BORN

June 4, 1945

DIED

November 21, 2015

LOCATION

Houston, Texas

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Forest Park Westheimer Funeral Home Obituary

Prof. Bambi Hu, age 70, died at Methodist Hospital on Saturday, November 21, 2015, after battling a rare neurodegenerative disease, Multiple System Atrophy, for two years.Born June 4, 1945 in Chong Qing, China, Bambi lived in Hong Kong, France, and the USA. He graduated from Pui Ching Middle...

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/bambi-hu-obituary?pid=176611687 

https://sci-hub.ru/10.1142/S0217979207044949

hu2007.pdf

A CLOSED LOOP

BAMBI HU

Department of Physics, Centre for Nonlinear Studies,

and The Beijing-Hong Kong-Singapore Joint Centre for Nonlinear

and Complex Systems (Hong Kong), Hong Kong Baptist University,

Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, China

and

Department of Physics, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-5005, USA

􀃾􀜻􀜹􀚡􁏨􁸨􀊺􀾭􀋨􁤤􀮻􀋷􁸷

􀀁 􀐐􁫻􁏨􁸨􁄈􀌽􀋨􁣿􀠇􀋷􀇍􀃿􀀋

􀀁 􀀁 􀀁 􀀁 􀀁 􀃺􀃺􀀁􀱄􁄇􀀁􀀁􀀈􀀗􀀐􀀑􀁮􀀗􀀖􀀒􀀉

I was born in Chonqing, China in 1945. My father, I-Ping Hu ( ) was a

banker, and my mother, Pie Wang ( ), a doctor. In the first half of the 20th

century, China was ravaged by war and poverty. My grandfather passed away when

my father was three years old and my maternal grandmother passed away when my

mother was thirteen years old. Both my parents endured tremendous hardships to

establish themselves.

My family moved to Hong Kong in 1949.We stayed in a small village, Ping Shan,

near Yuen Long. Life was very hard then. There were eight of us in the family: my

grandmother,my parents, my aunt, my cousin, my two younger brothers and myself.

My parents had to start from scratch to make ends meet. Although the material

life was quite poor, we did not feel particularly deprived. Both my brothers and I

still cherish fond memories of our childhood in this small village.

I entered Pui-ChingMiddle School in 1953. Pui-Ching was—and still is—a private

Chinese language school. As expected, under the British colonial rule, Chinese

schools were very much discriminated against. Most of the teachers were educated

in China but their credentials were not recognized by the Hong Kong government.

However, they were highly qualified (some of them later taught in universities) and

dedicated teachers. They also had a deep sense of mission. They prided themselves

on their Chinese cultural heritage but were also keenly aware of China’s backwardness

and its consequent humiliation since the mid-19th century. They instilled into

the student a deep love and respect for knowledge and an aspiration to excel. Their

efforts were not wasted. Pui-Ching has produced some world-class mathematicians

and physicists such as Alfred Y. Cho, Lu L. Sham, Yum-Tong Siu, Dan C. Tsui,

and Shing-Tung Yau. The school put a special emphasis on mathematics and the

teachers were truly first-rate. They were very good not only in teaching mathematics

but also in inspiring students to love mathematics. So it was not surprising that

it produced some world-class mathematicians. On the other hand, the physics education

was quite poor. We only learned geometric optics and a little mechanics. So

it was quite surprising that it produced some world-class physicists. What was even

more surprising was that it produced some world-class experimental physicists. It

probably had more to do with the calibre of the student, the ethos of the school

and the training in mathematics.

Upon graduation from high school, I entered the University of California at

Berkeley in 1963. Berkeley opened up an entirely new intellectual vista for me. The

vault of knowledge seemed to be limitless. Studying in the US also provided me with

an opportunity to compare the cultural, historical, political and social differences

between China and the West.

I first chose philosophy as my major. In middle school, my favorite subjects were

Chinese literature, history and mathematics. My favourite writer is Lu Xun, whose

writing has exerted an indelible influence on my life and my outlook. However, in

high school, my interests broadened and my mind became more and more inquisitive.

There were so many unanswered questions in life, and philosophy seemed

to be the only discipline that was broad enough to encompass my curiosities. My

freshman advisor was Thomas Nagel. He just received his Ph.D. from Harvard

and joined Berkeley as an assistant professor. He has since become a very famous

philosopher. However, after studying philosophy for some time, I became troubled

by the problem of progress in philosophy. It seemed to me that there is no clear idea

of progress in philosophy: a theory 2,500 years ago is just as good as a theory now.

Also, my interest in philosophy gradually gravitated to the philosophy of science.

At the same time, the physics department at Berkeley introduced the Berkeley

Physics Course. It created tremendous excitement among the students. Many topics

in modern physics such as the special theory of relativity were taught in the

freshman year. I also thought it was impossible for one to study the philosophy of

science without having a deep knowledge of a field of science. Therefore I decided to

change my major from philosophy to physics. However, the upper-division physics

courses, with the exception of quantum mechanics, were more or less drills and thus

not so exciting as the Berkeley Physics Course.

Upon completion of my study at Berkeley, I went to Cornell in 1969 for graduate

study. Cornell was quite different from Berkeley. During my study at Berkeley, I

hardly knew any professor personally. Cornell was much more personal. The professors

were quite nice and more approachable. In studying physics, I have to confess

I am more attracted to its beauty than its truth. Beauty is usually associated with

art; that beauty can also be found in science was a revelation to me. Attracted by

its simplicity, unity and beauty, I decided to work on theoretical particle physics.

My thesis advisor was Peter Carruthers. Pete was a very amiable and talented per-

son. He played the violin and wrote poems. It was very regrettable that he died at

a relatively young age.

