Text/Mu Jinfeng
In the "Xu Chi Library" of the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature, there is a letter written by Xu Chi on June 9, 1986, to the Chinese-American physicist Yang Zhenning. The full text of the letter reads as follows:
Mr. Zhenning:
Received at Stony Brook the year before, he returned to write an article, which has not yet been finalized. Four chapters were selected to present to the government, hoping to find time to look at it, correct and criticize.
My correspondence office is No. 1, 2nd Floor, Gate 4, No. 20 Donghu Road, Wuchang.
Trouble you, thank you, and miss you too, wish you
Good news is frequent
Xu Chi
June 9, 1986
In the lower left corner of the letter, Professor Yang Zhenning wrote a short "reply letter" with a ballpoint pen.
Mr. Xu: Thank you for sending me your article, I really don't have the kung fu to read, if published, please indicate that I have not seen it, to the point. Yang Zhenning
A page of letter paper, a letter from two famous masters, is really rare in my years of collection work.
Xu Chi, whose original name was Xu Shangshou, was born on October 15, 1914, in Nanxun Town, Wuxing (present-day Huzhou), Zhejiang. Our country is a famous poet, reportager, essayist and critic. Xu Chi has made outstanding contributions in the field of new Chinese reportage, and his representative works include "Goldbach Conjecture", "Geological Light", "Under the Qilian Mountain", "Evergreen Tree of Life" and so on. Among them, "Goldbach Conjecture" and "Geological Light" both won the China Excellent Reportage Award.
Xu Chi's statement in his letter that he was "received at Stony Brook the year before" refers to an interview conducted by Xu Chi with Yang Zhenning at the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in Long Island, New York, on November 13, 1984. In August of that year, Xu Chi accepted an invitation from the International Writing Program in Iowa to visit the United States. Before the visit, Xu Chi planned to interview a high-energy physicist of Chinese descent in the United States, or Li Zhengdao, or Yang Zhenning, or Wu Jianxiong, or Ding Zhaozhong. During a visit to Washington, Xu Chi presented the idea to the Chinese Embassy. Later, during a visit in Chicago, Xu Chi became acquainted with Mr. Zou Bo, the grandson of Zou Rong, a revolutionary martyr at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and Xu Chi once again mentioned this idea. Unexpectedly, Mr. Zou Bo really contacted Yang Zhenning himself. Dr. Yang Zhenning agreed to xu chi going to his office in New York for an interview on November 13, 1984. Yang Zhenning suggested that after Xu Chi arrived in New York, he would take a train from New York at 10:22 a.m., and when he arrived at Stony Brook Station at 12:00 a.m., he would pick him up at the station.
On the morning of November 13, Chen Yicun, chief reporter of the People's Daily at the United Nations, sent Xu Chi and reporter Hong Lan to the Binzhou Railroad Bureau in New York City to take a train to Long Island. At twelve o'clock, the train entered Stony Brook Station on time, and Dr. Yang Zhenning and his assistant Dr. Nie Huatong had picked up the station on time at the exit gate. Yang Zhenning's first impression of Xu Chi was that "Yang Zhenning is sixty-two years old, but he doesn't look like that age." Handsome and heavy,as if holding back a lot of energy, with a pair of shining eyes. As soon as I talked, I felt that he was quick-witted, determined to make decisions, and able to do things,......."
After receiving Xu Chi, it was nearly noon, and Yang Zhenning invited Xu Chi to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. In the restaurant, the two "talked to each other" as soon as they talked. Xu Chi said: "Atomic physicist Oppenheim once said that atomic physics is profound and difficult, secular experience cannot be understood, and it is difficult to enter the works of literature and history. Dr. Yang Zhenning said: "It is useless not to be convinced, he is indeed profound and difficult." Xu Chi said: "There is no incomprehensible knowledge in the world, as long as you can write an article, there is absolutely no reason to read and understand." Seeing that the atmosphere was not very harmonious, Dr. Yang Zhenning smiled, changed the topic, and talked to Xu Chi about other things.
