Liu Blunt: The situation changes with the situation, and the words are born one by one - reading Mr. Yang Zhenning's prose has a feeling

Written by | Liu Blunt

It is not controversial that Mr. Yang Zhenning is one of the greatest scientists of our time, wherever and whenever he is; but there are probably not as many people who know that he can write beautiful Chinese articles. For Mr. Yang's language art, foreign friends who cannot appreciate the mystery of Chinese need not be said, even some Chinese people who do not know how to write are also rare in three tastes. A few years ago, after reading Mr. Yang's beautiful article, I covered up and sighed: "That "Deng Jiaxian" has more readers than Mr. Yang's other articles because it is included in the junior high school language textbook. In this regard, he is enough to embarrass many professional writers and editors from the class - after many years of going to the country and immersing themselves in the mysteries of the universe, he can still use the words Chinese of his ancestors so vividly and freely, and the selectors of textbooks can be regarded as discerning. ”[1]

If I am a layman who is rare and strange, I can invite a few experts to stand on the platform. In 2005, The Hundred Flowers Literary and Art Publishing House launched a series of readers of "Elegant Chinese", and the well-known writer Jia Pingwa was entrusted with the selection of modern and contemporary essays, and a total of thirty-two American articles were selected, including Mr. Yang's "Deng Jiaxian". Li Xin, who was the editor-in-chief of Sanlian Bookstore in Hong Kong and Beijing, said: "Mr. Yang is an old intellectual with great humanistic care... His articles are also beautifully written, the text is clean and concise, and the words are full of emotion. [3] The famous thinker Wang Yuanhua said that Mr. Yang "has a fairly deep understanding of Chinese culture." This understanding even surpasses some of our professional workers here. [4] Chen Zhifan, a well-known electrical engineering expert and prose writer in Hong Kong, Taiwan and other places, after reading Mr. Yang's "Beauty and Physics", praised his writing as "well-trained and clear, very beautiful", and said, "Now you are not only writing for the small 'crowd', but also for the big 'crowd'." ”[5]

Taking the opportunity to celebrate Mr. Yang's centennial birthday, I would like to share a little thought about reading his prose. Looking at the flowers in the fog, the cold mountains overlooking the distance, is finally a self-view.

Homesickness

I thought that another article that could be compiled into the middle school Chinese textbook was "Father and Me", the beauty of the text and the fullness of feelings, comparable to Zhu Ziqing's "Back Shadow". The article recalls the scene when Mr. Yang Laoshi sent his son away in Kunming:

After saying goodbye, I sat in the crowded bus, and at first I could see my father waving at me through the window, and a few minutes later he was squeezed into the distance by the crowd. There were many classmates in the car who went to the United States, and when it came to talking, my attention shifted to issues such as flight routes and climate change. After waiting for more than an hour, the car never started. Suddenly, an American next to me gestured to me to look out the window: suddenly I found my father still waiting there! He was thin, dressed in robes, and his hair had turned white on the front of his forehead. Seeing his anxious look, I held back the hot tears of the morning, and for a moment I couldn't help myself. [6]

Attached to the text is a photograph taken in 1929 on Gulangyu Island in Xiamen, where the little boy has a protruding brain, his clothes and pants are short, and he is staring at the big eyes of the dark and slippery, and he looks reluctant, that is, Yang Zhenning, who is more than six years old. More than thirty years later, in 1960, Mr. Yang flew to Geneva to reunite with his beloved son who had been separated for many years, and before leaving, Yang Zhenning's third brother turned out this photo, but the old man said: "Don't bring, don't bring, that day I scolded Zhenning, he was very unhappy." The text did not talk about the reasons for his responsibility at that time, nor did he talk about Mr. Yang's mood when he saw the old photos, a few words, and the cloud lightly sketched the characteristics of his father's kindness and strictness, as well as the attitude of a smart, mischievous and quite assertive little boy. Seeing this, the Chinese teacher may say that this is the rhetorical contrast: the author's own naughtiness reflects the father's behavior and words; the father's reaction to the old photos reflects his deep-seated calf feelings.

