People who challenge Einstein

    One day in 1941, at the Hong Kong airport security checkpoint, a young man was stopped. He was wearing an unusually bulky overcoat, which seemed out of place for the season. The security personnel became suspicious. Touching the overcoat, they found it stiff and unyielding. Upon opening it, they discovered numerous pockets filled with English physics research books and materials.

    At that time, China's War of Resistance against Japan was in a stalemate. People returning from the United States were either smuggling gold or carrying valuable daily necessities; the security personnel had never seen anyone carrying so many books. "Returning home during a war, you're really risking your life to bring so many books?" During the conversation, the young man produced a professorship certificate from Sun Yat-sen University. The security personnel, seeing that this 27-year-old was already a professor, were filled with respect and allowed him to pass. This man, who risked his life to return home and dedicate himself to the war effort through teaching and research, was Lu Hefu, later recognized by the international academic community as the "Father of China's Nuclear Energy" and the "first to reveal the secrets of the atomic bomb."

    From Heaven to Hell

    : In September 1936, Lu Hefu graduated from Yenching University with a degree in physics. Recommended by the department head, he went to the University of Minnesota in the United States to major in physics and minor in mathematics.

    After obtaining his doctorate, Lu Hefu married Wu Runhui. While still on his honeymoon, he resolutely decided to abandon all the advantages he enjoyed in the United States and return to China with his new wife to participate in the War of Resistance against Japan. In November 1941, Lu Hefu arrived at the main campus of National Sun Yat-sen University in Pingshi Town, Guangdong Province, and became a professor in the College of Science. When Kang Xinyuan, the dean of the College of Science, welcomed the couple in Tangkou Village, he remarked with emotion, "You have fallen from heaven to hell."

    The hardships of "hell" gradually unfolded. In the summer of 1942, Lu Hefu's wife was nearing her due date, but there was no maternity hospital in Pingshi Town. The couple had to take a small boat to the train station and then transfer to a train to a county town in Hunan Province. On the rickshaw ride from the station to the county hospital, Mrs. Lu experienced labor pains, and Lu Hefu had to get off and push her from behind to speed things up. Just as they arrived at the hospital delivery room, Mrs. Lu gave birth to their first son.

    After Mrs. Lu was discharged and returned to Tangkou Village, Lu Hefu began managing the household chores. Every day, he carried the child on his back, chopped firewood, and cooked, leaving chicken and cow droppings scattered on the ground. After finishing three meals a day, Lu Hefu prepared his lessons under an oil lamp. In an ancient temple, he taught fourth-year university students courses such as theoretical physics, nuclear physics, quantum mechanics, and modern physics.

    As the Japanese invasion deepened, Lu Hefu fled westward to escape the war, being successively hired as a professor by Guangxi University and Zhejiang University, both in exile, and subsequently arriving in Guangxi and Guizhou. In 1944, on his way to Guizhou, he passed through a place called Yuanbaoshan, where local bandits were rampant, burning, killing, and looting, and no one dared to proceed. Upon hearing this, Lu Hefu, accompanied by a physical education professor, went up the mountain to find the bandit leader. He explained, "The Japanese have invaded, and I've returned from abroad to fight against them," and showed him his professorship. The bandit leader was deeply moved by this situation. Instead of robbing him, he treated him to dinner and drinks that evening. The next day, he sent men to escort Lu Hefu and his party down the mountain and gave each of their boats a small, apricot-yellow triangular flag. This flag served as a "special pass" among the bandits, ensuring Lu Hefu's unimpeded passage afterward.

    Even in such circumstances, Lu Hefu continued lecturing while closely monitoring international academic developments. He hand-copied every academic journal he could obtain, and his academic notes never ceased amidst the gunfire. His article, "The Potential Energy Within the Heavy Atomic Nucleus and Its Utilization," written in 1942 and published in the domestic journal *Science* in 1944, comprehensively expounded on the experimental discoveries of nuclear fission and related theories, and predicted the possibility of large-scale human utilization of atomic energy. It is considered by the academic community to be "the first scientific work to comprehensively introduce atomic energy physics and its applications to Chinese readers.

    "

    After the founding of the People's Republic of China, with the nationwide reorganization of higher education disciplines in 1952, Lu Hefu was transferred from Zhejiang University to the Department of Physics at Fudan University. In 1955, Lu Hefu was transferred by the then Ministry of Higher Education to the Department of Technical Physics at Peking University, serving as the director of the Neutron Physics Teaching and Research Section. In fact, he entered the top-secret "546 Training Class," a program that drew teachers from universities across the country.

    This was a very special training class: among the trainees were 90 engineers, hundreds of fourth-year university students selected from universities nationwide, and senior generals of the People's Liberation Army, including a future commander of a nuclear base. Among the later "Fathers of China's Two Bombs," seven were students of Lu Hefu from the "546 Training Class."

