Deng Jiaxian and China's nuclear weapons development
Ding Zhaojun Yang Xue
Deng Jiaxian was the pioneer and founder of the mainland's nuclear weapons theory research, and was also one of the main leaders of the mainland's research and development of nuclear weapons in technology. He has worked tirelessly and tirelessly for 28 years for the mainland's nuclear weapons research and development, and has made major contributions to the breakthrough and successful testing of the principles of atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs and their weaponization, to the major breakthroughs in the principles and development and testing of new nuclear weapons. When China was preparing to build a nuclear weapons research and development institute, the Ninth Institute, Qian Sanqiang, deputy director of the Second Machinery Department and director of the Atomic Energy Institute, first selected Deng Jiaxian. Later, Yang Zhenning, a lifelong friend of Deng Jiaxian and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, said that he admired Qian Sanqiang's vision very much and said: "This recommendation is very correct, and it is closely related to the success of the atomic bomb and hydrogen bomb work in China later." On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Deng Jiaxian's birth and the 60th anniversary of the successful test explosion of the mainland's first atomic bomb, this article is specially written to commemorate it.
1
Seek to study the country
On June 25, 1924, Deng Jiaxian was born in Huaining, Anhui Province. When he was very young, he went to Peking with his mother to join his father Deng Yizhen, who taught at Peking University. The cultural foundation laid by Deng Jiaxian when he was a teenager was mainly due to his father's strict education and multi-faceted edification, and his father's national integrity also had a profound impact on him. As he said in the article "Memories of My Father Deng Yizhen": "In my childhood, my father was very strict with my education, in addition to learning the curriculum of primary school, he also made me read the Four Books and Five Classics and recite ancient poems every day. Later, I was asked to study English hard and specialize in mathematics, which laid a comprehensive cultural foundation for me. These learnings have benefited me for the rest of my life."
In 1935, Deng Jia was admitted to Zhicheng Middle School, and a year later transferred to Chongde Middle School. Here, he met Yang Zhenning, who was two levels higher than him. They often get together to discuss math, physics, and more. On July 29, 1937, Beiping fell, shattering Deng Jiaxian's originally peaceful study life. The Japanese invaders who occupied Peking forced citizens and students to march to celebrate their victory. National hatred, family and country hatred lingered in Deng Jiaxian's heart. After a demonstration, Deng Jiaxian couldn't restrain the anger in his heart, and angrily tore up the paper flag in his hand, threw it on the ground and stepped on it. This attracted the attention of the Japanese, and Deng Jiaxian had to leave home to avoid capture. Before leaving, his father said to him earnestly: "You must study science in the future...... Studying science is useful to the country. From his own point of view, his patriotic father guided Deng Jia to use science to contribute to the country.
In May 1940, Deng Jiaxian followed his eldest sister Deng Zhongxian to Kunming via Beiping, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Viet Nam. In September of that year, Deng Jia first entered Jiangjin National No. 9 Middle School in Sichuan. The following year, he was admitted to the Department of Physics of Southwest Associated University. Deng Jiaxian studied very hard, and in order not to affect the reading of other students, he often copied down all the important contents of the books he borrowed from the library word for word. In order to improve his English, he and his classmates memorized an Oxford dictionary completely. At the same time, Deng Jiaxian paid close attention to the changes in the current situation, often participated in student patriotic activities, and interacted with progressive classmates and underground party members. And under the introduction of classmate Yang Dexin, he joined the Democratic Youth League, a peripheral organization of the Communist Party of China. Under the guidance of Ye Qisun, Wu Youxun, Zheng Huachi and others, Deng Jiaxian graduated with excellent grades in 1945. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, he returned to Beiping after a six-year absence, and served as a teaching assistant in the Department of Physics of Peking University. After that, Deng Jiaxian decided to go abroad to continue his studies so that he could better devote himself to national construction in the future. In 1947, Deng Jia first passed the graduate examination in the United States, and entered the physics department of Purdue University in the fall of the following year. Before leaving, he said: "In the future, the motherland will need people for construction, and I will definitely come back after I finish my studies."
Deng Jia first studied under Delhar at Purdue University, engaged in nuclear physics research, excelled in all subjects, and won a scholarship. In the three-year doctoral program, Deng Jiaxian completed the credits in less than two years and obtained a doctorate. Although he is in United States, he has always been concerned about the situation in China, and has joined the Chinese Scientists Association in the United States and served as a branch officer at Purdue University. As soon as the People's Republic of China was founded, Deng Jiaxian refused to be retained by his mentor and resolutely returned to the motherland on the ship President Wilson.
