Yang Chen-Ning

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This is a Chinese name; the family name is Yang.
Yang Chen-Ning
CNYang.jpg
Yang in 2005
Born (1922-10-01) 1 October 1922 (age 96)[1]
Hefei, Anhui Province, China
ResidenceBeijing
NationalityChinese
Citizenship
Alma mater
Known for
Spouse(s)Chih-Li Tu (1950–2003)
Fan Weng (2004–present)
Children3
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsStatistical mechanics
Particle physics
Institutions
Doctoral advisorEdward Teller
Other academic advisorsEnrico Fermi
Doctoral studentsBill Sutherland
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese杨振宁
Traditional Chinese楊振寧

Yang Chen-Ning or Yang Zhenning (Chinese: 杨振宁; born October 1,[1] 1922) is a Chinese physicist who works on statistical mechanics and particle physics. He and Tsung-dao Lee received the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics[2] for their work on parity nonconservation of weak interaction. The two proposed that one of the basic quantum-mechanics laws, the conservation of parity, is violated in the so-called weak nuclear reactions, those nuclear processes that result in the emission of beta or alpha particles. The most important work of Yang is Yang-Mills theory.

Biography[edit]

Yang was born in Hefei, Anhui, China; his father, Yang Wuzhi (楊武之; 1896–1973), was a mathematician, and his mother, Luo Meng-hua (羅孟華), was a housewife. Yang attended elementary school and high school in Beijing, and in the autumn of 1937 his family moved to Hefei after the Japanese invaded China. In 1938 they moved to Kunming, Yunnan, where National Southwestern Associated University (Lianda), was located. In the same year, as a second year student, Yang passed the entrance examination and studied at Lianda. He received his bachelor's degree in 1942,[3] with his thesis on the application of group theory to molecular spectra, under the supervision of Ta-You Wu. He continued to study graduate courses there for two years under the supervision of Wang Zhuxi, working on statistical mechanics. In 1944 he received his master's degree from Tsinghua University, which had moved to Kunming during the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945).[3] Yang was then awarded a scholarship from the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program, set up by the United States government using part of the money China had been forced to pay following the Boxer Rebellion. His departure for the United States was delayed for one year, during which time he taught in a middle school as a teacher and studied field theory.

From 1946, Yang studied with Edward Teller (1908–2003) at the University of Chicago, where he received his doctorate in 1948. He remained at the University of Chicago for a year as an assistant to Enrico Fermi. In 1949 he was invited to do his research at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he began a period of fruitful collaboration with Tsung-Dao Lee. He was made a permanent member of the Institute in 1952, and full professor in 1955. In 1963, Princeton University Press published his textbook, Elementary Particles. In 1965 he moved to Stony Brook University, where he was named the Albert Einstein Professor of Physics and the first director of the newly founded Institute for Theoretical Physics. Today this institute is known as the C. N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics.

He retired from Stony Brook University in 1999, assuming the title Emeritus Professor. In 2010, Stony Brook University honored Yang's contributions to the university by naming its newest dormitory building C. N. Yang Hall.[4]

He has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Academia Sinica, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Society. He was awarded honorary doctorate degrees by Princeton University (1958), Moscow State University (1992), and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (1997).

Yang visited the Chinese mainland in 1971 for the first time after the thaw in China–US relations, and has subsequently made great efforts to help the Chinese physics community rebuild the research atmosphere which was destroyed by the radical political movements during the Cultural Revolution. After retiring from Stony Brook he returned as an honorary director of Tsinghua University, Beijing, where he is the Huang Jibei-Lu Kaiqun Professor at the Center for Advanced Study (CASTU). He also is one of the two Shaw Prize Founding Members and is a Distinguished Professor-at-Large at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Personal life[edit]

Yang married Chih-li Tu (Chinese: 杜致禮; pinyin: Dù Zhìlǐ), a teacher, in 1950 and has two sons and a daughter with her: Franklin Jr., Gilbert and Eulee. His father-in-law was a Kuomintang General Du Yuming. Some scholars suspect that Du was promoted to a high-ranking position in Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in order to convince Yang to return to China after seeking refuge in the US. After Tu died in the winter of 2003, Yang married the then 28-year-old Weng Fan (Chinese: 翁帆; pinyin: Wēng Fān) in December 2004.[5]

Yang became a U.S. citizen in 1964. He now resides in China, and he was granted permanent residency in China in 2004.[6][7] He renounced his U.S. citizenship as of Sep 30, 2015[8] and reclaimed his Chinese citizenship.[9][10]

On Yang's religious views, he is an agnostic.[11]

Awards[edit]

Yang (seated, left) with fellow Nobel Prize winners (left to right; standing) Val Fitch, James Cronin and Samuel C. C. Ting, and (seated) Isidor Isaac Rabi.

Publications (selection)[edit]

  • Yang C. N., Mills R. L. (1954). "Conservation of Isotopic Spin and Isotopic Gauge Invariance". Phys. Rev. 96: 191–195. Bibcode:1954PhRv...96..191Y. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.96.191.
  • Mills R. L., Yang C. N. (1966). "Treatment of Overlapping Divergences in the Photon Self-Energy Function". Prog. Theor. Phys. Sup. 37: 507.

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Yang was naturalized citizen of the United States from 1964 to 2015, when he gave up U.S. citizenship to become a citizen of the People's Republic of China.

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ a b Bing-An Li, Yuefan Deng. "Biography of C.N. Yang" (PDF). Retrieved 2007-09-11. His birth date was erroneously recorded as September 22, 1922 in his 1945 passport. He has since used this incorrect date on all subsequent official documents.
  2. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1957". The Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2014-11-01.
  3. ^ a b "Nobel Prize Web site". Retrieved 2014-10-16.
  4. ^ "Exclusive: New Dorm Likely to Honor Nobel Laureate". Thinksb.com. 2010-03-18. Archived from the original on July 17, 2011. Retrieved 2011-05-06.
  5. ^ http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-12/16/content_400791.htm
  6. ^ "杨振宁获得外国人在华永久居留证" (in Chinese). 人民網. 2004-11-05. Retrieved 2017-02-21.
  7. ^ "Chinese "Green Card"". China Central Television. 2005-06-24. Retrieved 2013-06-01.
  8. ^ "Quarterly Publication of Individuals, Who Have Chosen To Expatriate, as Required by Section 6039G". Federal Register. Retrieved 22 February 2017.
  9. ^ "杨振宁、姚期智正式转为中国科学院院士" (in Chinese). 2017-02-21. Retrieved 2017-02-21.
  10. ^ Zhang, Zhihao (2017-02-21). "Nobel laureate, Turing Award winner become Chinese citizens, join CAS". China Daily. Retrieved 2017-02-21.
  11. ^ Jesse Hong Xiong (2009). "Seven". The Outline of Parapsychology. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 322. ISBN 9780761849452. When a reporter asked him: “Do you believe there is a Creator who creates all in the universe?" Professor Chen Ning Yang (1922- ), a Chinese Nobel Prize winner in physics in 1957, answered: “I think it is hard for me to directly say 'yes' or 'no'. I can only say that when we more and more understand the wonderful structures in the nature, no matter whether we directly or indirectly ask the question, there does exist the question you ask: is there someone or God who takes charge of all? I think it is a question that will never be finally answered. (The reporter asked: 'Is it because what man knows is too limited?') On one hand, yes; on the other hand, we can have a feeling that the universe will not be created so wonderful without an ultimate goal.” Professor Yang held agnosticism here.
  12. ^ "Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences Recipients". American Philosophical Society. Retrieved November 26, 2011.

Sources[edit]

External links[edit]

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