【注：本文摘自亚利桑那大学网页上的文字 http://www.uanews.org/node/46176 ，里头有不少内容好像是第一次听说，想必很多读者会感兴趣。显然，文章里面很多不适合在秦国传播的文字都被删除。】 Astrophysicist Fang Spent Two Decades at UA By University Communications April 9, 2012 Fang L. Z., a pioneering scientist in his native China, continued to advance the field of astrophysics at the UA for more than 20 years before he died last week. Fang, died last week at age 76, had been a professor in the University of Arizona department of physics and an adjunct professor with the UA's Steward Observatory for more than 20 years, where he made highly regarded contributions to astrophysics. Fang was dismissed from the Chinese nuclear program and reassigned in 1958 to the University of Science and Technology of China, or USTC, which is regarded as China's equivalent of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During the Cultural Revolution, he was sent to hard labor in the country. In 1978, upon returning to USTC, Fang became full professor and in 1984, vice president. His books on physics and cosmology were widely admired. He again was dismissed and sent to the Beijing Astronomical Observatory, where he led a theoretical astrophysics group in 1987. During his confinement, Fang continued his scientific research, submitting three papers for publication in international journals. Less known to the public are Fang's professional contributions to research and teaching. He was one of the founders of modern astrophysics and cosmology in China. While mainly a theoretical physicist, Fang had been instrumental in helping the Chinese astronomical community develop observational astronomy, even after moving to the U.S. He was one of the main collaborators on the successful Beijing-Arizona-Taipei-Connecticut survey project, one of the longest-running and most influential optical observational astronomical projects using a Chinese-based facility, said Xiaohui Fan, a UA professor of astronomy who collaborated with Fang. "He was aninspiration for so many people in so many ways," Fan said, adding that in the late 1990s, Fang and his collaborators published a series of papers using clusters of galaxies, the most massive objects in the universe, as tools to study the fate and evolution of the universe, and to measure parameters such as the mass density of the universe. In recent years, Fang also moved into the newly developed field of cosmic reionization, studies of the epoch of the universe when the very first generation of stars and galaxies formed. "He and his students were developing new models and new predictions to the direct observations of cosmic reionization," Fan said. "In that sense, he was active to the very frontier of astrophysics and cosmology until the very last day." "Professor Fang had been my dear and valuable mentor," said Zheng Cai, one of Fang's graduate students in the UA's physics department. "Since I first came to the UA, he gave me a lot of valuable suggestions on life as well as on academic study. His passing away is tragic, and I'm having a terribly hard time accepting it, but I believe professor Fang rests peacefully among the brightest stars in the universe." In 1990, Fang first as a guest professor of the Royal Society at Cambridge, and the following year as Director's Visitor at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study. In 1992, Fang joined the UA as professor of physics. He raised a generation of leaders of astrophysics in China through training of postdocs and graduate students. During his tenure at the UA, Fang continued to do highly visible research on cosmology and published widely with his students and other colleagues, including in 2011, when he was unwell and in and out of the hospital on several occasions. In 2010, he was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in recognition of his scientific contributions. He led cooperative projects on astrophysics with colleagues in China with his name usually redacted. Being on the forefront of nuclear physics, laser physics, theoretical astrophysics and cosmology, Fang cared deeply about making scientific knowledge accessible not only to the academic community but society at large. He published more than 340 research papers and numerous popular articles and books, including a broadly read Chinese book on cosmology. He was a member of the Chinese Academy of Science. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Founding Fellow of the Arizona Arts, Sciences and Technology Academy. Among his awards are the Chinese National Award of Science and Technology in 1978, the First Award of the Gravity Research Foundation (1985), and the 1996 Nicholson Medal of the American Physical Society. In addition to numerous invited talks, Fang served on many scientific committees, including the council of the International Center for Theoretical Physics at Trieste, Chair of Commission C19 of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, and chair of the steering committee of the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics Network. Most recently, in spite of his illness, Fang was among the international organizers of the upcoming Thirteenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting on Recent Developments in Theoretical and Experimental General Relativity, Astrophysics and Relativistic Field Theories. "Professor Fang was one of our most dedicated teachers," said Sumit Mazumdar, head of the UA's department of physics. "On the occasions that I visited him in the hospital, he was most concerned about his course, his students, and whether I was able to find a substitute teacher for his course. His courage came with a great deal of compassion, and we in the physics department will remember him for that as well as for his scholarship." "Professor Fang was a wonderful person and an astrophysicist with international recognition," said David Arnett, a Regents' Professor at the UA's Steward Observatory."Few of us canlay claim to as much as he can. He will be missed."
王 振 东 哈勃空间望远镜（ Hubble Space Telescope ）是以天文学家哈勃为名，在轨道上环绕著地球的望远镜，由美国宇航局和欧洲航天局共同管理。其位置在地球的大气层之上，所以获得了地基望远镜所没有的好处：影像不会受到大气湍流的扰动，视相度很高，又没有大气散射造成的背景光，还能观测会被臭氧层吸收的紫外线。 哈勃空间望远镜于 1990 年发射之后，已经成为天文上最重要的仪器，填补了地面观测的缺口，帮助天文学家解决了许多根本问题，对天文物理有了更深入的认识 。 哈勃望远镜拍摄到了许多很美妙的涡旋星系照片，让我们认识到在宇宙中还存在那么多姿多态的星系。现将笔者收集的一些涡旋星系照片，列出来供大家欣赏。哈勃望远镜所拍摄到的每张远处的太空图像，实际上是 x x x x 光年前的，现在应又该有变化了，但是这些涡旋星系图像己说明涡旋状态是星系存在的常态之一。 注： Vortex 过去曾译为“旋涡”，现根据全国自然科学名词审定委员会公布的《力学名词》，译为“涡旋”。
标签: 天体物理
