People will always be blinded by their ignorance, one-sidedness, self-obscuration, blindness to one's greatness, and stand on their own moral high ground to criticize others. We admit that people are not sages, and who can be blameless, but does this negate their achievements?
I have always insisted that all wisdom is futile in the face of absolute power. Before absolute achievement, you can criticize his inadequacies, but you cannot deprive him of his honor and achievements. Some netizens have a narrow view of Yang Zhenning, and compare him with Deng Jiaxian and others! Their vision and vision are like frogs at the bottom of a well, sitting in a well and watching the sky. I am writing this not to wake up the world, but only to wake myself up!
Yang Zhenning, October 1, 1922, born in Hefei, Anhui, Deng Jiaxian, June 25, 1924, born in Huaining, Anhui, the two met with Tsinghua Garden, from middle school to Southwest United University, although different grades, the two are like-minded, Sheng Pan is the same. In the autumn of 1948, Deng Jiaxian and Yang Zhenning's younger brother Yang Zhenping accompanied him to study in the United States by sea. It is not difficult to see that the trajectory of the first half of life is similar and closely related, and it is also related.
However, the turning point occurred, and on August 29, 1950, Deng Jiaxian received his doctorate and returned to China by boat, while Yang continued to study in the United States. Different choices, life circumstances are different, people's evaluation and understanding of the two, but also very different!
In China, people have a consistent understanding of Deng Jiaxian's greatness, but they do not understand Yang Zhenning's greatness, and often envy the former and spurn the latter in the comparison between the two, I do not understand. In 2000, the world's famous scientific and technological journal "Nature" selected the twenty greatest physicists in the millennium of mankind. Yang Zhenning was successfully selected and is the only living physicist on the list. As a student of scientific research in the future, I cannot bear to ignore the achievements of this great physicist and give him a dirty name! This article will describe Yang Zhenning's life from Yang Zhenning's contribution to science and his contribution to Chinese science.
Cosmological non-conservation and the Yang-Mills equation
Yang Zhenning's lifelong research achievements are rich and have a great impact on the development of physics. Two of the most important works are the study of the law of non-conservation of cosmology, which won the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics with Lee Jung-do, and Mills' study of gauge field theory, proposing the Young-Mills equation.
The most significant event in physics in the 1950s was probably the mystery of "θ-π" and the resulting collapse of the conservation law of cosmology in weak interactions. The Italian-American physicist Sergey once said: "The collapse of the law of conservation of cosmology in weak interactions, perhaps the greatest discovery since World War II, eliminated a bias that, unproven, was once regarded as a principle." ”
This bias is that since other known interactions are conserved by cosmology, physicists do not hesitate to generalize it to the interactions of nuclear physics, meson physics, and exotic particle physics. Therefore, the physics community generally believes that the conservation law of cosmology, like the conservation law of energy and momentum, is a universal law. It was Yang Zhenning, Li Zhengdao, and Wu Jianxiong, three physicists of Chinese descent, who guided the physics community through the threshold of history and broke this prejudice!
Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao submitted a paper to the Physical Review in June 1956 entitled "The Problem of Conservation of Cosmology in Weak Interactions", and Wu Jianxiong successfully proved that cosmology is indeed non-conserved in weak interactions by doing β decay experiments. Abraham. Pais said: "The proposal of Li Zhengdao and Yang Zhenning led to a great liberation of our understanding of the fundamental structure of physics theory. ”
Therefore, the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics was immediately awarded to two young physicists, Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao, who stepped onto the Nobel podium as Chinese physicists. For the people of China and Chinese who have just been born of nirvana, it brings great encouragement and courage!
The ultimate doctrine of physics – the Great Unity. Throughout the history of physics, Newton unified the heavens and the earth with a book of Principles of Natural Philosophy; Maxwell unified electricity, magnetism, and light in one fell swoop with Maxwell's equations; Einstein fused electromagnetism with special relativity and tamed gravity with general relativity. This is a history of great unification, and until the last days on his deathbed, Einstein was still committed to unifying gravity and electromagnetic force, he once said: "There are two separate spatial structures, namely the inductive force gauge and the electromagnetic gauge, and these two fields must conform to the unified structure of space." ”
But this unified theory ultimately failed. The four basic forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, strong force and weak force, it can be said that establishing a theoretical unity of the four forces is the ultimate pursuit of physicists! It is in this context that Yang Zhenning and his Yang-Mills theory provide a powerful foundational theory to complete the ultimate doctrine of physics!
