Chinese-American physicist Yang Zhenning (1922, 10. 1 ~) was born in Hefei, Anhui.

His father, Yang Wuzhi, is a doctor of mathematics at the University of Chicago. After returning to China, he served as the head of the Department of Mathematics in Tsinghua University and The National SouthWest Associated University for many years. Yang Zhenning 1942 graduated from The National SouthWest Associated University, and 1944 graduated from this school. After that, 1945 studied in the United States at public expense, studied at the University of Chicago, and obtained a doctorate. From 65438 to 0949, Yang Zhenning entered the Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies for postdoctoral research and began to cooperate with Li Zhengdao. The then principal said that his favorite scene was Yang and Li walking on Princeton lawn. After 1966, he taught at the State University of New York at Stony Brook for a long time and founded and presided over the Institute of Theoretical Physics. He is also a member of the American Academy of Sciences, a member of the Royal Society, a foreign academician of the China Academy of Sciences, and a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

From 65438 to 0957, Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao jointly won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their theory of parity non-conservation in weak interaction. They are the first China people to win the Nobel Prize. The latter two became enemies because of their ranking. 1962 Because of an article in The New Yorker, the two officially broke up. Yang Guangnuo, the seven-year-old son of Yang Zhenning, once said, "I hope someone will win the Nobel Prize." 1989, he wrote a letter to Wu Dayou, the late president of Academia Sinica, and reported the cooperation between them to the teacher. Wu Dayou replied, "The whole thing is a very unfortunate thing. I don't think it can be covered up forever, so I hope that everyone will stop arguing in front of the world and let it unfold slowly. "

From 65438 to 0977, he and Liang and others founded the All-American Chinese Association in Boston to promote Sino-US relations.

Yang Zhenning won the rumford Prize with 1980 and the National Science Medal with 1986.

Yang Zhenning now lives in Tsinghua University. My married wife is Du's daughter, who died of illness on June 5438+ 10, 2003. In June 5438 +2005 10, Yang Zhenning married Weng Fan.

Weng Fan, 1976 was born in Chaozhou, Guangdong province in July. After graduating from Shantou University, he first worked in a company in Shantou, but left that company more than a month later to work in a golf club in Shenzhen. She worked in Shenzhen for three years, during which she married an employee of an ordinary company in Hong Kong, but the marriage broke down after only two years. After that, Weng Fan chose to apply for a postgraduate degree and was admitted to the master's program of the Translation Department of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies.

Rongyu

1957 shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Li Zhengdao. He also won the National Science Medal and many honorary degrees, and is also an honorary professor of many famous universities at home and abroad!

[Edit this paragraph] Personal experience

Yang Zhenning was born in Hefei, Anhui on 1 June+10/October1(later, the date of birth was mistakenly written on the passport of going abroad as June 65438+September 22, 0922). He was born less than one year old, and his father Yang Wuzhi went abroad to study in the United States at public expense. At the age of 4, his mother began to teach him to recognize Chinese characters. 1 For many years, she taught him 3000 words. At the age of 50, Yang Zhenning recalled:' Now the words I know add up, and it is estimated that they will not exceed twice that number.'

1928 When Yang Zhenning was 6 years old, his father came back from America. As soon as he saw him, he asked him if he had studied. He said that he had read it. What books have you read? Read Long Wen Whip Shadow. Tell him to recite it, and he will recite it all. Yang Zhenning recalled: "My father then asked me what this book meant, and I couldn't explain it at all. However, I remember he gave me a pen, which I have never seen before.

When Yang Zhenning was in primary school, he did well in math and Chinese. He was admitted to the National The National SouthWest Associated University before graduating from high school. He was only 16 years old at 1938. 1942, 20-year-old Yang Zhenning graduated from university and immediately entered the research institute in Tsinghua University. Two years later, he got a master's degree with honors and was allowed to study in the United States at public expense. He went to the United States to study at the University of Chicago on 1945, and received his doctorate on 1948.

