2 scientists win China’s top honor

TWO scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences received China’s top science honor in Beijing yesterday for outstanding contribution to scientific and technological innovation.

Meanwhile, six projects developed by Shenzhen companies received six second prizes in the category of scientific progress. Of these, three were achievements made by telecom giant ZTE, while the other winners included Huawei and the city’s environmental research institute.

Gu Chaohao, a mathematician, and space scientist Sun Jiadong won China’s 2009 State Top Scientific and Technological Award.

Gu, born in 1926 and a native of Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, received his doctorate in physics and mathematics at Moscow State University in 1959. He is a former vice president of Fudan University and a former president of the University of Science and Technology of China.

He was honored for his “important contribution” to differential geometry, partial differential equations and mathematical physics, three sub-disciplines of modern mathematics, according to a statement from the awards organizing committee.

His pioneering research on partial differential equations contributed to solving mathematical problems in the field of supersonic aerodynamics and provided important methodology for later study of the discipline, said the statement.

Sun, born in 1929 in Liaoning Province, graduated from Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy in the former Soviet Union in 1958. He played a leading role in the design of the first Chinese satellite Dong Fanghong I launched in 1970, the first recoverable remote-sensing satellite in 1975, the first geostationary communication satellite in 1984 and China’s lunar exploration program.

Sun was recognized for his 50-year contribution to China’s space industry and continuing service on the frontline of China’s space technology.

The two scientists were each awarded 5 million yuan (US$732,000).

Also yesterday, the Chinese Government bestowed the International Science and Technology Cooperation Award on seven foreign scientists for their contributions to China’s science and technology development.

Three scientists from the United States — Yuen-Ron Shen, Vincent Chan and Britton Chance — Arima Akito from Japan, Agustin Lage Davila from Cuba, Michel Che from France and Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker from Germany were also honored.

Shen, 74, has been engaged in Sino-American science and technology cooperation in a variety of fields since 1972.

Chan, 60, had contributed to the rapid promotion and new discoveries of nuclear fusion in China.

Chance, 96, a former member of the U.S. President’s Scientific Advisory Committee, had helped train and cultivate outstanding Chinese scientists.

Nuclear physicist Akito, 79, had taken an active part in promoting scientific exchange and cooperation between Japan and China in his position as president of the University of Tokyo and Japanese Minister of Science and Technology over the past three decades.

Biologist Agustin Lage Davila, 60, had helped and guided development of the first humanized monoclonal antibody for cancer treatment in China.

With the cooperation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the French National Center for Scientific Research, chemist Michel Che, 68, had contributed to chemical catalyst research in China.

Biochemist Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, 68, had put forward a series of innovative ideas and carried out effective measures to promote Sino-German joint research centers and groups of young scientists.