MODERN PHYSICS AND WARM FRIENDSHIP

During the academic year 1941-42 I was a senior in the Physics Department at the National Southwest Associated University in Kunming. The Department was quite small, with about 10 faculty members, 10 instructors, a few graduate students and not more than 20 students in each undergraduate class. When the academic year started in the fall of 1941, a new face appeared, auditing many of the senior and graduate courses and participating in all discussions. That was Huang Kun. He had already received his bachelor's degree in physics from Yenching University in Beiping, and had come to Kunming to join the Southwest Associated University as an instructor. Soon we got to know each other well, and that was the beginning of half of a century of warm friendship…