunately, I haven never seen Prof. Ye although I benefited much from him. The following stories and views mostly originate from my teachers and friends to monument this great scholar.

1.      A scholar with rich knowledge

No doubt, Prof. Ye was a great scientist with rich knowledge. However, as we all know, he was born in a period when China was in an unsettled time. How could he accumulate so much knowledge? I think the inter-disciplinary study is the secret. Prof. Ye was once a student in Department of Civil Engineering in Beijing University, Department of Mathematics in Yanjing University, Tangshan Engineering Institute, Department of Electrical Engineering in Tsinghua University and Zhejiang University, mechanics graduate directed by Pro. Chien Wei-zang in Tsinghua University.

Based upon the abundant knowledge, Prof. Ye can easily make great progress in

large deflections and buckling of plates and shells, heterogeneous elasto-plastic

mechanics, structural optimization, etc. At first, he was a student majoring in engineering, but finally he made contributions to theoretical and rational mechanics. This process realized the subject of “engineering science” and “applied mathematics” proposed by Tsien Hsue-shen and Lin Chia-chiao, respectively. Like Prof. Ye, some other great scientists also succeeded for crossing different disciplinaries, such as Tsien Hsue-shen,  Chien Wei-zang and Feng kang. With the development of information, MEMS, biology and nano-science, the edge-crossed subject is also a good opportunity for mechanics.

2.      An educator

Further more, Prof. Ye is also a great educator. In 1953, he became a teacher in

Department of Mathematics and Mechanics, and then founded the teaching-research division of solid mechanics with Wang ren, another great scholar of mechanics. Six years later, he founded Department of Mechanics in Lanzhou University, which was the only department of mechanics majoring in science in northwestern zone. In 1986, he served the dean of Department of Mechanics in Lanzhou University.

Prof. Ye culminated a lot of famous students, the following is an incomplete list: (1) Liu Ren-huai, a member of Chinese Academy of Science, the former headmaster of Jinan University. (2) Zheng Xiao-jing, the associate headmaster of Lanzhou University. (3) Ye Zhi-ming, the associate headmaster of Shanghai University. (4) Zhou You-he, the Changjiang Scholar in Lanzhou University. (5) Sun Bo-hua,  the director of Center for Mechanics, Smart Structures and Micro-systems in Cape Peninsula University of Technology. A poem of Chairman Mao will exactly expression Prof. Ye as an educator, namely “Till the mountains are covered with flowers sweet and fair, she is cheering with them in the early year’s fresh air ”.

3.      A man fighting adversity

Everyman may be in adversity, but only a few can succeed for persisting and

striving. Prof. Ye was such a man fighting adversity. In Great Cultural Revolution, he was sent to jail for political reason. In these seven years, he didn’t yield to the persecution. He began to do some research in plates and shells in the jail regardless of the disorderly world. Until 1978, he was rehabilitated and went back to the platform.    

He is so diligent, and he always believed that “ One is never too old to learn ”, and this invaluable spirit will stimulate all the younger students. Here, the last words of Laplace P S must be cited: What we know is not much. What we do not know is immense.

4.      A true man

Prof. Ye was upright and never stooping to flattery. In Great Cultural Revolution and some other political campaigns, he didn’t sell his soul and always told truth. When Prof. Chien Wei-zang was criticized incorrectly, he kept silent and never hat a person when he was down. For this reason, he was implicated and sent to jail.

In reality, those who tells truth are not welcome by the leaders, so being a true man is not an easily thing. This is the most important reason for I admire and respect Prof. Ye.

Prof. Ye has been away from us for two years, but his influence still exists. He was not only a scholar with rich knowledge, an educator, a man fighting adversity, but also a true man, a man who tells truth.

转载本文请联系原作者获取授权，同时请注明本文来自刘建林科学网博客。
链接地址：https://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-44316-309748.html

上一篇：人类史上那些最伟大的科学家
下一篇：咽炎：老师的职业病之一