Cornell was a very exciting place during my graduate career. It produced four

Nobel laureates.Wilson proposed the renormalization-group theory of second-order

phase transitions, and Lee, Osheroff and Richarson discovered the A-phase of superfluid

He3. Although I did not work on the renormalization group then, Wilson’s

intellectual influence was quite pervasive and it indelibly affected my future work.

Another distinctive feature of Cornell’s research was its emphasis on interdisciplinary

study such as that between quantum field theory and statistical mechanics.

It was a very turbulent time during my study in the US. Berkeley was the hotbed

of student movements. First there was the “Civil Rights Movement”, then the “Free

Speech Movement”, then the “Anti-War Movement”, etc. Before long, almost every

campus in the US was engulfed by student movements. Inevitably, those movements

affected my thinking and aroused my social consciousness. In graduate school, I was

very active in many of the student movements. My motivation was however ethical

rather than political, and it could be summed up in one word: Justice. Although

my participation in the student movements has taken a heavy toll of my study and

career, I have no regret. Compared to human suffering and injustice, everything

else takes a back seat.

After completion of my Ph.D., I went to France in 1974 to do postdoctoral work,

first at Saclay and then at ÅLEcole Polytechnique. It was in Paris where I met my

future wife Kok-Yee Lok. She was a graduate of the Paris Conservatory, specializing

in singing. It was music that bound us together.

After France, I went to Brown University in 1977 as a postdoc of Leo Kadanoff.

Leo was very kind and encouraging. It was he who induced me to work on phase

transitions.

In 1978, I joined the University of Houston as an assistant professor. I was

promoted to associate professor in 1983 and professor in 1987.

Hong Kong was ceded to Britain as a result of the Opium War. The Opium

War was as much a shame for the victor as for the loser. It left a deep scar on the

psyche of the Chinese people. The return of Hong Kong to China in 1997 was one of

the most momentous events in modern Chinese history. In 1995, at the persuasion

of Professor C. F. Ng, then Dean of the Faculty of Science, I returned to Hong

Kong and took up the headship of the physics department of Hong Kong Baptist

University (HKBU). It has been thirty-two years since I first left Hong Kong that I

have come full circle. What the value of the integral of this closed loop is, I do not

know — I only know that it is not zero. In any case, it marked a new turning-point

of my life.

The physics department at HKBU is a small department, the smallest of all the

physics departments in Hong Kong. It has only ten faculty members. There is a

strict pecking order in Hong Kong. The department had very few resources and it

was not very active in research. How to turn the department into a research-active

department in order to compete with the major universities was not an easy task.

In the past twelve years, the physics department has made tremendous progress.

In the latest Research Assessment Exercise held in 2006, the percentage of active

researchers in the department reached 97.5%. This remarkable achievement was

mainly due to the efforts of my colleagues. My only contribution was to motivate

them and help them realize their potential.

I set up the Centre for Nonlinear Studies (CNS) at HKBU in 1996. In the past

eleven years, CNS has hosted approximately 125 postdocs and visitors. This generation

of young nonlinear physicists is now playing an important role in the Asia-

Pacific region, especially in China. Whatever success CNS has been able to achieve,

it was mainly due to the contribution of these young members. I also proposed

and co-founded The Beijing–Hong Kong–Singapore Joint Centre for Nonlinear and

Complex Systems in 2004.

I started the conference series Dynamics Days Asia-Pacific: International Conference

on Nonlinear Science in Hong Kong in 1999. It has since been held in

China (2002), Singapore (2004), Korea (2006), and it is scheduled to be held in

Japan (2008), Australia (2010), Taiwan (2012), and India (2014).

Although the research environment in the US is better, one does not always get

beyond doing one’s own work. Building up something in one’s homeland is at least

as meaningful a task as doing one’s research. The satisfaction derived from this

endeavor may even be greater.

I have worked mainly in three areas: quantum field theory, phase transitions,

and nonlinear dynamics. The transition from one area to the other was a gradual

one. Of all my works, I will mention only four. I mention these works not because

of their importance or even correctness, but because of their interesting ideas — at

least to myself. The first was a joint work with Joe Rudnick on the exact solutions to

the functional renormalization-group equations for intermittency [24].† The second

was a joint work with Baowen Li and Hong Zhao on heat conduction in the Frenkel-

Kontorova model [99]. The third was a joint work with A. Chakrabarti on deriving

non-abelian gauge theories from the four-fermion interaction model [6]. The fourth

was a work on the problem of universality in phase transitions on fractals [35]. All

in all, I am not at all satisfied with any of my work — if anything, I would consider

my career a failure.

I am near the twilight of my career. Looking back, I have to say that I have

had a rather blessed life. Most of the people I knew have been kind and generous

to me. My grandmother was an embodiment of the traditional virtues of a Chinese

woman: devotion, self-sacrifice, discipline and kindness. I have a loving family: my

wife Kok-Yee, my daughters Chu-Mei, Chu-Ching, Chu-Ying, my son-in-law Brian,

and my grandchildren Cori and Alex. My brothers Bei-Lok and Shiu-Lok and I

are very close to one another. We share pretty much the same values, ideal and

interests. I am extremely grateful to my aunt, who took care of me and my daughter.

She was like a second-mother to me. My cousins Hai-Wei, Kuen-Wai and his wife

Sau-Lan are always kind and caring. Last but not least, I owe everything in my

life to my parents. They sacrificed everything in their life to bring me up. Their

unconditional and unswerving love and support has been an anchor in my life. My

father passed away in 2001 and my mother in 2007. My mother had devoted her life

to the family with total dedication and self-sacrifice. She took a great interest in the

conference, and it is an eternal regret that she did not live to see the publication of

the proceedings.With deepest love and respect, I dedicate this essay to her memory.

Int.