Some people on the Internet slandered Yang Zhenning, saying that his talent and level were not as good as Li Zhengdao, and one example was that physics master Fermi began not accepting Yang Zhenning as his graduate student, because Fermi did not like Yang Zhenning's level, but later accepted Li Zhengdao as a graduate student, indicating that Li Zhengdao was smarter and more talented than Yang Zhenning.
In fact, these people either have ulterior motives or do not understand the time when Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao came to the University of Chicago and the nature of Fermi's personal work.
First of all, in 1945, Yang Zhenning went to the University of Chicago to study for graduate school, just to find the physics master Fermi, wanted to be his graduate student. Because Fermi was doing both theoretical research and experiments at that time, Yang Zhenning wanted to do physics experiments, and he basically did not have the conditions to do experiments when he was a graduate student in China, and rarely did experiments.
However, at that time, Fermi told Yang Zhenning that Yang Zhenning could not do experiments with him because he was at the Argonne National Laboratory. And at that time the Argonne Laboratories were secretive. Yang Zhenning is not an American and cannot do experiments there.
Fermi suggested that Yang Zhenning first do some theoretical work with Taylor (Yang Zhenning's doctoral supervisor).
This is the fundamental reason why Fermi did not accept Yang Zhenning as a graduate student.
Secondly, why was Fermi able to accept Lee Jung-do as a graduate student later?
The reason is very simple, Yang Zhenning came to the University of Chicago in 1945, Li Zhengdao only went in 1946, the original Argonne laboratory was secret, after the atomic bomb explosion in the United States in 1945, the research of this laboratory was not confidential, and Fermi could accept people who were not Americans as graduate students.
In fact, among the more than 200 graduate students at the University of Chicago, Yang Zhenning's theoretical knowledge is the most solid and extensive, and he is deeply admired by his classmates, and Fermi accidentally left the class because of important things, and even let Yang Zhenning teach instead.