In 1950, Deng Jiaxian received his Ph.D. from Purdue University.
2
Take on the big responsibility
After returning to China, Deng Jiaxian worked as an assistant researcher at the newly established Institute of Modern Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (renamed the Institute of Physics in 1953 and the Institute of Atomic Energy in 1958), and engaged in nuclear theory research under the leadership of Peng Huanwu. In 1956, Deng Jiaxian joined the Communist Party of China. In 1957, he cooperated with He Zuoxiu, Xu Jianming, Yu Min and others to publish a series of papers in Acta Physica Sinica, making pioneering work for the theoretical research of nuclear theory in the mainland.
Under the attention of Mao Zedong and other central leading comrades, atomic energy was listed as the primary task in the "Outline of the Long-term Plan for the Development of Science and Technology from 1956 to 1967". During the "honeymoon" period of Sino-Soviet relations, the mainland actively sought assistance from the Soviet Union. In October 1957, China and the Soviet Union signed the Agreement on New National Defense Technologies, in which the Soviet Union formally agreed to help China develop sophisticated weapons and to provide China with an atomic bomb teaching model and technical materials for the production of atomic bombs. This required the Chinese side to send appropriate scientific and technological personnel to learn from Soviet experts. Choosing who to deal with Soviet specialists in order to learn their techniques and experience is a difficult one. After layers of screening, Qian Sanqiang finally selected Deng Jiaxian, who worked at the Atomic Energy Research Institute. Deng Jiaxian accepted this task without hesitation. The development of nuclear weapons was a state secret at that time, and after accepting the mission, Deng Jiaxian disappeared from the sight of relatives and friends, and did not publish a single article. For 28 years, his wife didn't know where he was or what he was up to. It wasn't until a month before Deng Jiaxian's death that his deeds were gradually declassified.
Deng Jiaxian took a photo with his family
Deng Jia was the first senior researcher to report to the Ninth Institute of the Second Machine Department (later renamed the Ninth Academy). His first task was to lead a team of researchers with an average age of only 23 years old from several leading universities to learn basic theories and prepare to receive the atomic bomb teaching model and related drawings provided by the Soviet Union. But Soviet aid was limited from the start, especially when it did not involve military aid as much as possible. Due to the rupture of Sino-Soviet relations, in June 1959, the Soviet Union unilaterally terminated the "Agreement on New Defense Technologies" signed between the two countries, and immediately withdrew all experts, leaving not even a single piece of paper.
Deng Jiaxian's team, which had only planned to learn how to imitate the atomic bomb from Soviet experts, now needed to build the atomic bomb independently. At that time, the level of science and technology on the mainland was relatively backward, especially the bottleneck technology of atomic energy. Liu Xiyao, who once served as the head of the Second Aircraft Department and the deputy commander-in-chief of the mainland's first atomic bomb tower explosion experiment, put forward the idea that "the dragon head is the third power of the dragon's head": The leading part of the nuclear weapons department is in the Second Aircraft Department, the leading part of the Second Aircraft Department is in the Ninth Academy (No. 9 Institute), and the leading point of the Ninth Academy is in the Theory Department.
3
Rise to the challenge
The development of the atomic bomb had to go through a bumpy and rugged road of exploration, but Deng Jiaxian always had the tenacity to insist on Qingshan and not relax. He led the Theory Department to uphold the central authorities' policy decision of "doing it yourself, starting from scratch, and preparing to build an atomic bomb in eight years." With no drawings or materials, he quickly mastered the principle of the atomic bomb and began the theoretical exploration and development of the atomic bomb.
In order to let those college students from different majors get started quickly, Deng Jia first set up a "Atomic Theory Literacy Class", personally giving lectures, tutoring, organizing translation, and learning foreign language materials. Through working day and night, he finally selected three aspects as his main directions: neutron physics, fluid mechanics, and the properties of matter under high temperature and pressure. This greatly accelerated the progress of research and development, and was an important policy decision in the process of developing the mainland's atomic bomb. At that time, when China's computer resources were scarce, they could often only use simple tools such as abacus to perform a large number of difficult mathematical calculations. In the calculation of the overall mechanics of the atomic bomb, there is a parameter that plays a decisive role in the exploration of the principle of the atomic bomb. Deng Jiaxian's results were completely different from the values that Soviet experts had casually left, so they calculated them nine times and spent nearly a year. The results of their calculations were eventually proved correct by Zhou Guangzhao, who returned from the Soviet Union, and thus became a key theoretical achievement with great application value to guide the development of the atomic bomb, which mathematician Hua Luogeng later called "the culmination of the world's mathematical problems."