The Young-Mills theory is a basic set of theories that pointed out the direction for the cutting-edge science of the time and provided a very subtle theoretical model. Starting from the Jan-Mills theory, Gell-Mann founded quantum chromodynamics (QCD), which completely described the strong force and won the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics; Glashow, Salam and Weinberg, following the Young-Mills theory, completed the unification of electromagnetic and weak forces, and won the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics.
It can be said that the four basic forces known to the physical world at present, in addition to gravity, the remaining electromagnetic forces, strong forces, and weak forces are described by the Young Mills equation. This is almost a feat that has never been done before, and the Jan-Mills equation is definitely one of the most important equations in physics, side by side with Maxwell's equations, general relativity. In 1993, the prestigious American Philosophical Society awarded Yang Zhenning the Franklin Medal, the society's highest honor, for "Professor Yang Zhenning is the outstanding designer of physics in the 20th century since Einstein and Dirac." ", in recognition of Yang Zhenning and Robert. The achievement of the Mills collaboration, noting that this achievement is "the most important event in the physics community" and "a far-reaching and groundbreaking contribution to physics.".
Committed to the cause of science in China
Yang Zhenning, like many scholars studying in China, wants to return to China to work and serve the motherland after completing his studies. However, for political reasons, he was unable to immediately realize his desire to return home. In 1964, he became an American citizen. But in the following 30 years, he has always been concerned about the motherland and does not want to serve the motherland all the time.
On March 21, 1971, the famous ping-pong diplomacy took place, and Sino-US relations, which had been rigid for more than 20 years, were first thawed in the form of people-to-people exchanges. Finally, in July, he returned to his beloved motherland, was hosted by Premier Zhou Enlai at the Great Hall of the People, and the two talked for almost 5 hours before and after the meeting, and Yang Zhenning talked to Premier Zhou Enlai as objectively and thoroughly as possible about his understanding and views on the United States.
On July 12, 1973, he met with Chairman Mao Zedong to exchange scientific insights. Since his return to the United States, many public speeches have caused a large number of Chinese scholars to gradually dispel their worries and begin to return to China to visit relatives, visit, and travel, the most worth mentioning of which is that the famous Chinese scholars, with Lin Jiaqiao as the leader, including Ren Zhigong, He Bingdi, and more than twenty other people formed the first delegation to China, and were received by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai.
Yang Zhenning is the first scientist of Chinese descent to visit China after the relaxation of Sino-US relations, actively promotes Sino-US cultural exchanges and mutual understanding between the Chinese and American peoples, is the first person to build a bridge of friendship between Chinese and American scientists, indirectly diverts a large number of scientific talents and advanced scientific ideas and methods for China, and plays a role in promoting China's modernization.
On April 27, 1993, Yang Zhenning said in a speech at the University of Hong Kong entitled "Review and Prospect of Modern Science Entering China", saying that he boldly predicted that by the middle of the 21st century, China is likely to become a world-class scientific and technological power. Yang Zhenning not only said this, but also contributed all his strength to the motherland in a down-to-earth and painstaking manner to realize the dream that he and a generation of Chinese.
On the one hand, he has repeatedly put forward constructive suggestions to the Chinese government, including attaching importance to the cultivation of basic scientific research talents, etc., on the other hand, he has taken advantage of his special status and many good social relations to invite first-class scholars to various universities in China to give academic lectures and academic exchanges, and has also painstakingly raised funds of different sizes and set up various prizes.
Since 1980, under the direct initiation and advocacy of Yang Zhenning, the "China Education Exchange Committee", "Sun Yat-sen University Advanced Academic Research Center Foundation", "Tsinghua University Advanced Research", "Center Foundation Co., Ltd.", "North American Tsinghua Education Foundation", as well as to help and promote the establishment of "Run Run Shaw Award", "Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation", "Qiushi Science and Technology Fund" and so on.
This year marks the centenary of Mr. Yang Zhenning's birth according to the Chinese lunar calendar algorithm. I hope that netizens can know and understand his outstanding contributions to the cause of science and the cause of science in China! Live in his old man's body in good health and longevity!