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Li Huatian

Chinese computer scientist

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ6538841 ↗
Source-derived summary

Professor Li Huatian (1922–2007) was one of the first few computer scientists in China and was well known for his early contributions to the areas of computer science and computer networks.

Life and work

He was born on January 29, 1922 in Songjiang, Jiangsu (now Songjiang, Shanghai). He graduated from the National Southwestern Associated University with a degree in electrical engineering in 1943 and from Harvard University with a master's degree in 1948.

He returned to China in 1949 to start his research and teaching career as a university professor. He taught at Dalian University of Technology and Northeastern University. He served as the department chair of the departments of Automation and Computer Science and the university vice president at Northeastern University.

He also served as a vice president for IFAC, the International Federation of Automatic Control. He resigned administration positions in 1984 to return to full-time research and teaching. Meanwhile, he founded the first PhD program in computer science in China.

Till his final retirement in 1995, he had published numerous journal papers in areas of automatic control, computer theory, computer networks, and multimedia systems and brought up a lot of younger computer scientists in China.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Li Huatian” is chinese computer scientist. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Huatian, Chinese and computer, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1922, 2007, 1943, 1948—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1922-01-29. For this dossier, Huatian, Chinese and computer is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “chinese computer scientist” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6538841. VIAF identifies the subject as 53144605. The Library of Congress control number is n85306123. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1922, 2007, 1943 and 1948.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Li Huatian”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Li Huatian primary sources, Li Huatian archive and Huatian research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Li Huatian”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Li Huatian” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.