As the chief designer of the Theory Department, Deng Jiaxian was responsible for the overall progress of each group, participated in the discussion and guidance of each group, and personally led the most difficult group of material properties under high temperature and high pressure. With the technical means and conditions of the mainland at that time, it was impossible to simulate the high temperature and high pressure required at the moment of the atomic bomb explosion. Deng Jiaxian led the group to creatively use the extrapolation method under no experimental conditions, so as to obtain the equation of nuclear materials under extremely high temperature and high pressure, and skillfully connected it with the equation of state of low pressure, and obtained a complete equation of state in a considerable area, which met the requirements of the theoretical design of the atomic bomb. This is one of Deng Jiaxian's important contributions to the theoretical design of the mainland's atomic bomb.
In 1961, Deng Jiaxian reported the blueprint for the mainland's first atomic bomb. He made it clear that the mainland's use of uranium-235 as nuclear material and the implosion method is different from the first atomic bomb of any country. After three years of unremitting efforts, Deng Jiaxian and his team overcame one difficulty after another, and finally designed the theoretical prototype of the atomic bomb.
On October 16, 1964, the mainland successfully tested its first atomic bomb.
At 3 p.m. on October 16, 1964, there was a loud bang in the Lop Nur Desert in Xinjiang, and a mushroom cloud rose into the sky, and the mainland successfully tested the first atomic bomb. This feat demonstrated to the world the great wisdom and strength of the Chinese people and greatly enhanced China's influence in the international community.
4
to think something through
As early as a year before the first atomic bomb was exploded, Deng Jiaxian had already been ordered to aim for a higher target. In September 1963, Marshal Nie Rongzhen ordered the Theoretical Department of the Ninth Academy led by Deng Jiaxian to start the theoretical design of the hydrogen bomb. In 1965, Yu Min and a group of scientific research backbones were transferred from the Institute of Atomic Energy to participate in the development of the hydrogen bomb. After the success of the atomic bomb test, Deng Jiaxian immediately organized manpower to explore the principle of the hydrogen bomb in addition to studying the miniaturization of the atomic bomb. When a group led by Yu Min gradually clarified the possible way to break through the principle of the hydrogen bomb through calculations at the East China Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, Deng Jiaxian immediately went to analyze the calculation results with everyone, discussed technical problems, repeatedly analyzed technical difficulties, and sought ways to solve them. This is Deng Jiaxian's second major contribution to the mainland's nuclear weapons cause. During the "Cultural Revolution", in the face of the chaotic situation of the Ninth Academy, Deng Jiaxian worked hard to organize scientific researchers, cadres and workers who were caught in factional struggles to tackle key problems. On June 17, 1967, China's first hydrogen bomb was successfully exploded. From the atomic bomb to the hydrogen bomb, United States took 7 years, the Soviet Union 4 years, France 8 years, and the mainland only 2 years and 8 months.
Subsequently, Deng Jiaxian led the scientific research personnel of the Theory Department to devote themselves to the actual combat of nuclear weapons, improve the performance of nuclear weapons, and make breakthroughs in the research of the principle of miniaturization of nuclear weapons and key technologies. Many of these key technologies and designs were proposed and solved with his personal involvement. Later, he devoted himself to the research of the second generation of nuclear weapons and neutron bombs on the mainland. Several breakthroughs in the principle are permeated with his wisdom and hard work. Even though he was extremely weak, he was still present at the site to guide the experiment. In 1984, Deng Jiaxian led the successful test of the second generation of new nuclear weapons in the depths of the desert. This was the last trial he would have conducted in person. As of 1986, he personally presided over 15 of the 32 nuclear tests conducted by the mainland.
Deng Jiaxian has long participated in the organization and leadership of the mainland's nuclear weapons development, and has successively served as director, vice president, and president of the Theoretical Department of the Ninth Academy of the Second Machinery Department. He has a high sense of responsibility for his work and is always on the front line in the most critical and dangerous times. Whenever he processes a workpiece with extremely high radioactivity, he insists on the front line until the processed product is qualified. Before the atomic bomb test, a radium tube had to be inserted, which was the most dangerous of all the work, and Deng Jiaxian always stood silently behind the operator. He regards the national mission as his own responsibility, and is able to respond calmly and sensitively at important moments. Deng Jiaxian had to sign for many atomic bomb tests, so his nerves were always tense. Once, when he slept until midnight, he suddenly thought of a factor that might lead to failure, so he organized relevant personnel to discuss countermeasures overnight and avoided a possible accident. As the backbone of the whole team, his composure and sensitivity always give great confidence to other staff.
