Chen Ning Yang is (almost) 100 years old

[robphy]

Chen-Ning Yang is (on official documents) 100 years old today [His real birthday is Oct 1, according to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Chen-Ning , which says
" 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."]

With Tsung-Dao Lee (his classmate at U. Chicago where they were graduate students*),
Chen-Ning Yang won the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics
"for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles".
(Chien-Shiung Wu should probably have also shared that prize https://physicsworld.com/a/overlooked-for-the-nobel-chien-shiung-wu .)

https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/202210/history.cfm
Lee and Yang predicted parity violation. Wu demonstrated it. Lederman corroborated it.

From the list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Physics ,
it seems that Lee and Yang are the only ones still living from the those awarded in the 50s and in the 60s.

(my connection)​

I got my undergrad degree from Stony Brook, where Yang was. (I talked with some faculty at the ITP at Stony Brook,​

but never met Yang. I was probably too shy.) I got my MS at U. Chicago, then my doctorate at Syracuse.​

Yang was at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton)
https://www.ias.edu/scholars/chen-ning-yang

Here's a 2006 interview
(&t=26m52s Gauge Theory (Yang-Mills) ; 32m58 Fiber Bundles)
https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.96.191 Yang & Mills 1954
https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.104.254 Lee & Yang 1956
https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.12.3845 TT Wu & CN Yang 1975 (mentioned in the video)

https://www.simonsfoundation.org/2011/12/20/chen-ning-yang/?redirect=/mps-science-lives#simpg1vid15 (2011 interview)

• See #6 for Yang-Mills
• See #11 for Parity Violation and Dr. Wu
• See #12 for Collaboration with TD Lee (and break-up)
• See #16 for Yang-Baxter

(video from 1998) audio starts at 3m20s


(video from 2017)


* http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/951012/chandra.shtml
"One story in particular illustrates Chandrasekhar's devotion to his science and his students. In the 1940s, while he was based at the University's Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wis., he drove more than 100 miles round-trip each week to teach a class of just two registered students. Any concern about the cost-effectiveness of such a commitment was erased in 1957, when the entire class -- T.D. Lee and C.N. Yang -- won the Nobel Prize in physics."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang–Mills_theory

https://www.worldscientific.com/page/10308-chap01
"The story of a conflict between Pauli and C. N. Yang" by M Shifman.
This story refers to the year 1953. Pauli could have been the author of the seminal discovery of Yang-Mills theories which, as we know now, constitute the basis of our current understanding of nature at short distances.more videos:
https://billmoyers.com/content/chen-ning-yang/ (1988)
https://cutv.cpr.cuhk.edu.hk/search?SearchForm[search_string]=chen+ning+yang (20xx)

update:
https://cnyangarchive.cuhk.edu.hk/

 

[jedishrfu]

Great summary of his life and work with some great references and videos to go with it.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[robphy]

Now he's 100 years old.