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Yuan Longping, China's most famous "farmer"
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IT is said every scientist cherishes a childhood dream indicating his or her future success, but for Yuan Longping, dubbed as "father of hybrid rice," the dream is that he cultivates rice as plump as peanuts, and farmers can relax in the cool shadow of big rice plants.
Yuan, 71, won a five million yuan State Supreme Science and Technology Award today, known as the Nobel Prize in China, for his outstanding achievements in breeding high-yield hybrid rice, which has substantially increased China's grain output.
Yuan came up with the idea of hybridizing rice for the first time in the world in 1960s. Since then, 50 per cent of China's total rice cultivation fields have grown such rice, which added some 300 billion kilograms to the country's grain output.
Furrows grown on his sunburnt face, a slim figure and coiled-up trousers legs would confuse foreign reporters who came to interview the most famous scientist in China, who would rather be called "a farmer".
Indeed, like many Chinese farmers, Yuan in his 70s and has devoted most of his life growing rice in paddy fields, but unlike those farmers, he reaps the seed from experimental fields only for hybridizing rice.
The urbanite-turned-farmer graduated from Southwest Agriculture College in 1953 has his name related to the world's most advanced agricultural technology. Four minor planets, a listed seed company's and a science college in China were named after him, which were the first time that a Chinese scientist's name is valued for its intellectual assets.
By lending his name to the Longping High-tech, a seed company, Yuan obtained a 5 per cent stake, or 2.5 million shares worth 2 million yuan, in the firm.
However, Yuan said his research requires the lifestyle of a farmer, or rather a migrating farmer, as he has conducted extensive research related to the cultivation of new strains of hybrid rice "Super Hybrid Rice" in some 10 provinces.
In the year 1999, more than 300 billion kilograms of grain were increased from about 240 million hectares of hybrid rice, which signified the success of his research. And this made Yuan firmly believe that China can surely feed her 1.2 billion population with her limited cultivated land.
The "Super Rice" yields are 30 per cent higher than those of common rice. The record yield of 17,055 kilograms per hectare was registered in Yongsheng County in Yunnan in 1999.
But even after that achievement Yuan won't take a break. He has a dream, more realistic than that of his young age, that popularizing new strains of grain with higher yields around the world, can eliminate starvation on earth.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has vowed to get involved in the work of spreading the coverage of Yuan's high-yield hybrid rice, which it considers the best way to increase the world's grain output.
The FAO's 1991 statistics show that 20 per cent of the world's rice output was yielded from 10 per cent of the world's rice fields,which grow hybrid rice.
"If the new strain was sown in the rest of the rice acreage, the present grain output around the world can be more than doubled. This can be a solution to the grain shortage," said the unselfish scientist.
In 1980, Yuan went to the United States at the invitation of the International Rice Research Institute to share his knowledge about the cultivation technology of hybrid rice. He was also employed in 1991 as the chief consultant of FAO to bring his research methods to other countries.
With the help of Chinese scientists, the acreage of hybrid rice in Viet Nam and India increased to 200,000 hectares and 150,000 hectares in 1999, respectively.
The rice research costs time to prove its value. At the age of 43, Yuan cultivated the world's first hybrid rice. At that time the country's grain yield was about 4,500 kilogram per hectare.
"The natural disaster and policy miscarriage further deteriorated starvation in China by then," Yuan recalled tearfully.
This is his motivation to stimulate his research. Largely due to his scientific progress, China's total rice output rose from 5.69 billion tonnes in 1950 to 19.47 billion tonnes last year. The growth rate of rice output far exceeded the population growth speed.
Some people estimate Yuan's actual fortune might amount to more than 100 million yuan (12 million US dollars), making him one of the richest people in China. But he doesn't know for sure himself, for he seems not to care about his own assets than the rice harvest.
Some people asked him to move the focus of his research from improving amounts of hybrid rice to the quality and taste, which would be easier to do. But, the stubborn academician insisted that the amount of hybrid rice's per unit yield still outweighs the quality, for his foremost task is to improve the grain reserve in developing countries.
(Xinhua)
Wu Wenjun: China's top science prize winner
AS far as Professor Wu Wenjun, one of the two winners of China's first top State Science and Technology Prize, is concerned, "one cannot work merely for prizes; it is a good job that brings you prizes."
His deeds prove his words.
In 1956, Wu, then a 36-year-old researcher in mathematics with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, shared the top prize for achievements in natural sciences with Qian Xuesen, father of Chinese rocket science, and Hua Luogeng, also a world-renowned mathematician.
Wu, now 81, became well known in the field of mathematics in the late 1940s for his contribution to research into topology, one of the major areas of mathematics.
The prize he was given Monday was also awarded in honor of his great contributions over the past five decades.
In his late 60s, Wu devoted his attention to research in mechanical geometry theorem proof, using computers to prove complicated and time-consuming geometrical theorems.
His work has been described by mathematicians as pioneering, and some of his theories have been included in textbooks.
Wu, born in 1919, is also an old hand with computers. He bought his first personal computer during a visit to the United States in the 1980s, making him possibly the first and the most senior person on the Chinese mainland to buy a PC.
He has upgraded his PCs several times since then to keep up with the mainstream models.
During the weekend interview, the 81-year-old mathematician appeared strong and vigorous, and young correspondents had to quicken their pace to catch up with him.
After receiving the prize from state leaders on Monday morning, he was expected to give a lecture on his achievements later during the day before his departure for a three-day trip to Germany.
He is scheduled to talk with his overseas counterparts about the preparations for the planned 2002 International Mathematics Congress in Beijing.
When asked about his plans for the five-million-yuan prize money, Wu said that the relevant regulations of the government allow him to donate 4.5 million yuan to the Institute of Mathematics, where he used to work; the remaining half a million will belong to him.
"As for the 4.5 million yuan, I think it is a matter for the institute, and as for the half a million, I think it is my own business," said a smiling Wu.
In his five-room apartment, the most expensive electronic appliances are a Chinese-made TV set and air-conditioner, in addition to two PCs, which can be found in many ordinary Chinese homes.
But the number of books, mostly on mathematics in Chinese and foreign languages, on his bookshelves might be unrivaled among Chinese homes.
Most of the non-mathematics books are historical ones, such as "New Probe Into the Dream of Red Mansions", a book on one of the most popular Chinese classical novels, "Biography of Napoleon" and "Concise History of the Song Dynasty (960-1279)".
"I like historical books, just as Yuan Longping does," Wu said.
Born and raised in Shanghai, Wu, son of a translator working at a local medical publishing house, had no special interest in maths in his youth, and his performance at school was not outstanding at all.
Wu began to be interested in maths as a high school student, influenced by his middle school teachers.
He became a middle school teacher in Shanghai, and was unemployed for a time after graduation from Shanghai Jiaotong University as a maths major.
His acquaintance with Chinese-American mathematician Shiing-shen Chern in the mid-1940s was the turning point in his academic life, as he began to touch on topology and made some achievements in this field in about one year.
His progress in topology continued after he was admitted to Strasbourg University in France in 1947, when research in topology was on the rise in the European country.
Chen Pihe, Wu's 78-year-old wife, described her husband as a man totally devoted to research.
"He has no time for housework. He is not a family man," said the bespectacled lady.
Wu and Chen have three daughters and a son. The latter is a researcher at the Institute of Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
(Xinhua)
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