Recent from talks
Yang Chen-Ning
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Yang Chen-Ning
Yang Chen-Ning (simplified Chinese: 杨振宁; traditional Chinese: 楊振寧; pinyin: Yáng Zhènníng; (1 October 1922 – 18 October 2025); also known as C. N. Yang, Yang Zhenning, or Franklin Yang) was a Chinese-American theoretical physicist who made significant contributions to statistical mechanics, integrable systems, gauge theory, particle physics and condensed matter physics.
Yang is known for his collaboration with Robert Mills in 1954 in developing non-abelian gauge theory, widely known as the Yang–Mills theory, which describes the nuclear forces in the Standard Model of particle physics.
Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee received the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on parity non-conservation of the weak interaction, which was confirmed by the Wu experiment in 1956. The two proposed that the conservation of parity, a physical law observed to hold in all other physical processes, is violated in weak nuclear reactions – those nuclear processes that result in the emission of beta or alpha particles.
Yang was born in Hefei, Anhui, China, on 1 October 1922. His mother was Luo Meng-hua and his father, Ko-Chuen Yang (楊克純; 1896–1973), was a mathematician.
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 was located. In the same year, as a second-year student, Yang passed the entrance examination and studied at National Southwestern Associated University. He received a Bachelor of Science in 1942, with his thesis on the application of group theory to molecular spectra, under the supervision of Ta-You Wu.
Yang continued to study graduate courses there for two years under the supervision of Wang Zhuxi (J.S. Wang), working on statistical mechanics. In 1944, he received a Master of Science from National Tsing Hua University, which had moved to Kunming during the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). 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.
Yang entered the University of Chicago in January 1946 and studied with Edward Teller. He received a Doctor of Philosophy in 1948.
Yang 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. Lee and Yang published 32 papers together. 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. Yang retired from Stony Brook University in 1999.
Hub AI
Yang Chen-Ning AI simulator
(@Yang Chen-Ning_simulator)
Yang Chen-Ning
Yang Chen-Ning (simplified Chinese: 杨振宁; traditional Chinese: 楊振寧; pinyin: Yáng Zhènníng; (1 October 1922 – 18 October 2025); also known as C. N. Yang, Yang Zhenning, or Franklin Yang) was a Chinese-American theoretical physicist who made significant contributions to statistical mechanics, integrable systems, gauge theory, particle physics and condensed matter physics.
Yang is known for his collaboration with Robert Mills in 1954 in developing non-abelian gauge theory, widely known as the Yang–Mills theory, which describes the nuclear forces in the Standard Model of particle physics.
Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee received the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on parity non-conservation of the weak interaction, which was confirmed by the Wu experiment in 1956. The two proposed that the conservation of parity, a physical law observed to hold in all other physical processes, is violated in weak nuclear reactions – those nuclear processes that result in the emission of beta or alpha particles.
Yang was born in Hefei, Anhui, China, on 1 October 1922. His mother was Luo Meng-hua and his father, Ko-Chuen Yang (楊克純; 1896–1973), was a mathematician.
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 was located. In the same year, as a second-year student, Yang passed the entrance examination and studied at National Southwestern Associated University. He received a Bachelor of Science in 1942, with his thesis on the application of group theory to molecular spectra, under the supervision of Ta-You Wu.
Yang continued to study graduate courses there for two years under the supervision of Wang Zhuxi (J.S. Wang), working on statistical mechanics. In 1944, he received a Master of Science from National Tsing Hua University, which had moved to Kunming during the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). 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.
Yang entered the University of Chicago in January 1946 and studied with Edward Teller. He received a Doctor of Philosophy in 1948.
Yang 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. Lee and Yang published 32 papers together. 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. Yang retired from Stony Brook University in 1999.
Recent media