AWARDEE OF EARTH SCIENCES PRIZE

WANG SHUI

Abstract

Wang Shui, space physicist and professor of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), was born on April 12, 1942 in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province and graduated from the Meteorological Department of Nanjing University in 1961, majoring in upper atmospheric physics. After graduation, he joined the Department of Applied Geophysics, USTC. Now he is a member of Chinese Academy of Sciences (elected in 1993), and the Chairman of Scientific Committee, USTC.
From 1972, he started the observation and study of whistlers and VLF emissions in China and pushed forward the study of low-latitude whistlers. He and his colleagues obtained the evidence of observation on low-latitude ducted whistlers and re-defined the critical cut-off latitude of ducted whistlers. In 1982, he and his colleagues developed a full-implicit-continuous-Eulerian scheme in the spherical coordinate and a near-characteristic boundary condition for multidimensional, time-dependent flows. They have made systematic research in the field of solar atmospheric dynamics. These works have not only made significant achievement in magnetohydrodynamic numerical study of solar atmosphere, but also have acted as an important role for the development of magnetohydrodynamic numerical study in China.
Since 1987, he mainly studied the stability of current sheet with super-Alfv\'enic flow and the magnetic reconnection in the solar atmosphere. He explained the spacecraft observations in the earth's distant magnetotail, the plasma tail of Giacobini-Zinner comet and the current sheet of heliosphere. He and his graduate students made a systematic study on magnetic reconnection in the coronal current sheet, and suggested a new mechanism of coronal mass ejections caused by magnetic reconnection.
Prof. Wang was winners of the second class Award of the National Prize of Natural Sciences, and second and third class Award of Natural Sciences from Chinese Academy of Sciences.