Lu Jiaxi

CURRICULUM VITAE OF LU JIAXI

Abstract

Lu Jiaxi, a rather well-known physical chemist and a rather popular lecturer, was born on the 26th of October in the year 1915 in the city of Xiamen (“Amoy”), Fujian, China. He was graduated in the summer of 1934 from Xiamen University, major in chemistry and minor in mathematics. In the summer of 1937, he won in a very competitive examination the so-called Sino-British Indemnity Fund Scholarship for the three-year period 1937-1940. Thus he must work hard enough to receive a Ph.D. degree from the University of London in the summer of 1939 under Professor Samuel Sugden, F.R.S. Lu was then recommended by Professor Samuel Sugden to do post-doctorate research work under Professor Linus Pauling of the California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, California, U.S.A.) for the third scholarship year. It was already wartime then, so he was advised by Pauling to do at the same time some national defense work for U.S.A. at the Maryland Research Laboratory of the NDRC (U.S.A). He did very well both in his post-doctorate work and in the defense work as well. So Pauling advised him to stay in U.S.A for some more years and assure him that he will let him go back to China as soon as circumstances permit. As a matter of fact, he just got a very good start in his post-doctorate work of structural chemistry under Pauling and he should like to learn more from him. On the other hand, as far as war work is concerned, he have also done rather well, have already received some official mention and even decorations for his defense work on “SBX”, which is entirely new to him. As a matter of fact, he have even carried out some small-scale field tests to obtain similar but smaller and yet clearer but cuter effect.
In June of 1939, Lu Jiaxi bid farewell to Professor Samuel Sugden of UCL and Dr. E. A. Guggenheim of the Imperial College of Science and Technology as well and thanked them for all their teaching and advice during the past two years. In early July he said goodbye to London and headed his way to New York and Pasadena and at last his new destination Caltech. He was findeed very much pleased to meet Professor Linus Pauling in the rather new Crellin Chemistry Laboratory and also Mrs. Gates (donor of the old Gates Chemistry Laboratory) who had been in China some years ago and knew China to a certain extent. Pauling showed him around some of their new laboratories. He was indeed very much pleased to see some of their new chemistry laboratories and even some of their new equipments as well. As a matter of fact, Lu Jiaxi spent most of his time to acquaint hisself with some of their equipments and even learn to use them as soon as possible. Of course, he must first of all spend most of his time to master both their fundamental chemical theories as well as their experimental techniques.
In the early August of 1945, Japan was severely bombed and badly damaged by two American “A”  bombs and had to beg for the so-called “unconditional surrender”. He was therefore able to get American official permission to leave U.S.A. and come back to China at once after a separation from his own country and his family for eight and  half years (1937-1946). He left San Francisco in late November on a rather decent but by on means so “Pacific” an ocean liner and took him two and half weeks to get to Shanghai. It took him even more days to wait for transportation (a very small 200-ton steel freighter) to take him from Shanghai to Xiamen.
His research work is closely related to his interest in science he have been involved, such as structural chemistry, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, etc. Once he was very much interested in non-linear optical crystals, with inter-effects of various non-linear properties, It was therefore necessary to consider such non-linear properties involved. This is indeed the case with the development of crystals for use with ultraviolet frequency doubling. It is why they have even realized the development of the so-called inorganic quasi-aromatic “BBO”(BaB2O4) crystal.
His research work on the chemical modelling of biological nitrogen fixation is very much well-known even beyond Chinese and English-speaking countries. He has even made a rather detailed discussion on the nature of quasi-aromaticity in the non-planar puckered [Mo3S3] rings in certain [Mo3S4]4+ clusters.
Xiamen University (my alma mater): Professor of Chemistry (1st Class, named by the Ministry of Higher Education); Department Head; Dean of Science; Assistant Dean of the University; Department of University Research: Assistant Head, Head; Assistant to University President; Vice-President.
Chinese Academy of Sciences: Academy Member (founding member, 1955); President, (May 1981-Feb 1987); Special Consultant since 1987.
Fuzhou University: Vice-President (founding member, 1960); Honorary President (since 1960).
Fujian Institute of Research on Structural Chemistry (under Chinese Academy of Sciences): Head (founded in 1960); Honorary Head (since 1960).
The Third World Academy of Sciences: Academy Member since 1986; Vice-President since 1987; Special Consultant.