This is just a small episode, and the more beautiful rhetoric is expressed later, Mr. Yang writes:

I have lived in the United States for 19 years from 1945 to 1964, including most of my adult life. However, deciding to apply for U.S. citizenship is not easy. I suspect that many immigrants from most countries have the same problem. But for a person who grew up in traditional Chinese culture, such a decision is especially difficult. On the one hand, traditional Chinese culture simply does not have the concept of leaving China for a long time and moving to other countries. Moving to another country was once considered a complete betrayal. On the other hand, China has had a splendid culture. The humiliation and exploitation she has endured for nearly a hundred years has left a deep imprint on the hearts and minds of every Chinese. Any Chinese is hard to forget this hundred years of history. My father was a professor of mathematics in Beijing and Shanghai until his death in 1973. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He traveled extensively. But I knew that until my deathbed, he never forgave me in the corner of his heart for giving up my homeland. [7]

This is a touching passage in the text, and Mr. Yang Lao's purity, Geng Jie and patriotism jumped on the paper. Some unscrupulous online steakers actually grasped the phrase "never forgive me" as an excuse to attack Mr. Yang for his disloyalty and filial piety, and did not understand that Mr. Yang was writing about his father's greatness with a contrasting brushwork. In fact, many Chinese scientists, including Mr. Yang Wuzhi, do not think that Mr. Yang, who is at the top of contemporary science, made a wise move to return to China in the 1950s and 70s; facts have proved that Mr. Yang, who is rich and powerful, has made irreplaceable contributions to physical science, world peace and communication between the Chinese and American peoples, and China's international status in the United States.

Like the great Confucian in ancient China, the "home" and "country" in Mr. Yang's heart are one, which has left a deep imprint on Mr. Yang. On August 9, 1957, Mr. Yang Lao gave An inscription to Yang Zhenning and his wife in Geneva, which read: "Don't forget your dear love at every meal, and you should be grateful to the country for your life." "After mr. Yang's death on May 12, 1972, Mr. Yang's childhood playmate and lifelong best friend Xiong Bingming wrote a letter of condolence, saying that although your father is dead, his blood is still circulating in your body. Mr. Yang added: "Yes, what circulates in my body is my father's blood, the blood of Chinese culture."

At the launch ceremony of Beijing Sanlian Bookstore for the publication of Mr. Yang's "Shuguang Collection" at the beginning of 2008, Mr. Zhou Guangzhao, then honorary chairman of the China Association for Science and Technology, proposed that since "Father and Me" was so wonderful, Mr. Yang should also write a "Mother and Me". In fact, Mr. Yang had already talked about his mother in many articles before, and according to Mr. Zhou's suggestion, Mr. Yang quickly completed "Mother and Me", which was attached to the traditional Chinese version of "Shuguang Collection" published in Singapore that year.

This article is not long, but it is also full of affection, with concise brushstrokes to outline the tall image of a hardworking, simple and tenacious Chinese woman. At the beginning of the article, it was said that the father stayed in the West for five years, mother and son depended on each other for their lives, saw some international students abandon their wives after returning to China, and the mother once chatted with a sister in the church, saying that once the family situation could not be maintained, she would take her son to the church to "eat and teach". Although the culture is not high, the mother attaches great importance to the education of her children, and her son taught him to recognize words when he was four years old, and Yang Zhenning, who is more than five years old, has read more than 3,000 square characters. After the father returned to China, he was very good to his mother, and after the whole family settled down in Tsinghua Garden, he was among many highly educated professors and wives, and his mother's life credo was to manage the family well, communicate less, not play cards, not afraid of hardships, but seek health, and soon win a good reputation for governing the family in the garden. After becoming famous, Mr. Yang took his mother to Switzerland, Hong Kong, the east and west coasts of the United States to live in other places, and his mother had a very happy life, which also made up for Mr. Yang's failure to follow filial piety for many years. In 1992, Nankai University held a seminar for his seventieth birthday, Mr. Yang recalled his mother's grace in his speech, suddenly sad, unable to cry, and still can see a video recording the scene on the Internet. At the end of the article, Mr. Yang summed up his mother's life in a peaceful tone, which can also be seen as a tribute to the millions of Chinese mothers of that era:

Born in old China in 1896, my mother had no schooling and had only attended private school for a year or two. When she was a child, she only had a nickname, and after marrying her father, she took an official name: Luo Menghua. She experienced many upheavals in Chinese society in the 20th century and overcame all difficulties with a calm and unswerving attitude. She is the spiritual pillar of the Yang family and is respected by her husband, her children, and all those who know her. [8]

