Hsieh Yu-Ming

Hsieh Yu-Ming (simplified Chinese: 谢玉铭; traditional Chinese: 謝玉銘; pinyin: Xiè Yùmíng; June 5, 1893 – March 20, 1986), also known as Xie Yuming or Y. M. Hsieh, was a Chinese physicist and educator who contributed to the development of modern physics education in the Republic of China and conducted spectroscopic research that anticipated the discovery of the Lamb shift.

Educated at Columbia University and the University of Chicago under Nobel laureate Albert A. Michelson, Hsieh served as chair of the Physics Department at Yenching University, where he helped establish China's first graduate physics program. During a 1932–1934 fellowship at the California Institute of Technology, he collaborated with William V. Houston on measurements of hydrogen spectral lines that identified discrepancies later explained by quantum electrodynamics. He later taught at Xiamen University during the Second Sino-Japanese War and worked in the Philippines, where he contributed to the country's early atomic energy initiatives.

Early life and education

Hsieh Yuming was born on June 5, 1893, in Zhixiang Village, Jinjiang, Fujian Province (present-day Shishi City). He lost his father at age four and moved with his mother to Quanzhou, where she supported the family through embroidery and washing work for the local church. He attended Peiyuan Middle School, a Christian school in Quanzhou founded by British Presbyterian missionary A. S. Moore Anderson, who recognized his academic talents and recommended him to Peking Union College (later Yenching University), where tuition was waived due to his family's financial circumstances.

At Yenching, Hsieh excelled in physics, mathematics, and English, representing the university in Beijing intercollegiate English debates. After graduating in 1917, he briefly taught at Peiyuan Middle School before joining the Yenching University faculty in 1921.

In the early 1920s, Hsieh received a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to pursue graduate studies in the United States.