Hsu Yun-chi

Hsu Yun-chi (Chinese: 許雲基; 16 July 1924 – 2025) was a Taiwanese nuclear physicist from Taichung, Taiwan. After graduating from Taichung First Senior High School, Hsu studied at Kochi High School in Japan and then at the Faculty of Engineering of Kyoto Imperial University. After the war, he transferred to the Department of Electrical Engineering at National Taiwan University and graduated from that department.

In 1947, Hsu became an assistant in the Department of Physics, National Taiwan University. Together with Dai Yungui, Ota Yoritsune and others, he helped reconstruct the Cockcroft–Walton generator built at NTU by the team of Bunsaku Arakatsu, which had previously completed the world's second artificial nuclear disintegration experiment. In 1948, the group successfully completed the first artificial nuclear disintegration experiment in Taiwan and in post-war Asia. He later took over the nuclear physics laboratory led by Ota Yoritsune, —today Taichung First Senior High School After graduating, he was admitted to the Faculty of Engineering of Kyoto Imperial University.

To obtain sufficient experimental materials, they borrowed from the better-supplied Department of Chemistry and obtained discarded vacuum tubes, large shell casings and other items from the Broadcasting Corporation of China and Taiwan Power Company.

The accelerator reconstruction project began in October 1946. On 13 May 1948 at 8:35 p.m., the team used high-speed protons to strike lithium, splitting it into two alpha particles and completing the first artificial nuclear disintegration experiment in Taiwan and post-war Asia. The accelerator is now displayed by National Taiwan University in the NTU Museum of Physics, the former nuclear laboratory of the physics chair. The team was the only group in Taiwan with this technology at the time. During his career at the NTU Department of Physics, Hsu advanced through publications from assistant to lecturer, associate professor and professor, and became department chair in October 1962. In 1965, when Taiwan's National Science Council established a Physics Research Center, Hsu and Wolfgang Kroll became chair professors representing the NTU Department of Physics at the center. It houses the NTU Museum of Physics, formerly the nuclear laboratory.

Hsu retired from the NTU Department of Physics in 1985 and, in 1989, became professor emeritus together with Wolfgang Kroll.

In 2004, the NTU Department of Physics decided to reconstruct the accelerator. Beginning in 2005, Hsu, together with Lin Songyun and Xu Yuchuan, led the reconstruction of the nuclear physics laboratory into the NTU Museum of Physics, which officially opened on 21 November that year. “Neutron Total Cross Section of Arsenic at 14 MeV”, 1963. “Counting Efficiency of Nuclear Multiplate Camera”, 1963. “Neutron Total Cross Section of Praseodymium at 14 MeV”, 1963. “Radiocarbon Concentration in Taiwan Wood”, 1964. “Low Background Counter for Carbon-14 Dating”, 1965. “Energy and Angular Distribution of Alpha-Particles in the Ar40(n,α)S37 Reaction at 14.1 MeV”, 1965. “Carbon-14 Dating. I”, 1965. “Measurement of Radiocarbon Content in Rice”, 1966. “Wilson Cloud Chamber for the Study of the (n, α) Reaction”, 1968. “Counter Telescope for Studying 14 MeV Neutron-Induced Reactions”, 1975. “Surface Treatment of the Al Cold Cathode for He-Ne Laser”, 1975.