From 65438 to 0949, Yang Zhenning entered the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies as a postdoctoral fellow and began to cooperate with Li Zhengdao to study particle physics. During this period, he encountered many puzzling phenomena and unsolvable problems. They boldly doubted and carefully verified, and finally overturned the law of parity conservation, so that the confusion disappeared and the problem was solved. Yang Zhenning said in his Nobel lecture in 1957: "At that time, physicists found that their situation was like a person groping for a way out in a dark room. He knew that in a certain direction, there must be a door to get him out of trouble. "But in which direction?" It turns out that the direction is parity conservation law, which does not apply to weak interaction. '

Yang Zhenning remembers the legacy of his father Yang Wuzhi: "When you are alive, you should remember the gratitude of your country". He was the first American scientist to visit China in the summer of 197 1. He said: "As a Chinese-American scientist, I have the responsibility to help these two countries that are closely related to me build a bridge of understanding and friendship. I also think we should make some contributions to the development of science and technology in China. "

Yang Zhenning said this and did the same. Over the past six years, he has frequently shuttled between China and the United States and conducted many fruitful academic exchanges. He wrote two such poems:' the clouds, water, wind and thunder are changing rapidly, and natural selection is competing.'

People praised Yang Zhenning, the Nobel Prize winner who spent half a century at the forefront of theoretical physics, as a scientist with perseverance and mathematical genius. He devoted himself to revealing the symmetry of nature, which is often hidden behind the chaotic experimental physical results.

Yang Zhenning has long been committed to the cross-study of physics and mathematics. In this field, a set of beautiful equations can be a source of inspiration, and even insight into how the physical world works before there is experimental evidence. This is a world that is difficult for laymen to understand. The blackboard is full of equations with Greek letters, the taste and style of seeking to solve problems with mathematics, and the heartfelt inspiration of seeking to describe the physical world with correct language.

Physicist Dyson said at an academic seminar held by Xi Shi for Yang Zhenning's retirement last year: "Yang Zhenning's wonderful taste in mathematics shines in all his works. This makes his unimportant work a beautiful work of art, and his profound thinking a masterpiece. " This made him "see the mysterious structure of nature more deeply than others".

Yang Zhenning has long hair, but he looks much younger than his actual age. He still shuttles between new york and the Far East. He has close ties with universities in Hong Kong and Beijing, and is the chairman of a theoretical physics center in Seoul, South Korea.

In a wide-ranging talk about his life and times, Yang Zhenning talked about his physics career and his regret that he failed to engage in research in certain fields. Yang Zhenning also talked about his childhood in China and his long-term efforts to bridge the scientific and cultural differences between the United States and his motherland. Yang Zhenning talked about his concern that the rift between China and the United States would widen and the difficulties brought to Asian and Asian-American scientists by the recent investigation into Taiwan Province-born physicist Li Wenhe's alleged espionage. Sino-US relations began to thaw on 197 1, and Yang Zhenning returned to Chinese mainland for the first time after coming to the United States as a graduate student on 1945. He met the late Zhou Enlai and others in China and helped develop scientific cooperation between the two countries. He is worried that these cooperation will be dangerous.

At that time, when he came back from a trip abroad, the FBI and the CIA often visited him. When CIA officials went to meet for the first time, Yang asked his secretary to record their conversation to avoid misunderstanding. Yang Zhenning continued to keep close contact with China. He said, "The FBI and CIA have not bothered me recently."

Yang Zhenning is most concerned with science rather than politics. He told his own experience: how a young student from a backward city in a remote area of China was lucky enough to participate in one of the most important ideological revolutions in the 20th century. This revolution is an attempt to understand the infinite diversity of nature in a unified way, from the explosion of chaotic planets to the trembling of electrons around the nucleus.

Yang Zhenning became famous for the first time. That year, he and Li Zhengdao jointly published an article that overthrew a core information of physics-parity conservation? Elementary particles behave exactly like their mirror images. Because of this work, they won the Nobel Prize of 1957.

