Early years Shu was born on 1 October 1905, in
Hanjiang,
Jiangsu Province. In 1924, he entered
Hangchow University (aka
Zhijiang University 之江大学, now named
Zhejiang University) in
Hangzhou,
Zhejiang Province and a year later transferred to the Department of Physics at
Cheeloo University in
Shandong Province.
Travel/study in USA & Europe In 1926, Shu went to study physics in the
United States, where he initially studied at
Baker University in
Baldwin City, Kansas, but later transferred to the
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). During this time, Shu was quite active in various social and political activities and communities, and it is said that he even once joined the
Communist Party USA. In July 1927, Shu left the US and travelled through
Japan,
Korea,
Manchuria,
Moscow, and
Warsaw, eventually reaching
Germany where he principally visited
Berlin,
Hannover and
Hamburg. Shu then went to the
UK, where, in October 1928 he enrolled in the
University of Edinburgh to study mathematics and physics under
E. T. Whittaker and
Charles Galton Darwin, obtaining his
MSc after one year. Finally, in February 1930 Shu went to the
University of Cambridge, and worked under
Arthur Stanley Eddington, who that August advised him to return to the US to the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Shu took this advice, becoming a
teaching assistant at the MIT Department of Mathematics and obtaining a second MSc under
Dirk Jan Struik.
At Zhejiang University In September 1931, Shu returned to China, largely due to pressure from his mother to marry his fiancée, Ge Chuhua. Shu's first position was in physics at the
Whampoa Military Academy but in September 1932, invited by the chair (Zhang Shaozhong ) of the Department of Physics of
Zhejiang University, he began teaching there. In August 1935, Shu became chairperson of the Department of Mathematics of Jinan University, which was at that time located in Shanghai. Shu was also an adjunct lecturer at
Jiaotong University. In April 1936, President
Coching Chu of Zhejiang University invited him to return to that institution, where, in August 1936, Shu was promoted to the rank of
associate professor, then in 1937,
professor. At Zhejiang University, he collaborated closely with
Kan-Chang Wang. During this period, some famous students of his include:
Cheng Kaijia,
Xu Liangying,
Hu Jimin, and Zhou Zhicheng (). Most notably, one of his students,
Tsung-Dao Lee went on to win the 1957 Nobel Prize for Physics for his work on the violation of parity conservation in weak interactions; Lee (together with
Chen-Ning Yang) was awarded the prize for the theory. Another student of his was
Chien-Shiung Wu, who received recognition for the experimental verification of the parity violation. She received in 1978 the Wolf Prize in physics.
From 1949 to 1979 In 1952, Shu was transferred to the Department of Physics at Shandong University in Jinan, Shandong Province, then in 1954 to its Department of Oceanography. In 1956, classified as a leader of anti-revolutionary forces, Shu was purged. In June 1958, during the
Anti-Rightist Movement, Shu was denounced as an ultra-rightist and an anti-revolutionary. Under the program of "reform through labor" (
laogai), he was sent to work on the construction of the Yuezikou Reservoir () in Qingdao. In 1960, Shu was transferred to the Qingdao Medical College as a teacher, although he was also obliged to clean toilets in the college and to wash lab equipment. On 11 September 1974, Shu partially regained his normal life. In 1978, Shu was transferred to the Chinese
State Oceanic Administration where he became a professor and senior researcher for oceanic dynamics at its First Research Institute of Oceanography (). In the 1970s, Shu did successful calculations for the
Pacific Ocean test of the
Dongfeng V intercontinental ballistic missile. In 1979, when the Oceanic Physics Branch () of the Chinese Society of Oceanography () was established in
Guangzhou, Shu was elected its honorary
director-general. In December 1979, the Chinese government completely removed Shu's classification as a rightist and anti-revolutionary, restoring his reputation.
From 1979 to his death In August 1981, Shu was elected honorary director-general of the
Shandong Society of Physics () and, in that same year, he was named honorary director of the
Qingdao Society of Physics (). Shu Xingbei died on 30 October 1985, at the age of 77. ==Personal life==