Jin Wu, 73, ocean specialist, professor in US, Taiwan
WASHINGTON - Jin Wu, 73, a retired University of Delaware professor who died Jan. 14, knew a great deal about the world's oceans and those who dared navigate them, especially the 14th-century Chinese explorer Zheng He, whose remarkable voyages almost defy belief.
Distance was no deterrent to Mr. Wu either. Maintaining a home in Rockville, Md., he taught marine studies and civil engineering at Delaware for more than two decades and later served as a university president and then minister of education in Taiwan.
In the globe-trotting spirit of Zheng, Mr. Wu often commuted to the Library of Congress from Taiwan, where he maintained a residence in Tainan. He was in Tainan when he died of multiple organ failure caused by ampullary cancer.
Mr. Wu was an expert in fluid dynamics, particularly the interaction of heat, mass, and momentum that occurs when air and water mingle at the ocean's surface. He also developed techniques to map the ocean surface using satellite data.
Mr. Wu's professional interests and expertise and his two years of service in the Chinese Navy led to a fascination with Zheng, who conducted seven epic voyages from the east coast of China from 1405 to 1433. With some 28,000 sailors under his command and as many as 300 ships, Zheng and his vast armada visited 30 nations and reached the east coast of Africa, perhaps beyond. Mr. Wu was interested in the navigation skills, shipbuilding techniques, and logistics involved in such a vast and sophisticated undertaking.
Zheng, a Muslim eunuch who, according to historical records, was a tall, heavy man with a powerful voice and long earlobes, brought back to China countless treasures from Southeast Asia, India, and Africa. Loaded into the holds of his gigantic wooden ships were spices, jewels, tropical woods, and exotic animals, including a giraffe. Installed in the imperial zoo, the animal was surely a unicorn, the Chinese thought.
In a 2004 lecture at UCLA, Mr. Wu noted that Zheng's treasure ships were 400 feet long. (Christopher Columbus's flagship, the Santa Maria, was 85 feet long.) Wide and bulky, Zheng's ships were "the supertankers of their day," Mr. Wu said, pointing out that an armada of 300 vessels, large and small, would have occupied a huge swath of ocean.
As a visiting scholar at the Library of Congress, Mr. Wu sought to apply contemporary science to the admiral's accomplishments. He explored, for example, how it was possible for Chinese shipwrights to build a framework, without iron, that could sustain a 400-foot-long vessel. He encouraged naval architects to join with historians in the search for answers.
Mr. Wu was born in Nanjing, China, and received a civil engineering degree in 1956 from National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. He taught high school physics and physical education for a year before enrolling at the University of Iowa, where he received a master's degree in 1961 and a doctorate in 1964, both in mechanics and hydraulics. 