"For the revitalization of China and the prosperity of the motherland, the task of the children is to add bricks and tiles, not caring about ability and status, but caring about doing their best." This simple yet powerful statement is the belief that Academician Wang Sijing of the Chinese Academy of Engineering practiced throughout his life. However, heaven envied his talent. At 5:46 on September 15, 2025, this renowned engineering geologist, rock mechanics and environmental geologist, after failing medical treatment, left us forever in Beijing at the age of 91. His passing is a great loss to China's scientific and technological community. Mountains and rivers share the grief, and the whole nation mourns.

On December 27, 1934, Wang Sijing was born in Shanghai, with his ancestral home in Chaohu, Anhui. In 1954, at the age of 20, with a thirst for knowledge and love for the motherland, he boarded a train from Manzhouli to the Soviet Union, beginning an eight-year study abroad. At that time, large factories flashed past the train window in the Soviet Union, which made Wang Sijing deeply feel the gap between China and other countries. At that moment, he set a grand aspiration in his heart to learn advanced technology and return to build the motherland.

When he first arrived in Moscow and learned that he had been assigned to the major of hydrogeology and engineering geology, Wang Sijing felt "both happy and worried." He was happy to have found his life direction, but worried because he was unprepared for this major. However, after hearing from the embassy teacher that the domestic training system for this major was incomplete and that it was urgently needed by the motherland, he resolutely settled down and devoted himself wholeheartedly to his studies.

Having received only one year of Russian language training before going abroad, he faced enormous language barriers and study pressure. But Wang Sijing did not retreat. He innovated his learning methods, thoroughly understood and memorized key paragraphs from the reference books listed by his teachers, which both improved his Russian and helped him remember professional knowledge. During his five years of undergraduate study, he achieved high scores in all 45 exams and his graduation thesis.

In addition to theoretical study, practice was also essential. He often followed his teachers to the field for geological surveys, enduring hardships and sleeping in the open. A trip would last more than half a month, and meals and sleep were arranged at nearby farmers' homes. These arduous internship experiences not only accumulated a wealth of field survey experience for him but also laid a solid foundation for his later participation in large-scale engineering construction. He once said with emotion: "The experience of participating in the construction of large hydropower stations during my studies abroad came in very handy after I returned to China."

In the 1960s, shortly after returning to China, Wang Sijing received a top-secret task—to participate in site selection for China's first underground atomic bomb explosion test. The Institute of Geology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he worked, quickly organized a special team, and Wang Sijing and others rushed to Xinjiang. After unremitting efforts in the vast land, they finally found a suitable carbonate rock mass in the Nanshan area near the Lop Nur test site. Later, in the verification of nuclear explosion effects, Wang Sijing went to the underground nuclear explosion site in person to conduct investigation and analysis, successfully completing the comprehensive verification task of post-explosion geological effects. This experience profoundly influenced his engineering geological views, making him realize that "investigating the evolution of engineering geological bodies is the basic engineering geological analysis."

In the early feasibility study of the Jinping I project, the world's highest arch dam, a longitudinal open crack was found 300 meters deep in the dam abutment. A famous earthquake engineering expert concluded that it was an active fault and denied the feasibility of the project. The design institute approached Wang Sijing, hoping he could help demonstrate. Wang Sijing did not hesitate to devote himself to it. After detailed investigation and analysis, he innovatively proposed that it was a "stress relaxation crack caused by the disintegration of a planation surface over hundreds of thousands of years," which would not affect the construction of the high arch dam, thus solving a key technical problem for this world-class project.

After being elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1995, Wang Sijing devoted all his energy to national major projects. He once humorously said that he wanted to "go to the second line to do the work of a cheerleader, with the main tasks being consulting on difficult problems in major projects and encouraging the younger generation of engineering geologists to strive and occupy the high ground, rather than competing with them for projects and achievements."

Wang Sijing long devoted himself to multidisciplinary integration research of geology and engineering, and geology and mechanics, and was an important founder of rock mass engineering geomechanics. He proposed the theory of the interdependence and interaction between human engineering activities and the geological environment, took the lead in research on the mutual influence and constraints between engineering construction and the geological environment, opened up the field of environmental engineering geology, and provided a solid theoretical foundation for geological environment research in engineering and urban construction.

He conducted in-depth research and consultation on the construction of the Three Gorges and several water conservancy and hydropower projects on the Yellow River, Jinsha River, and Lancang River, as well as the stability of several large national defense underground projects. He participated in and guided the preliminary geological and seismic demonstration of the Three Gorges Project, conducted multidisciplinary comprehensive demonstration of the feasibility and dam site engineering geological conditions of the Ertan Hydropower Station on the Yalong River, and also conducted research, consultation, and evaluation on many major projects such as Xiaolangdi on the Yellow River, Longtan on the Hongshui River, and Xiangjiaba on the Jinsha River. He also made outstanding contributions to the shotcrete and rockbolt support and cavern stability assessment of several large national defense underground projects in the Third Front, as well as geological research on the Jinchuan nickel mine, underground nuclear explosions, and engineering protection.

As of June 2018, Wang Sijing had published more than 150 papers at home and abroad, and authored many monographs such as Fundamentals of Rock Mass Engineering Geomechanics, Engineering Geomechanical Analysis of Dam Foundation Stability, Stability Analysis of Underground Engineering Rock Masses, and Geological Environment Research for Regional Development Strategic Planning, leaving valuable intellectual wealth for future generations.

In his later years, Wang Sijing paid special attention to cultivating young talents. He often returned to his alma mater to communicate with young students, proposing that young people should cultivate "three abilities": imagination, wisdom, and intuition. He emphasized: "In modern society, it is difficult for individuals to predict future career changes, so comprehensive abilities and basic qualities are particularly important."

As of June 2018, Wang Sijing had trained about 40 doctoral students and co-supervised several postdoctoral fellows. With his profound knowledge and noble character, he cultivated batch after batch of outstanding talents in the field of engineering geology in China. They are now shining in their respective positions, carrying forward Academician Wang Sijing's academic spirit.

Academician Wang Sijing's life was one of selfless dedication to the country and the people, and one of unremitting struggle for the cause of science. With his wisdom and sweat, he wrote a magnificent chapter in China's field of engineering geology. From underground nuclear explosion sites to academic peaks, he always closely combined engineering geology research with national needs and made indelible contributions to China's major engineering construction. His spirit will forever inspire us to forge ahead on the path of scientific exploration.

May Academician Wang Sijing rest in peace. His achievements and spirit will be forever recorded in history and remembered through the ages!

Let us together remember this great scientist, take him as an example, and contribute our strength to realizing the Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Rest in peace