Bulletin Autumn 1988

respect for each other, the politics o f the Taiwan Strait notwithstanding. I f my citation o f Professor Chu gave the im pression that his path from graduate student to pre mier scientist was an easy one, it was a misleading picture, for the budding young scientist who spear headed the break-throughs in superconductivity had to compete very hard for meagre research funds, at least until two years ago. But the annual grant o f US$2 m illion from the United States National Science Foundation is positively princely compared to what Professor Zhao's team had to make do w ith. But they persevered and in the end, in spite o f the many handi caps along the way, they have achieved the same out standing result. The team's leader, Zhao Zhong Xian, is no stranger to hard times. Born into a working class family in the middle o f the Second World War, young Zhao learned to scrape a living from a tender age. He was brilliant at school. He graduated from Fuxin Senior Middle School in 1959 and was immediately picked for the University o f Science and Technology o f China where he specialized in low temperature physics. The course took five years, a measure o f the flexib ility and heterogeneity in higher education which existed in China before the Cultural Revolution. A biography o f Professor Zhao emphasized the point that he had graduated in 1964, before the dawn o f the Cultural Revolution. He was not one o f those who got through the university system by producing blank answers on blank pieces o f paper. Since 1964 ， Zhao Zhong Xian has been engaged in research on low temperature physics and super conductivity. In 1974-75, he was Visiting Scientist at Cambridge University where he studied the flux flow in type II superconductors. But it was only after 1978 w ith the return o f more rational policies in China that his career took off. In 1979, he was apointed deputy head o f the Superconductivity Materials Department o f the Institute o f Physics o f the Academia Sinica and became editor-in-chief o f Acta Physica Temperaturae Humilis Sinica, the Chinese journal o f low temperature physics. In the following year, he was elected a fellow o f the Beijing Physical Society. In 1984-85, he was Visiting Scientist in the Ames Laboratory o f the United States. Last year, on the strength o f his research results, he was awarded the Third World Academy o f Sciences Prize in Physics for outstanding contribution to an impor tant field o f scientific enquiry. Today, we have the privilege and pleasure o f bringing together, once again, the two foremost Chinese scientists in the field o f superconductivity. They are an inspiration and example to a new gener ation o f young Chinese scientists in different parts o f the world. In spite o f the same ethnic origin, their diverse backgrounds, beliefs and value systems mark them as worlds apart, but they are as one in their determination to crack the mystery o f superconduc tivity for the benefit o f the human race. Mr. Chancellor, for his pioneering research on superconductivity under greatly handicapped condi tions, for the brilliance o f his scientific mind which transcends race, nationality, class, creed, language and other human barriers, for his contribution to the re affirming o f China's position on the map o f scientific discovery, I present Professor Zhao Zhong Xian, physicist, scientist and outstanding researcher, for the award o f the degree o f Doctor o f Science, honoris causa. Mrs. Esther Yewpick Lee Concerning the passage o f time, the most used meta phor in the Chinese language is 光陰似箭（ Time flies like an arrow). When looking back at the history o f the University, the history o f Hong Kong and indeed the history o f the world, this phrase easily springs to mind. In October 1963, the month and year the University was established, Sir Alec Douglas-Home was taking over from Harold Macmillan as Prime Minister o f Britain, President John Kennedy was nearing the end o f his thousand days at the White House, and in China Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were repairing the damage done to the country by the hasty Great Leap Forward. And Mr. Chancellor, in 1963 ， you yourself were serving your first posting in Beijing. In the month o f October twenty-five years ago, The Chinese University o f Hong Kong came into being at an inaugural congregation at the City Hall on the 17th day o f the month. From that first 10