Key facilities enable scientific advancement

Workers install the last electromagnet of the High Energy Photon Source in Beijing in December. JIN LIWANG/XINHUA

At that time, high-energy physics experiments in China were almost nonexistent, and high-energy physics theoretical research relied entirely on foreign experimental data, according to records from the CAS.

Premier Zhou Enlai said: "This matter cannot be delayed any longer. The academy of sciences must focus on basic science and theoretical research, while also integrating theoretical research with scientific experiments."

In March 1981, scientists from the CAS met with physicists Tsung-Dao Lee and Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky, the director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in the US, to discuss the construction of the Beijing Electron-Positron Collider, which was unanimously considered the best development plan at the time.

After years of exploration, the collider was completed in 1988. Deng Xiaoping, China's late leader, at the inauguration ceremony, said, "Whether in the past, present, or future, China must develop its own high technology and occupy a place in the world of high technology."

Wang Yifang, the current director of the Institute of High Energy Physics, reflected: "Looking back, constructing the Beijing Electron-Positron Collider was the best choice at the time. It allowed China's high-energy physics to take a place in the international high-energy physics field, cultivated a team with international standards, and also promoted the construction of other large scientific facilities in the country."

The Beijing Electron-Positron Collider served dual purposes, and based on it, the Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility, the first generation synchrotron radiation light source, was built.

Soon after, in 1990, the second-generation synchrotron radiation light source, the Hefei Synchrotron Radiation Source, was built. Subsequently, in 2009, the medium-energy third-generation synchrotron radiation facility, the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, was completed.