William Band at Yenching University

William Band (1906-1993) has been widely remembered by his American colleagues and students as ``a fine physicist and teacher,'' who taught at Washington State University in Pullman between 1949 and 1971 and authored Introduction to Quantum Statistics (1954) and Introduction to Mathematical Physics (1959). Not many, however, knew much about Band's early career, which was very ``uncommon and eventful.'' Born in England, Band graduated from University of Liverpool in 1927 with an MsSc degree in physics. Instead of pursuing his Ph.D. at Cambridge, he chose to teach physics at Yenching University, a prestigious Christian university in Beijing, China. Arriving in 1929, Band established his career at Yenching, where he taught and researched the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, pioneered the study on low-temperature superconductivity in China, founded the country's first graduate program in physics, and chaired the Physics Department for 10 years until he fled from Yenching upon hearing of the attack on Pearl Harbor. It took him two years to cross Japanese occupied areas under the escort of the Communist force; he left China in early 1945. This presentation will explore Band's motivation to work in China and his contributions to the Chinese physics research and education.