33 Facts About Fang Lizhi

Fang Lizhi was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980, but his position was revoked after 1989.

Fang Lizhi was not immediately expelled from the party, because he played a lesser role in writing the letter, and because he had left Peking University, where the punishment was particularly severe.

Out of political pressure, Li and Fang Lizhi put their relationship on hold until early 1959, when Fang Lizhi was expelled from the CCP.

In spite of his experience in the anti-Rightist campaign, Fang Lizhi published an article in the Guangming Daily, encouraging the independent thinking of students.

That year, as part of the effort of cleansing Beijing of "undesirable elements", Fang Lizhi was to be removed from the faculty of USTC and sent to work in an electronics factory in Liaoning province.

Fang Lizhi secretly brought with him one physics book, the "Classical Theory of Fields" by Lev Landau and learned the theory of general relativity by reading this book in the evening.

Fang Lizhi found an opportunity to read some recent astrophysics papers in western journals, and soon wrote his first paper on cosmology, "A Cosmological Solution in Scalar-tensor Theory with Mass and Blackbody Radiation", which was published on the journal Wu Li, Vol.

Fang Lizhi assembled a group of young faculty members of USTC around him to conduct astrophysics research.

Once Fang Lizhi published his theory, some of the critics of the Theory of Relativity, especially a group based in Shanghai, prepared to attack Fang Lizhi politically.

Subsequently, Fang Lizhi was regarded as the father of cosmological research in China.

Fang Lizhi published a large number of papers on astrophysics and cosmology.

Fang Lizhi carried out research on topics including neutron stars, black holes, inflation and quantum cosmology.

Fang Lizhi soon gained international recognition, and as China began to open up in the late 1970s, he was invited to international conferences outside the country.

Fang Lizhi was elected as the youngest member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980.

Fang Lizhi's membership was revoked after the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989.

Fang Lizhi invited Stephen Hawking to visit China in 1985, and organized the International Astronomical Union conference IAU-124 on "Observational Cosmology" in Beijing in 1986.

Fang Lizhi trained many younger colleagues and students in the field of astrophysics and cosmology; he was considered an excellent teacher.

Fang Lizhi was the first scientist in China to write popular accounts of contemporary astrophysical developments, such as cosmology and black holes.

Fang Lizhi was rehabilitated after the reform of China in late 1970s, and resumed his party membership.

In 1984, Fang Lizhi was appointed as the vice president of the USTC under president Guan Weiyan.

Fang Lizhi was very active in this role; for example he helped to set up the telex service for USTC.

Fang Lizhi begin to write essays for publication in popular magazines, and give lectures on a variety of topics in universities, though usually not in USTC.

Fang Lizhi was against the student demonstration, believing it would be suppressed by the CCP; he tried to persuade the USTC students not to go off-campus.

Fang Lizhi was again expelled from Chinese Communist Party in January 1987, and removed from his position as the vice president of the university.

Fang Lizhi was moved to Beijing as a research scientist at the Beijing Astronomical Observatory, now a part of the National Astronomical Observatory of China, and reunited with his wife, Li Shuxian, a professor at Peking University.

Fang Lizhi gained fame and notoriety after his essays were collected by the Chinese Communist Party and distributed to many of its regional offices, with the directive to its members to criticize the essays.

In February 1989, Fang Lizhi mobilized a number of well known intellectuals to write an open letter to Deng Xiaoping, requesting amnesty for the human right activist Wei Jingsheng who was then in prison.

Fang Lizhi was an advisor for the International Campaign for Tibet.

In campus speeches, Fang Lizhi spoke on topics such as human rights and democracy as matters of social responsibility.

Fang Lizhi served as a board member and co-chair of the New York-based organization Human Rights in China.

Fang Lizhi published research papers even during his stay in the US Embassy in Beijing.

Fang Lizhi continued to train students and younger scientists who visited him from China and was very active in research to the end of his life, publishing multiple research papers each year.

Fang Lizhi died in his home in Tucson on April 6,2012, aged 76, from undisclosed causes.