    At that time, Peking University's teaching conditions were extremely poor, making some experiments impossible and teaching very difficult. To overcome these difficulties, Lu Hefu adopted a method of explaining complex concepts in a simple and clear way, without referring to notes. Many nuclear physics processes that were originally difficult to understand became remarkably clear to the students after his explanations. In 1956, Lu Hefu was promoted to first-class professor at the age of 42, making him the youngest first-class professor.

    In 1958, the training class ended, and many teachers and students were assigned to the atomic bomb testing base. Lu Hefu wrote to Jiang Nanxiang, Minister of Higher Education, and Song Renqiong, Minister of the Second Ministry of Machine Building, stating that his expertise in basic theory could only be utilized at the university level, and that he had dedicated his life to teaching and hoped to return to Fudan University to continue his educational work. With special approval from Song Renqiong and consent from Jiang Nanxiang, Lu Hefu returned to the Fudan University lecture hall in 1958.

    During the tumultuous period of the Cultural Revolution, Lu Hefu persisted in his scientific research. From 1970 to 1985, he left behind a vast amount of research notes. His diaries differed from those of ordinary people; the covers were marked with two categories: "Red" for daily life records and "Expert" for professional content. He feared that his research diaries might be seen and used against him, so if anyone questioned him, he would say, "I wrote my diary according to the requirements of being both 'red' and 'expert'."

    In 1980, Lu Hefu was elected a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (later renamed Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences). Even in his later years, Lu Hefu never ceased his pursuit of scientific innovation. In 1995, Lu Hefu, then 81 years old, and his student Wang Shiming published their paper, "A Direct Verification of Mach's Principle," in the American journal *Galileo Electrodynamics*. The journal's editor praised the paper, saying it "opened up a new direction for challenging Einstein." This article had previously been rejected by the American journal *Physics*. Lu Hefu frankly stated, "Most editorial departments don't dare publish such articles; they are superstitious about Einstein and afraid people will say they don't understand physics." He wasn't afraid of being considered crazy. Regarding this paper, he said, "I've merely poked a hole in the sky!" Just as his research was about to continue, Lu Hefu passed away in 1997, leaving behind eight outlines and 44 ongoing research projects. The published papers represent only one-tenth of his research.

    Regarding this challenge to Einstein's theory of relativity, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences invested heavily in 2002, using satellite launches to conduct in-depth experiments in this area. Lu Hefu,

    a man of stories and sentiments,

    was not only a world-renowned physicist but also a famous Peking Opera enthusiast. The fusion of science and art further enhanced his personal charm.

    Throughout his life, Lu Hefu performed Peking Opera on stage numerous times. During his studies at Yenching University, when Peking Opera was at its peak in Beijing, Lu Hefu and his classmates performed plays such as *The Loss of Jieting* and *The Qionglin Banquet*. Photos and reports of his performances appeared in newspapers, which commented: "His singing was flawless, his acting meticulous, and his performance a perfect match." In 1940, while at the University of Minnesota, he participated in a charity performance organized by Soong Mei-ling to raise funds for the anti-Japanese war, performing *Si Lang Visits His Mother*. In 1945, while teaching at Zhejiang University in Meitan, Guizhou, he again performed for a charity performance to raise funds for Yellow River disaster relief. His love for Peking Opera accompanied Lu Hefu throughout his life.

    When asked why he loved Peking Opera so much, Lu Hefu replied, "Traditional Chinese Peking Opera contains a philosophy of life. The loyalty, filial piety, integrity, and sense of shame it promotes are not feudal dross. We absolutely do not need to abandon it, because it only benefits social stability and does no harm. Besides, singing Peking Opera after a busy and stressful workday is particularly relaxing and enjoyable, like a 'brain tonic.' Also, singing Peking Opera regularly can increase lung capacity, which is very beneficial to one's health and longevity."

    He even brought Peking Opera into his physics classes. Zhang Shouye, a graduate student supervised by Lu Hefu, recalled that when Lu Hefu lectured on neutron physics, he explained that the energy at which a neutron hits an atomic nucleus and reaches a critical state is called the saddle point in physics. Above this point, the energy decreases, and fission becomes irreversible, causing the atomic nucleus to split. At this point, Lu Hefu suddenly changed the subject: "I remember when Zhuge Liang launched his six expeditions to Qishan, that place was the saddle point." He then sang a few lines of Peking Opera. This made the atmosphere very lively, and everyone relaxed. The concept of the saddle point was deeply ingrained in the students' minds.

    Because of his profound accumulation in science and humanities, after Lu Hefu's death, the University of Houston and the University of Minnesota erected bronze statues in his honor, and Honolulu, Hawaii, designated June 15th as "Lu Hefu Day." Recently, on the centenary of Lu Hefu's birth, Fudan University also erected a bronze statue of him on its campus. At the memorial service, Yang Yuliang, president of Fudan University and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: "Mr. Lu Hefu was not only an academic master, but also a person with stories and sentiments. This is the most precious thing and the thing we admire the most."