Gong Zutong

Gong Zutong (; 10 November 1904 – 26 June 1986) was a Chinese optical physicist. He was a founder of China's optical glass industry and served as Founding Director of the Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He was elected an academician of the CAS in 1980.

Early life and education Gong was born on 10 November 1904 in Shanghai, during the late Qing dynasty. He obtained his bachelor's degree from Tsinghua University in 1930 and joined its faculty upon graduation. In 1932, he began his postgraduate studies at Tsinghua under the supervision of the prominent physicist Chung-Yao Chao (Zhao Zhongyao), and his research on secondary gamma radiation was published in Nature.

In July 1934, he left for Germany to study at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin-Charlottenburg (now Technische Universität Berlin). After earning his engineer's license in 1936, he continued to pursue Ph.D. studies at TH Berlin, and completed his dissertation in 1937. In the same year, however, the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out and China came under military invasion by the Empire of Japan. Gong abandoned his thesis defence and returned to China to join the resistance.