One of the biggest hot spots in the domestic news last week was the news that Mr. Yang Zhenning, a famous Chinese Nobel laureate, gave up his foreign nationality and became an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Some people praised his scientific contributions, some people talked about the right and wrong of his marriage, some people warned that "the group mocked Yang Zhenning, be careful of the talent environment", and more people were entangled in "whether he loved the country or not". "The best scientific research career stays in the United States, returns to China in his later years, and enjoys treatment that he does not have abroad", which is the most typical voice in criticizing Yang Zhenning's "unpatrioticism".
Mr. Yang Zhenning was born in 1922 and is now 94 years old. In his early years, he collaborated with Lee Zhengdao to propose the theory of non-conservation of cosmology in weak interactions, and jointly won the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Yang Zhenning is a household name in China because of the Nobel Prize in Physics, but most Chinese know very little about his contributions and achievements in physics except that they know that he has won this prize. Today we will introduce how big the "jianghu status" of this big bull in the field of physics really is.
Yang Zhenning has a wide range of physics research areas, and he has made outstanding achievements in statistical mechanics, particle physics theory and quantum field theory, especially during his cooperation with Li Zhengdao.
In statistical physics, a series of studies on phase transitions that he collaborated with Lee Have become classics; the Yang-Baxter equation, which he first discovered in 1967, opened up a whole new direction for the study of integrable models and had a wide range of implications for both physics and mathematics; and he also proposed the concept of non-diagonal long programs.
In 1954, Yang Zhenning and Robert Mills proposed the Yang-Mills theory, that is, non-Abel gauge theory, which has a profound impact on basic physics and is the basis of the Standard Model of particle physics;
In the 1970s, he collaborated with Wu Dajun on the overall nature of normative theory, that is, the close relationship between normative theory and mathematical fiber bundles, and the mathematical properties of Yang-Mills theory are also an important topic of mathematical research in the past three decades.
In 1956, Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao collaborated to delve into the then confusing mystery of θ-τ, that is, what was later called K mesons had two different ways of decay. Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao realized through analysis that it is likely that the universe is not conserved in the weak interaction. They scrutinized all past experiments and confirmed that they did not prove conservation of cosmology in weak interactions. On this basis, they further proposed several experimental ways to test the non-conservation of cosmology in weak interactions. The following year, this theory was confirmed by experiments by Wu Jianxiong's group. As a result, Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao's work was quickly recognized by the academic community and won the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Yang Zhenning's past honors:
1957: Nobel Prize in Physics (with Lee Jung-do)
1980: Rumford Prize
1986: National Medal of Science
1994: Bower Award, Benjamin Franklin Medal, Franklin Institute
1995: Einstein Medal
1996: Bogolyubov Prize
1999: Lars Onsag Prize
2001: King Faisal International Prize
In addition to his awards, Mr. Yang has served as a Professor at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, an Einstein Chair Professor and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, a Bowen Chair Professor at the University of Chinese of Hong Kong, and a Director of Rockefeller University. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Physical Society, the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, the Venezuelan Academy of Sciences, the Royal Spanish Academy of Sciences, the Academia Sinica in Taipei, a foreign member of the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, a foreign academician of the Russian National Academy of Sciences, an honorary member of the Japanese Academy of Sciences, and an honorary dean and professor of the Institute for Advanced Study of Tsinghua University.
In addition to his academic contributions, in the early 1970s, Yang Zhenning took the lead in returning to China, making historic contributions to breaking the ice in Sino-US relations and dispelling doubts for overseas Chinese. After Yang Zhenning returned to the United States, he gave four public speeches to introduce the achievements of new China's construction.
In addition, Yang Zhenning also took advantage of various opportunities to give speeches in Other Countries in Europe, South America, and Asia, losing no time in introducing the situation of New China and promoting communication between various countries and China. Yang Zhenning's ice-breaking trip has caused a sensation and positive response in the Chinese circle. After Yang Zhenning, a large number of Chinese scholars gradually eliminated their concerns and applied to return to China to visit relatives, visit, and travel. Among them, the most famous is that a delegation of more than 20 famous scholars of Chinese descent, including Ren Zhigong and He Bingdi, headed by Lin Jiaqiao, came to China and was received by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai.
After reading the above introduction, I believe that everyone has a deeper understanding of the strength of Mr. Yang Zhenning, this world-class scientist gave up his AMERICAN citizenship to become a Chinese citizen on April 1, 2015, and was converted from a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to an academician of the Department of Mathematical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences last week, because the foreign academician proposed to become an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for the first time in the history of the Faculty, there is no precedent and procedure to follow, and the Faculty of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has also specially formulated the "Interim Measures for the Transformation of Foreign Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences into Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences" for this purpose.