After the meal, Yang Zhenning invited Xu Chi to the office in the physics building of the Stony Brook Campus for a discussion. After arriving at the office, Xu Chi and Yang Zhenning sat opposite each other at a desk. On the wall of Yang Zhenning's office hung a frame with Einstein, and Einstein clutched his pipe and watched with serious thoughtful eyes a conversation between a writer and a physicist coming up.
Dr. Yang Zhenning sat down and asked, "What do you want to ask me?" How do I talk to you? ”
Xu Chi said: "There are mainly two questions, first of all, what is the scientific research result that you won the Nobel Prize in Physics?" Everyone wants to know, everyone doesn't quite understand. Can you use a few sentences, five, ten or ten sentences, sentence by sentence, to give me and explain it to everyone in a language that is easier to understand? ”
"Yes," Replied Yang Zhenning, "I will talk in the simplest and most ordinary language as possible." He pondered for a moment, then spoke slowly, sentence by sentence. There are four basic forces in nature: strong forces (the forces that bind neutrons and protons in the nucleus), electromagnetic forces, weak forces (forces that control neutrino interactions), and gravity—everything in nature is organized by these four forces. Before 1956, as is known, all the experiments showed that each of these four forces was symmetrical to the left and right, and that everything was identical to its mirror counterpart, in a specialized term called conservation of the cosmology. If you say that man is not symmetrical and that man's heart is on the left, this does not violate physics, because if you create an opposite man for a man whose heart is on the right, as long as the two eat the same thing, and the molecules of what they eat spiral in the opposite direction, then the two must be exactly the same, that is to say, the cosmic conserved. But around 1958, new particles were discovered, with deceptive phenomena that could not be explained, and became a hot question for physicists at the time. That summer, when Lee and I were studying this problem in the Blokhaven Laboratory not far from here, we had the audacity to imagine that the symmetry between the left and the right, and the conservation of cosmology, were only almost completely correct, but not all right, not absolutely; not right in the weak forces, not conserved in the weak forces. But I have done a lot of weak force experiments before, why haven't I found the phenomenon of asymmetry and non-conservation? The weak force experiments that have been done before have not involved symmetry and conservation problems, so they have not found asymmetries and non-conservation phenomena, and now they have found some unexplained phenomena, so an experiment should be done specifically to prove that in the weak forces there is left and right asymmetry, and the universe is not conserved, then these new particle phenomena that cannot be explained can be explained. To use such a set of equipment, but also to use another set of mirror reflections like the former, the reverse of the equipment, both at the same time to do a weak force as the main link of the test, to see the results, the results confirmed that the left and right are asymmetrical, the weak force in the universe is not conserved, you can explain why there are those confusing new particles in the weak force. Wu Jianxiong and four scientists from the U.S. Bureau of Metrics, a total of five people, did experiments for half a year according to the design and equipment proposed by the two of us, and sure enough, it proved our conjecture that the weak force cosmology was not conserved, and immediately shook the world physics world, so that half a year later, the two of us won the Nobel Prize in physics. It has now been proven that all the cosmic names of the weak forces are not conserved. It has become the theoretical cornerstone of weak forces. ”
Dr. Yang Zhenning explained this problem in ten sentences.
