(Image from Baidu invasion and deletion)
Text ▍ Chen Bo
In December 1957, at the Concert Hall in Stockholm, Sweden, two young Asian faces attracted the attention of the audience. One is 35-year-old Yang Zhenning, and the other is 31-year-old Li Zhengdao.
That year, Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao won the supreme Nobel Prize in physics for their research on "cosmic name is not conserved", and it was also the first Nobel Prize in the history of Chinese people around the world.
How great is Yang Zhenning? This has always been a topic of debate among many people. Today coincides with Mr. Yang's 100th birthday, so let's carefully demonstrate the greatness of Mr. Yang Zhenning.
one
The first Chinese Nobel Prize in Physics
Cosmology is not conserved
The Nobel Prize in Physics has always been regarded as the most important achievement in physics, requiring a large number of sophisticated experiments and time tests, and many people can only get this honor in their twilight years or after death. However, the theory of "cosmology is not conserved" caused such a sensation in the physics community as soon as it was proposed in June 1956 that it took only one year for Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao to win the Nobel Prize in Physics.
So what exactly is "the universe is not conserved"? And why is it so shocking to the physics community?
When we look in the mirror, we will find that the picture refracted by the mirror through light is exactly the same as the world outside the mirror, except for the different directions, there is almost no difference in the rest, this phenomenon is called "cosmic conservation". Based on our understanding of the world, we always think that symmetry and conservation are the basic laws of the world, at least before Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao proposed "cosmology is not conserved".
But in response to the "conservation of cosmology", Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao questioned whether it is possible that there will be a situation of non-conservation of cosmology in some cases.
In our world, all forces can be reduced to these four types: gravity, electromagnetism, strong interaction forces, and weak interaction forces.
In previous experiments, there is sufficient experimental evidence to prove that the universe is conserved under the action of gravity, electromagnetic force and strong interaction force, and the only thing that has not been experimentally proved is the conservation of cosmology under the weak interaction force. So Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao began to wonder whether the universe would not be conserved under weak interaction. To interpret this sentence in layman's terms: under the weak interaction force, the world in the mirror and outside the mirror will be completely different, that is, the cosmology is not conserved. After this theory was verified, it caused an uproar in the physics community, which was equivalent to loosening the foundation of the physics community. Scientist Bloch even more confidently said, "If the cosmology is not conserved, I will eat my own hat", and the hat is now extremely embarrassing.
"Cosmology is not conserved" is an extremely important physical discovery, because it determines that the world can be ever-changing. For example, genes have some mutations when they are copied, which is essentially a manifestation of the non-conservation of cosmology. If the universe is absolutely conserved, then the largest positive matter and antimatter in the universe should be exactly the same, once the positive matter and antimatter collide together, the world will perish, and it is precisely because the universe is not conserved that the world will be so ever-changing.
two
The Theory of The Gods: The Young-Mills Theory
People who pay more attention to Yang Zhenning will often hear such a statement, they believe that although the non-conservation of the universe has won Yang Zhenning the supreme Nobel Prize in physics, in fact, this is not the highest achievement of his life, and Yang Zhenning's greatest contribution in life is the Yang-Mills theory.
In the physics world, there has always been a big god ranking, one bull, two loves three wheat, and Yang Zhenning is sitting on the existence of five and four. The Yang-Mills theory can be called the work of Yang Zhenning's life, because the theory has become the basis of modern gauge field theory and the Standard Model of particle physics, and almost half of the research content of modern physics is based on this theory.
Physics is a unified history. There are all kinds of phenomena in nature, some of which are related to the movement of objects, others that are related to light, heat, sound... The laws behind natural phenomena are endless, but so many laws cannot be digested by humans, and in the end whether they can use a set of theories to describe all different phenomena at a deeper level has become the ultimate problem for physicists.
Thus, the real god was born at this time, the first appeared is Newton, he unified all the forces in the sky and the earth with the principle of the law of universal gravitation; the second is Maxwell, who used Maxwell's equations to unify electricity, magnetism and light at the microscopic level; the third was Einstein, who fused electromagnetic forces with special relativity, and embraced gravity with general relativity; the last great god was Yang Zhenning, who unified electromagnetic forces other than gravity with a set of Yang-Mills theory. Strong and weak.
(Pictured is a 1954 paper published by Yang Zhenning and Mills in the Physical Review.)
The model of this theory is also very subtle, not only pointing out the research direction of the frontier physics at that time, but also allowing the subsequent scholars who followed its theory to win the Nobel Prize. Gell-Mann started from the Young-Mills theory and founded quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Glashow, Salam and Weinberg also completed the unification of electromagnetic and weak forces on the basis of the Young-Mills theory, and finally won the Nobel Prize.
"Nature" magazine once praised Yang Zhenning as one of the 20 greatest scientists in 1000 years, and his namesake newton, Einstein, and other people have passed away, so Yang Zhenning, who is now 100 years old, has naturally become a physicist at the level of Taishan Beidou in the world today.
three
Contributions to Talent in China
Yang Zhenning has been with physics all his life, and at the same time, he has greatly promoted the development of domestic science. Since the 1980s, Yang Zhenning has shifted the focus of his work from scientific research to the cultivation of Chinese physics talents. He was appointed Bowen Chair Professor at the University of Chinese, Hong Kong in 1986, Director of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Chinese, Hong Kong in 1993, and Professor at Tsinghua University in 1998. While teaching at Tsinghua University, Yang Zhenning promoted many changes and brought back yao Zhizhi, the winner of the Turing Award, the world's highest award in the field of computer science.
