[3] His father Bai Rubi (白汝壁) was a graduate of the Department of Civil Engineering, Beiyang University and once worked on the construction of the Yunnan–Burma railway in Yunnan.

[3] His mother Cang Chuanxian (仓传宪) graduated from Zhili Women's First Normal School.

[3] In 1958, he enrolled at the University of Science and Technology of China, where he majored in the Department of Modern Mechanics.

[3] He went to receive his master's degree from the Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1966.

[4] In 1998, he was proposed as president of the Chinese Society of Theoretical Applied Mechanics [zh], a position he held until 2002.