Prof. Ta-You Wu (From OCPA) Prof. Wu graduated from Nan-Kai University, and received his Ph. D. degree in Physics from the University of Michigan under the direction of Samuel A. Goudsmit. His work on heavy elements pointed to the existence of transuranium atoms. He returned to China in 1934 to teach at Peking University. When Peking University moved to Kunming in 1938 during the most difficult war time, he managed to write the first book on molecular spectroscopy,"Vibrational Spectra and Structure of Polyatomic Molecules", for which he received the 1939 Ting Memorial Prize of the Academia Sinica. Prof. Wu was the author of twenty-one books, including a seven-part series on theoretical physics and seven volumes of collected essays. He has published numerous papers in a wide range of areas in modern and classical physics. From 1949 to 1963, Prof. Wu directed the Theoretical Physics Division of the National Research Council of Canada. He was the Chairman of the Department of Physics and Astronomy of SUNY-Buffalo from 1966 to 1969. Prof. Wu was appointed the Director of the Institute of Physics of Academia Sinica in 1962. In 1967, he was appointed the Chairman of the National Science Council of the Republic of China, and the Chairman of the Committee for Science Development of the Republic of China. He was the President of Academia Sinica from 1983 to 1994. Ta-You Wu was born into a family of scholars in Canton, China. Prof. Wu's grandfather and father were respectively ``Jin Shi'' and ``Ju Ren'', which were among the highest honors a Chinese scholar could achieve in the last century. Prof. Wu had trained a large number of physicists, including C. N. Yang and T. D. Lee. Through the lineage of Tai-You Wu, Chinese physics scholars of today are a part of the continuation of the Chinese scholarship of past few thousand years, and the solid accomplishments of Prof. Wu will inspire Chinese physicists to continue to contribute to the world of science in the future. Three years ago, the Overseas Chinese Physics Association dedicated its Conference in Taipei to celebrate Prof. Wu's 90th Birthday. At the present sad moment, the Overseas Chinese Physics Association and its members mourn the passing of a great pioneer in the Chinese physics community. 返 回“ 吴 大 猷 专 栏”