Xu Chi listened and said, "You made it clear, thank you." Could you now please answer my second question, which is that it has been almost thirty years since you got the Nobel Prize. People should care a lot about your work, but your work is too difficult to understand and people can't care about you. Could you please tell me succinctly what scientific research projects you have carried out over the years and what results have been achieved? ”
"Yes," Yang Zhenning said, "since 1957, I have done a lot of work on the collision phenomenon of high-energy particles in statistical mechanics, but one of the more important main directions of attack is the study of normative fields." Its mathematical concept is called fiber bundles. I myself do not know much about fiber clusters, because everyone knows that today a physicist who wants to talk to a mathematician often encounters the problem of language barrier, which is almost more difficult to understand than speaking a foreign language. Yang Zhenning explained the fiber bush to Xu Chi, and he spoke very slowly: "There are two kinds of fiber bushes: one is the ordinary fiber bush, that is, the two ends of a piece of paper tape are glued in, facing the front and facing the reverse side, forming a ring. It is called a fiber bundle because it can wrap a straight stick into a bunch. Another is an extraordinary fiber bundle, which is to glue the two ends of a piece of paper tape together one by one to form a mathematical "Mubius belt", which can also wrap many straight sticks into a bunch, but the paper tape twists inside and has a crease. ”
Dr. Yang continued: "At present, the vast majority of physicists admit that the introduction of the fiber cluster concept into physics is already an accepted fact. Mathematicians have been studying fiber bundles for forty years. The most important founder of modern fiber clusters is also Chinese, that is, the world-famous great mathematician Mr. Chen Shengshen. When I went to Mr. Chen's house ten years ago, I said to him, of course we are very happy to introduce the fiber bundles that you have studied mathematically into physics. But it is also surprising that it is not possible for physicists to derive the last basic idea that is derived by using a method of deduction closely related to physical phenomena, which is completely consistent with the ideas you have dreamed of. When Mr. Chen heard this, he immediately objected, saying that this was by no means a dream. In our opinion, this is completely step-by-step, and it is correct. ”
The interview began at 13:15 p.m. and ended at 15:15, for a total of two hours. Toward the end of the visit, Xu Chi offered to take a look at the famous BlokHaven State Laboratory synchronized phase stabilization accelerator. Yang Zhenning said that because there was no prior contact with Brockhaven and it was not close to here, it was difficult to do. But they have an accelerator downstairs, which is a little smaller, but it can still be seen. Yang Zhenning took Xu Late downstairs to sit in the hall and looked at a particle accelerator. Yang Zhenning introduced to Xu Chi how protons are injected from the cylindrical Van der Geraf accelerator into the ring accelerator, and after running for about a second, how to accept the forward thrust to accelerate to one megaelectronvolt and hit the target.
The visit left a deep impression on Xu Chi, who not only met Yang Zhenning, the first Physicist in China to win the Nobel Prize, but also learned how Yang Zhenning experimented, calculated, and pondered the theories about the particle world and the normative length of unifying the four forces of nature.
In late November, due to an affair at home in Wuhan, Xu Chi hastily ended his trip to the United States. In April 1986, Xu Chi began writing his travel records to the United States. Among them, he specially wrote an article on an interview with Yang Zhenning: "On Long Island in New York - A Visit of Dr. Yang Zhenning". Because the issues discussed were too professional, Xu Chi, in order to ensure the accuracy of the content of the article, specially wrote to Yang Zhenning for convenient review, and he attached the four-chapter article he wrote with the letter.
However, Dr. Yang Zhenning is usually too busy to take time to read the article. In order not to delay the publication of Xu Chi's article, Yang Zhenningte wrote in the lower left corner of the original letter " Mr. Xu: Thank you for sending me your article, I really don't have the effort to read, such as publication, please indicate that I have not looked at it, to the touch." ”
The article "On Long Island in New York : A Visit of Dr. Yang Zhenning" was finalized and published in the fifth edition of people's daily on January 11, 1987. After the article was published, readers received rave reviews. Later, the article was successively included in Xu Chi's "America, a Traveling Autumn" published by Xu Chi's People's Literature Publishing House in 1991, and "Evergreen Tree of Life - Xu Chi's Selected Reportage" published by Shandong Education Publishing House in 1998.
On the occasion of bidding farewell to Yang Zhenning in New York, Xu Chiben and he agreed to meet in Beijing at the end of that year and participate in the "Celebration Of the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Publication of the Yang-Mills Normative Field Theory Paper" held by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. After returning to China, Xu Chi actively applied to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and was approved. But due to the sudden death of his wife, Xu Chi did not go to Beijing to attend the celebration. The Stony Brook Meeting became the only time they saw each other in their lives.
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