In the long run, the pioneering work of Yang Zhenning and 1954 Mills is more important. That year, both of them worked in Brookhaven National Laboratory. They put forward a theoretical structure called non-Abelian gauge field. Facts have proved that this is the key to unify the description of force and elementary particles. Machinu, a theoretical physicist in Brookhaven, said: "When it was written in 1954, it caused a great controversy. Some people think that this has nothing to do with the physical world. " At that time, Yanghe Cotton Mill did not continue to develop. However, it turns out that this mathematics extracted from the abstract world of differential geometry and fiber bundle is just a particle exchange place to describe the intermediate forces in major interactions such as magnetism, electricity, strong nuclear force and perhaps. Dyson said: "I want to say that the most important thing in Yang Zhenning's work is that norms often prove to be much more important than his and Li Zhengdao's work on parity."

The relationship between Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao became more and more tense. They broke up on 1962. Yang Zhenning refused to talk about what made their relationship tense. He said: "This is a very disappointing thing in my life. I want to say that this is a tragedy. " The two of them have not spoken for decades.

[Edit this paragraph] Yang Zhenning's scientific achievements

Yang Zhenning has made extensive contributions to theoretical physics, including elementary particles, statistical mechanics and condensed matter physics. He made many contributions to theoretical structure and phenomenological analysis. His works have a special style: independence and creativity, and far-reaching vision.

1. In the field of particle physics, his most outstanding contribution is that in 1954, Yang -Mills field theory was put forward together with R.L. Mills, which opened up a new research field of non-Abelian gauge fields and laid the foundation of modern gauge field theory (including weak current unified theory, quantum chromodynamics theory, grand unified theory, gravitational field gauge theory, etc.). ). Young-Mills field equation was recently quoted by mathematician S Donaldson, and made a major breakthrough in topology.

2. Another outstanding contribution of Yang Zhenning in particle physics is that in 1956, he cooperated with Li Zhengdao to deeply study the puzzling mystery of θ-τ at that time, that is, the so-called K meson later had two different decay modes. One decays to even parity state and the other decays to odd parity state; If the parity of weak decay processes is conserved, then they must be two K mesons with different parity states. But in terms of mass and lifetime, they should be the same meson. -Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao realized through analysis that parity may not be conserved in weak interaction. They carefully examined all the past experiments and confirmed that these experiments did not prove parity conservation in weak interactions. On this basis, they further put forward several experimental methods to test parity non-conservation in weak interaction. The next year, this theory was predicted by Wu Jianxiong's experiment. Therefore, the work of Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao was quickly recognized by the academic circles and won the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics. This is the first time that a scientific work won the Nobel Prize in the second year of publication.

In particle physics, Yang Zhenning's other contributions include Fermi-Yang model (1949), two-component neutrino theory with Li Zhengdao (195 Yang Zhenning7), C (charge conjugate transformation) and T (time reversal transformation) nonconservative analysis with Li Zhengdao, and R. O 'Hem with Wu Dajun.

3. In statistical mechanics, Yang Zhenning's contributions include: spontaneous magnetization of two-dimensional Ising model (1952), phase transition theory with Li Zhengdao (1952), and strict solutions of several models with Yang Zhenping (1966 ~ 1985).

4. In condensed matter physics, Yang Zhenning's contributions include: the explanation of magnetic flux quantum man (196 1) cooperated with N. byers, and the concept of off-diagonal long program (1962).

Yang Zhenning visited People's Republic of China (PRC) in the summer of 197 1, and was the first famous American scholar to visit New China. After he returned to the United States, he did a lot of work to promote the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States, promote mutual understanding between the two peoples, and promote the exchange of science and technology education between China and the United States. Yang Zhenning was appointed honorary professor of Peking University, Fudan University, University of Science and Technology of China and Sun Yat-sen University, and member of the Academic Committee of Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Yang Zhenning has published about 200 scientific papers and reports.