Chen Ning Yang Chen Ning Yang was born on September 22, 1922, in Hofei, Anhwei, China. After reading the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, he was inspired and adopted "Franklin' as his first name. In 1929, his family moved to Peiping, but in later years they had to move again to stay out of the way of the Japanese invaders. After obtaining his bachelor's degree in 1942 at National Southwest University in Kunming, he entered Tsinghua University. In 1944, he completed his master's degree and taught at a Chinese high school. He completed his doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1946. In 1949, Yang went to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and he became one of the very small number of professors on appointed Albert Einstein professor of physics and director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Chen Ning Yang shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with Tsung Dao Lee in 1957. Yang and Tsung Dao Lee made a fundamental theoretical breakthrough of non-conservation of parity. Because of the their work, all science theories based on parity had to be reexamined. They were the first scientists of Chinese birth to win a Nobel Prize. They were also among the youngest men ever to receive a Nobel award. They obtained the shortest time interval ever between a discovery and the award of the Nobel Prize. Yang married Chih Li Tu. She was a former student of his in China. They had two sons and one daughter together. He became and American citizen in 1964. Because Yang was born in China and was an exceptional scientist who won the Nobel Prize, the Communist Chines Embassy in Sweden make some effort to return Yang back to China. However, he refused to go back. In his acceptance speech, Yang left no doubt that he would remain in the United States because of his devotion to modern science, he believed, is primarily of western origin. | |
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