Wang Ganchang

Who was Wang Ganchang?

Wang Ganchang was a nuclear physicist from China. He was one of the initiators of research in China in nuclear physics, cosmic rays and particle physics. Wang figured among the top leaders, pioneers and scientists of the Chinese nuclear deterrent program. He was a member of the Chinese Academy of Science and a member of the Chinese Communist party.

In 1930, Wang first proposed to use a cloud chamber to study a new type of high-energy rays induced by the bombardment of beryllium with α particles, experiment conducted one year later by the English physicist James Chadwick, thus discovering a new type of particle, the neutron, and allowing him to win the 1935 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Wang first proposed the use of beta-capture to detect the neutrino in 1941. James Allen employed his suggestion and found the evidence of existing neutrino in 1942. Frederick Reines and Clyde Cowan detected the neutrino via inverse beta-decay reaction in 1956 winning forty years later the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Wang also led a group to discover the anti-sigma minus hyperon particle at Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia in 1959.