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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)

#91

Post by tianshuo »

Besides founding JPL, Qian also co-founded the university I graduated from, USTC (University of Science and Technology 中国科学技术大学), one of the most prestigious schools in China. He headed the Department of Modern Mechanics for 20+ years and was so notoriously strict that the university had to extend its graduation track from 4 years to 5, as he refused to let students graduate without a thorough understanding of science.

Legend has his infamous, multi-hour-long finals had only one question:

With no calculators/computers allowed, calculate the trajectory of a rocket launched from Earth that will orbit the Moon.

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

#92

Post by leonidasrup »

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_...

China uses “non-traditional collectors”

https://www.economist.com/china/2024/12/26/how-china-turns-m...

"Despite being one of the most populous countries in the world (1.4 billion), second only to India, China has an exceptionally low percentage of foreign nationals, at only 0.05%, as of 2023"

https://directhr.cn/pdf/Direct%20HR%20-%20Hello%20China%20or...

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

#93

Post by eunos »

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_...

> whereas relatively few people move to China

The Haigui waves for the last few years are quite huge

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

#94

Post by eunos »

feverzsj wrote: post #3

Qian is a typical opportunist, who had been contacting ccp since 1930s. He was already away from military and academia for years, while pouring huge sum of money into his immigration case. After deported from US, his job in China was mostly management.

> contacting ccp since 1930s

CCP in 30s was just some ragtags in inner Yan'an

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

#95

Post by bwv848 »

wagwang wrote: post #48
bwv848 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also fun fact, he advised Mao on agriculture during the Great Leap Forward, using rough estimates of photosynthetic efficiency to calculate potential crop yields. Those estimates were far removed from reality and indirectly contributed to the Great Chinese Famine, while other countries were benefiting from the success of the Green Revolution.

This is probably just him trying to survive Mao's insanity

Wrong. Mao didn’t have full control at the time. Before the Lushan Conference in 1959, China had a system of collective leadership, and Mao more or less respected it. Mao was always insane, even before the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference and the Cultural Revolution, but Qian was definitely not under pressure, he simply enjoyed his alliance with Mao so much that his last words were: ‘毛泽东思想活着，中国就永远年轻’ (‘As long as Maoism lives, China will remain forever young.’)

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

#96

Post by handle584 »

eunos wrote: post #93
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_...

> whereas relatively few people move to China The Haigui waves for the last few years are quite huge

Supposedly OP meant foreign nationals instead of overseas Chinese, while Haigui is even a broader term for anyone with a overseas degree. On the other hand, there is large exodus post 2022 due to domestic COVID-19 policies.

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

#98

Post by bryanrasmussen »

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

Never underestimate the lifelong inspiration of a bad boss.

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

#99

Post by eunos »

handle584 wrote: post #96
eunos wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whereas relatively few people move to China The Haigui waves for the last few years are quite huge

Supposedly OP meant foreign nationals instead of overseas Chinese, while Haigui is even a broader term for anyone with a overseas degree. On the other hand, there is large exodus post 2022 due to domestic COVID-19 policies.

Right but at current situation, if China could pulls more Haigui as time goes it is still a huge win.

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

#100

Post by jph00 »

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.
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