The Chia-Shun Yih collection represents the life and work of an internationally known scientist who spent a significant portion of his career at the University of Michigan. The papers offer the most richness to those researchers interested in mechanics and hydraulics, a field in which Yih made major contributions, but they also include contain glimpses into the broad range of interests he cultivated throughout the years in literature and the arts.
Chia-Shun Yih, internationally respected scientist and Stephen P. Timoshenko Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Fluid Mechanics at the University of Michigan, was born in 1918 in Kweiyang, Kweichow Province, China. After graduating in 1942 from the National Central University in Nanking, Yih worked as a research assistant at the National Hydraulic Laboratory in Quanshien, as an engineer at the National Bureau of Bridge Design, and as an instructor at the National University of Kweichow. Selected by the Ministry of Education to study in the United States, he entered the University of Iowa in 1946, earning his M.S. in 1947 and Ph.D. in 1948. He taught at various universities in North America and France before joining the faculty of the University of Michigan as an associate professor in 1956. Two years later, he was promoted to professor of fluid mechanics. In 1967, he was chosen to give the Henry Russel Lecture--the highest honor the university bestows upon a senior faculty member.
Yih's published work covers a broad range of material, including well over 100 scientific papers and several books including Dynamics of Nonhomogeneous Fluids (1960), later revised as Stratified Flows (1980), and Fluid Mechanics, A Concise Introduction to the Theory (1969) as well as an anthology of Selected Papers. His numerous honors include the National Science Foundation Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship (1958), the Guggenheim Fellowship (1964), the 1968 Achievement Award from the Chinese Institute of Engineers of New York, the 1973 Achievement Award from the Chinese Engineers and Scientists Association of Southern California, the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award (Germany, 1977-78), the Theodore von Karman Medal (American Society of Civil Engineers, 1981), the Stephan S. Attwood Award (University of Michigan, 1984), the Fluid Dynamics Prize (American Physical Society, 1985), and the Otto Laporte Award (American Physical Society, 1985). He was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a member of the Academia Sinica (the Chinese National Academy of Science in Taiwan). A much sought after speaker at major universities and symposia around the world, Yih lectured in French and German, as well as Chinese and English.
In a 1977 letter to a friend, Chia Shun-Yih wrote, "For me, the criterion of science is truth, but its motivation resides in a sense of beauty -- and in that it is like art." Yih's interests extended to a lively interest in nature and the arts, including Chinese and Western literature and painting. He died in April of 1997. In July of that year colleagues and friends attended a memorial celebration symposium sponsored by the College of Engineering and the Chia-Shun Yih Lectureship Fund. A videotape of the symposium proceedings is part of the collection.
