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Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

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Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#101

Post by dumb1224 »

xiii1408 wrote: post #62
Animats wrote: post #6

That's fascinating. The article points out that nobody made a movie about this guy. That's mostly because a movie about someone who's an expert at building organizations is boring. Nobody ever made a biopic about Charles Wilson, head of defense production at General Motors during WWII, and later US Secretary of Defense. Hyman Rickover, who headed the 1950s effort to build nuclear submarines and warships, only has a l…

> The article points out that nobody made a movie about this guy. What are you talking about? The article doesn't say no one made a movie about him. There are at least three Chinese movies and a TV series about him.

Probably morden production. When I was a kid in the 90s he's a giant figure in the books taught often in school (his birthplace is very close to my city too which makes him a local national hero) and well known as model figure. But not anything in the media. Maybe even earlier times before me.

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#102

Post by stavros »

jph00 wrote: post #100
stavros wrote: post #97

This is a bit offtopic, but why were those Mandarin sounds transliterated to those letters? Why not "Chian Shuesen"? It's not like Q as CH is intuitive at all.

q and ch both exist in pinyin, and have different sounds. The q sound requires placing the tip of the tongue on the teeth, and isn’t an initial consonant we have in English, so we don’t have a way to spell it.

Ahh, I see, so it's not "Chian", it's "Tsian"?

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#103

Post by Mashimo »

xiii1408 wrote: post #62
Animats wrote: post #6

That's fascinating. The article points out that nobody made a movie about this guy. That's mostly because a movie about someone who's an expert at building organizations is boring. Nobody ever made a biopic about Charles Wilson, head of defense production at General Motors during WWII, and later US Secretary of Defense. Hyman Rickover, who headed the 1950s effort to build nuclear submarines and warships, only has a l…

> The article points out that nobody made a movie about this guy. What are you talking about? The article doesn't say no one made a movie about him. There are at least three Chinese movies and a TV series about him.

And one of them you can watch for free on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDXrDXuDp9E

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#104

Post by andsoitis »

gloryjulio wrote: post #41
Animats wrote: post #6

That's fascinating. The article points out that nobody made a movie about this guy. That's mostly because a movie about someone who's an expert at building organizations is boring. Nobody ever made a biopic about Charles Wilson, head of defense production at General Motors during WWII, and later US Secretary of Defense. Hyman Rickover, who headed the 1950s effort to build nuclear submarines and warships, only has a l…

Isn't the recent Oppenheimer about building organizations, politics, and courts? There are bombs scenes but majority of the movie is the supposed boring stuff

> Isn't the recent Oppenheimer about building organizations, politics, and courts?

The film tells two interwoven stories: one follows Oppenheimer's career, the other about how Oppenheimer's loyalty was questioned.

It is a character study and a moral reckoning, preoccupied with he guilt and dread of having created a weapon capable of ending humanity.

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#105

Post by pelasaco »

Fascinating, from the text i read:

"Qian’s political allegiance remains debated. Some argue he was always a committed Communist, while others see him as a scientist caught between two superpowers. His father had served in China’s Ministry of Education, and his early mentors were affiliated with the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) rather than the opposing Communists. Qian’s wife was the daughter of Jiang Baili, a high-ranking official of the KMT and KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek’s military adviser..."

So until today, we cannot rule out if he was indeed a committed Communist or not?

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#106

Post by embedding-shape »

vitus wrote: post #75
embedding-shape wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see a movie about the "managers" Mervin Kelly and/or William Shockley. Less military oriented perhaps, but seems that period of Bell Labs just was something else for some reason, in terms of impact on the world.

Shockley? The guy whose employees hated him so much they went and founded a rival company which then gave rise to Silicon Valley? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight

Shockley might have been a better researcher/engineer than manager, still I'm sure a movie about his early days, including the alienation of some of the people he recruited later, would be an interesting watch :)

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#108

Post by TwoFerMaggie »

stavros wrote: post #97

This is a bit offtopic, but why were those Mandarin sounds transliterated to those letters? Why not "Chian Shuesen"? It's not like Q as CH is intuitive at all.

What you proposed is very close to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade%E2%80%93Giles

For an English speaker to be able to pronounce Chinese words, it would certainly be a better system. However, the main purpose of Pinyin is not that, but to indicate pronunciation for native Chinese speakers (most of whom had little exposure to English or other foreign languages when they learned pinyin, of course nowadays it might be different as kids start learning English at a much younger age) and to teach in schools. Using a Latin alphabet so that it's easier to integrate into international systems is a consideration, but never the main goal.

Besides, Chian Shuesen sounds closer but it's still not the same. Approximation has to happen somewhere, and there are already ch-/q- and sh-/x- distinction within pinyin.

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#109

Post by OrvalWintermute »

porphyra wrote: post #27

The US continues to repeat this mistake by adding hurdles for immigrant talent while persecuting or being generally racist against Chinese-American scientists [1]. Despite that, there's still a net influx of foreign talent coming to the US whereas relatively few people move to China. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Chinese_sentiment_in_the_...

I guess we should forget about:

• Larry Wu-tai Chin

• Peter Lee

• Chi Mak

• Katrina Leung

• Shujun Wang

• Fei Ye

• Ming Zhong

• Walter Lian-Heen Liew

• Kun Shan Chun

• Jinchao Wei

• Eileen Wang

All convicted of espionage

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#110

Post by Merrill »

By being deported, Qian Xuesen was thrust into an environment where he was able to succeed.

Had he been allowed to stay in the US, he may have had a brilliant career as a scientist, but it is very unlikely that he would have ever been given the resources and leadership responsibilities to have an equivalent impact on US aerospace and defense programs.

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