Deng Jiaxian not only devoted himself wholeheartedly to the development of nuclear weapons, but also paid special attention to sorting out and summarizing scientific theories. The book "Summary of the Theoretical Research on the First Atomic Bomb on the Mainland," which he co-authored with Zhou Guangzhao, is a groundbreaking basic masterpiece on the theoretical design of nuclear weapons, summing up the research results of hundreds of scientists, and not only playing a guiding role in future theoretical design, but also serving as a textbook for training scientific research personnel to get started. In order to train young researchers, he has written many lecture notes such as "Electrodynamics", "Plasma Physics", "Theory of Spherical Concentrated Detonation Waves", and began to compile textbooks such as "Quantum Field Theory" and "Group Theory".
5
Brave and faithful, martyrdom for the country
For the sake of nuclear weapons development, Deng Jiaxian often went in and out of the workshop, and for a long period of time, he came into contact with radioactive materials almost every day. At the end of the 70s of the 20th century, there was a nuclear test accident, because the parachute was not opened when the plane was dropped, the nuclear bomb fell directly to the ground from a high altitude and did not explode. Hundreds of anti-chemical warfare troops searched in the desert, but there was no trace of nuclear bombs. The radioactive plutonium contained in the warhead will cause lifelong harm to a person once they are irradiated. Ignoring the dissuasion of the base commander Chen Bin, Deng Jiaxian insisted on going to search in person, and strongly prevented Zhao Jingpu, deputy director of the Second Aircraft Department, and his driver from traveling with him. He finally found the location of the nuclear bomb, and even picked up the highly toxic fragmentation bomb to inspect it, until he confirmed that the consequences he feared most did not happen. This radiation caused great damage to his health. A few days later, after a hospital examination, it was found that his urine was very radioactive, the chromosomes in his white blood cells had become powdery, and his liver was damaged. But he knew that his mission had not yet been completed, and that the country's nuclear industry still needed him, so he did not stop working.
Unfortunately, due to severe nuclear radiation, in July 1985, Deng Jiaxian was diagnosed with rectal cancer, and his life entered the final countdown. Deng Jiaxian, who had a premonition that his time was short, began to race against life, and when his condition improved slightly, he worked in the hospital. He is most concerned about the development of China's nuclear industry, which is also his life's work. He has a keen insight into the development trend of the international nuclear powers: the level of design technology is close to the theoretical limit, and for the sake of international superiority, it is very likely to prohibit other countries from continuing to conduct nuclear tests in order to maintain their status as a nuclear power. Therefore, he invited Yu Min to discuss the idea of developing nuclear weapons on the mainland, so as to catch up with the nuclear weapons level of the major powers as soon as possible. Deng Jia first persevered in his work with perseverance, and finally they drew up a proposal to the central government. After Deng Jiaxian's death, his successors followed through on the spirit of the proposal, and China's nuclear weapons development continued at a rapid pace, finally reaching the level of laboratory simulations of neutron bombs before a complete ban on nuclear testing. After completing the country's mission, Deng Jiaxian passed away on July 29, 1986. Before his death, he was still concerned about how to work on cutting-edge weapons, and admonished: "Don't let people leave us too far behind."
In order to develop the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb, Deng Jia first regarded fame and fortune as dung, put aside the severe challenges to his life, and struggled incognito, selflessly and fearlessly for 28 years, and climbed the peak of the world's nuclear science and technology step by step with the ambition of self-reliance and the wisdom of independent innovation in scientific exploration. On July 29, 1996, China conducted its last nuclear explosion test. At this point, the mainland, like other nuclear powers, has finally crossed the milestones of atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, neutron bombs, miniaturization, and laboratory simulations, and has completely freed China from the shadow of nuclear threat and nuclear blackmail. As Deng Xiaoping said: "If China had not had atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs and had not launched satellites since the 60s, China would not have been able to be called a major power with important influence, and it would not have the international status it has now." These things reflect the capabilities of a nation and are a sign of the prosperity of a nation and a country." To this end, Deng Jiaxian paid his life's hard work and wisdom, and even his life.
Source: "Centennial Tide" Issue 8, 2024
Author: Ding Zhaojun (Associate Professor, Department of History and Archaeology of Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China)
Yang Xue (Master's student, Department of History and Archaeology of Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China)