Liu Xianzhou | |
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刘仙洲 | |
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| Born | Liu He (1900-03-15)15 March 1900 Wanxian,Hebei, Qing China |
| Died | 3 April 1985(1985-04-03) (aged 85) Beijing, China |
| Political party | Chinese Communist Party (from 1955) |
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| Education |
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Liu He (simplified Chinese:刘鹤;traditional Chinese:劉鶴;[1] 27 January 1890 – October 1975), better known by hiscourtesy name asLiu Xianzhou (simplified Chinese:刘仙洲;traditional Chinese:劉仙洲), was a Chinese educator, mechanical engineer and member of theChinese Academy of Sciences.
Liu was born on January 27, 1890, to a farmer's family in Wanxian,Hebei,Qing China. He worked directly with his father in the fields at a very young age. Liu enrolled in an old private school in 1897 and studied until he was 16 (1905). In 1906, he enrolled in middle school. After witnessing the defeat of China in theFirst Sino-Japanese War, he joined theTongmenghui, graduated with honors from the middle school in 1912, enrolled in the preparatory course ofPeking University in 1913, and was admitted to the Department of Engineering of theUniversity of Hong Kong at public expense in 1914, and graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of Hong Kong in 1918.[1][2]
After graduating in 1918, he returned to Hebei to teach at the middle school he had attended until 1921, and in 1924 he became president ofBeiyang University. In 1928, he resigned as president of Beiyang University and became a professor atNortheastern University and head of the Department of Engineering. After theJapanese invasion of Manchuria on September 18, 1931, Liu came to teach atTsinghua University. He continued to teach in Beijing until theMarco Polo Bridge Incident of July 7, 1937, when he followed Tsinghua University's relocation to the Southwest and taught at theNational Southwestern Associated University until the end of the war in 1945. He visited the United States in 1946-1947, and upon his return from that visit, he continued to teach at Tsinghua University.[1][2]
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he continued to teach at Tsinghua University, and in 1955, Liu joined theChinese Communist Party. In addition, he served as a deputy in thefirst,second,third andfourth sessions of theNational People's Congress. In 1951, Liu Xianzhou initiated the reconstruction of the Chinese Society of Mechanical Engineering and was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1955.[1][3]
He was very loyal to the Chinese Communist Party, but he was still dissatisfied with theGreat Leap Forward and theCultural Revolution, and was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. In 1970, he drafted his own work plan for the next 10 years even though he suffered from a number of serious illnesses, and died in October 1975 ofpancreatic cancer in the Third Affiliated Hospital of theBeijing Medical University.[4]
Liu is well known for his research into the literature on the development of machinery and machines in ancient China. He also compiled numerous mechanical engineering terminology.[2]
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