Similarly, the world-famous physicist Nie Huatong and the world-famous mathematician and astrophysicist Lin Jiaqiao were invited back to China by Yang Zhenning through his own connections. After returning home, these top scientists have made significant progress in China's scientific research at a speed that is visible to the naked eye. Yang Zhenning used his ingenuity to create physical miracles in his youth, and used his strong influence to introduce many top talents to the motherland in his old age, Yang Zhenning is a scientist who deserves to surpass the times.
shop
A physicist who is not good at experimenting
Sometimes we often think about what kind of family it is that can cultivate top scientists like Yang Zhenning.
Smart brains are all related to genetics, and Yang Zhenning's father is also a legend. Yang Zhenning's father was named Yang Wuzhi, who returned to China after obtaining a doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1928, engaged in mathematics education all his life, taught and presided over the department affairs period at Tsinghua University and Southwest Union University, cultivated and cultivated two generations of mathematical talents, and made great contributions to modern Mathematics in China.
Influenced by his father, Yang Zhenning's mathematics has always been very good, but few people in physics can do both theory and experiments, and only Fermi has reached a first-class level in both aspects. Although Yang Zhenning is good at mathematics and has a strong theoretical foundation, he has always been very weak in practice.
Yang Zhenning spent 20 months in The Arison's lab, but physics experiments have not been very good, and even earned nicknames such as "yellow dangerous goods". In January 1947, in a letter from Yang Zhenning to his old classmate Huang Kun, he also said, "Although I work hard, I have no talent for experimentation." Including the later experiment of the theory of "the universe is not conserved", because the experiment was quite complex, no one was willing to take over, and finally with the help of Wu Jianxiong, an associate professor at Columbia University and a Chinese physicist, it was decided that her laboratory would complete this experiment.
five
Return to China controversy
As the Taishan Beidou in the field of physics, Yang Zhenning has been controversial because of Yang Zhenning's re-entry into Chinese nationality in 2015. People who don't know the truth like to attack it in groups, and few people are willing to understand the truth behind it.
According to Yang Zhenning's recollection of his father in "Forever Tsinghua Garden", Yang Zhenning met with his parents three times in Geneva, especially the last two times with a sense of mission, and has been advising Yang Zhenning to return to China, which has a great influence on him. In those days, the United States knew very little about the actual situation in China. These three meetings also allowed Yang Zhenning to experience the changes in New China from his parents. One night in 1962, Yang Wuzhi also said to him, "New China is Chinese really stood up..." After the death of Yang Wuzhi, Yang Zhenning has always had the idea of returning to China for development.
In addition, Du Yuming, the father of Yang Zhenning's first wife, also had a great influence on him. Du Yuming, a former Kuomintang general, was captured in the Battle of Huaihai, was later released in Beijing as one of the first pardoned prisoners, and was appointed as a member of the Cultural and Historical Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. At that time, Premier Zhou personally received him and told them to take the socialist road before they could have a head start. In the 1970s, after being elected as a deputy to the National People's Congress and a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Du Yuming actively devoted himself to the cause of the reunification of the motherland. Under the influence of Du Yuming, Yang Zhenning also became the main person in charge of the "National Chinese Association" in 1977, actively carrying out propaganda of Sino-US friendship, building bridges for friendship between the two countries, and publicizing the reunification of the motherland. Therefore, Yang Zhenning's later return to the motherland was not as those who did not know why speculated, he was not only a great physicist but also a patriot.
land
He is a physicist and the purest of people
The yearless marriage with Weng Fan has always been a huge controversy surrounding Yang Zhenning, but it can precisely reflect his purity as a person. At the age of 82, Yang Zhenning married Weng Fan, 28 years old, a 54-year-old "old and young love", which immediately caused an uproar, and since then, all kinds of sharp sarcasm and malicious words have also been attacking them. However, it is such a marriage that is not favored by anyone, but 18 years have passed.
From this yearless love, we can see that Yang Zhenning is a very pure person. Most people will be stained with the dust of secular vision after experiencing social life, but Yang Zhenning is different. Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao have collaborated on 23 papers, but only 1 Yang Zhenning signed first. In the academic community, to pay attention to the relationship between generations, Yang Zhenning can let Li Zhengdao, a disciple, sign his name in front of it, which is enough to show that he is a very pure person and does not particularly care about such things as reputation.
The same is true of marrying Weng Fan, Yang Zhenning is not Se Lingzhi, Weng Fan is not betraying himself, as they said in an interview, their lives are very peaceful, like the ivory tower in the ivory tower. If Yang Zhenning's thing happened to a more sleek and worldly person, in order to avoid the storm of public opinion, he would definitely send a bunch of press releases to explain, but Yang Zhenning did not do it at all, that is, he was very frank and frank to tell the public that I married a 28-year-old girl, which is enough to prove that Yang Zhenning is an extremely pure person, which is also the cuteness of Yang Zhenning.
I saw a sentence in the circle of friends today, thanking Weng Fan for allowing Mr. Yang Zhenning to live to the age of 100 and live such a pleasant life in his later years. Zi non-fish, the joy of knowing the fish, time is actually the best answer.
I wish Mr. Yang Zhenning to be in good health and continue to make more great contributions to the scientific research cause of the motherland.
(Illustrator Wang Ruonan invaded and deleted)