A Romance with Books-Qian Xuesen and His Collection

2015年09月23日

Qian Xuesen’s whole life is tightly bound to books. As a juvenile, Qian Xuesen has already showed strong curiosity in knowledge, and has read many books about natural science, engineering technology, and humanities & social sciences, which set a sound foundation for his future way to scientific and technological summits. During his stay in the United States and  after his return to China, Qian Xuesen sedulously learned new knowledge for decades, wrote books, and proposed theories through creative, arduous practices as well, with new treasures added to profound human wisdom.

This exhibition falls into two parts. The first part is titled “Establish Companionship with Books to Freely Travel in a Sea of Books”. In his youth, Qian Xuesen showed great interest in reading books, and library was a place “where he would go everyday”. During the period of study and work in America, Qian Xuesen read a wide range of academic literature, which played an important role his future pioneer role in the frontiers of science and technology. While in his later years, Qian Xuesen took books, letters and newspaper as loyal companions, stepped into a path of lifetime discovery with no end, and held an entrepreneurial spirit and valuable personality of “live and learn to make endless progress” through his whole life.

Part two focuses on his great achievements in writing books and establishing theories. Qian Xuesen consistently kept abreast of the frontiers of science and technology for decades, put his whole heart into scientific research and innovation, and at last made many ground-breaking unique contributions in the different fields of engineering, technology, and science and philosophy and the interdisciplinary, comprehensive sector study. Qian Xuesen had been good at summarizing, diligent in writing, and made innumerable great achievements with many works to his credit. 

On June 14, 2014, this exhibition was displayed in the Shanghai Library.