Xiong Bingming is the son of the mathematician Mr. Xiong Qinglai, and is also a friend of Mr. Yang who has known Him since childhood, and later became a famous calligrapher and sculptor. Although the two work in different fields, they share many common interests. The friendship of the fathers, the childhood in Tsinghua Garden, the experience of studying abroad, the understanding of beauty in science and art... There are endless topics between the two. In the summer of 2002, Mr. Yang saw an exhibition of matisse and Picasso's two-person theme paintings in London, and saw a passage that Picasso wrote to Matisse in his later years, saying that we should hurry up, otherwise there would be no time to talk to each other. Mr. Yang immediately copied it down and sent it to his friend, and five months later Xiong Bingming died of illness in Paris, and Mr. Yang said, "I'm afraid this letter is still on his desk." In his memorial essay, he wrote: "Bingming and I are people of the same era, people of the same big era. We all have something to say. We've taken different paths and spoken different languages, but we have the same bottom line in what we're going to say. The article quotes a moving poem written by Xiong Bingming - "Predicting the future journey of adulthood in childhood, predicting the return of future distant people in his hometown", Mr. Yang finally wrote:

Sugar cane fields, cotton fields, and red rivers are the home of Bingming's father and mother in The Moonlight of Mile County, Yunnan Province, and the hometown of all the wanderers in the world. [9]

Chinese boy

For his fellow countrymen, classmates and close friend Deng Jiaxian, Mr. Yang's commemorative text has long become a classic, and there are countless articles of praise and commentary. Now I want to steal a sneak peek and copy a little impression of myself from more than ten years ago below.

The beginning of the article takes us to 100 years ago, which was the era of the Sino-Japanese War and the Eight-Power Alliance, the most tragic era in the history of the Chinese nation; then the conversation turned sharply - Chinese stood up, and among the countless heroes and benevolent people who contributed to this transformation, there was a scientist who was long unknown, that is, Deng Jiaxian. In this way, the protagonist of the author's pen is not only a scientist who develops nuclear weapons, but a national hero who has made great contributions to the Chinese get rid of the fate of being slaughtered by others. The battlefield of the heroic conquest is Qinghai, Xinjiang and the mysterious Lop Nur, those places that are most likely to associate with the "Qin Shi Mingyue Han Shi Guan". Mr. Yang writes:

I don't know if Jia Xian remembered the "Hanging Ancient Battlefield Text" that we recited together when we were in Kunming:

Hooray! The sand is boundless, and there is no one to see. The river is haunting, the mountains are disputed. The gloom is miserable, and the wind is sad. The grass is dry and frosty. Birds can't fly, beasts are dead. The pavilion chief told Yu Yue: "This ancient battlefield is also!" The three armies are often overthrown. Often ghosts cry, and the sky is cloudy and smells! ”

Jia Xian buried his colleagues in the desert with broken grass, and he didn't know what kind of mood he was in when he buried his subordinates?

When "roughly estimating" parameters, we must have physical intuition; when planning calculations day and night, we must have mathematical insight; when deciding on a plan, we must have the courage to make progress, and we must have a steady judgment. But whether the theory is accurate enough is always a question. I wonder if jiaxian's hand trembled when he signed the key plan?

Wind and sand often whistle on the Gobi Desert, and the temperature is often more than thirty degrees below zero. The problems of large and small temporary nuclear weapons tests are endless. Although Jiaxian is known as a "blessed general", accidents are always inevitable. In 1982, after he became the president of the Nuclear Weapons Research Institute, once a signal suddenly underground could not be measured, everyone was very anxious, and people advised him to go back. He said only one word:

"I can't go." [10]

In the era when the belly and back were attacked and there was no food, in the wasteland where the body was wrapped in Ma Ge and the spring breeze was not moderate, the hero Deng Jiaxian's "I can't go" can be described as fierce and fierce, and the intestines are swinging back.

There is a touching detail in the text: although he guessed his friend's mission, Mr. Yang never asked about the other party's work when he first came to China in 1971, and Deng Jiaxian only said that he was "working in the field", until on the eve of Yang's imminent departure from China, between the banquets held by the leaders of Shanghai, he suddenly received a note from Deng Jiaxian's entrusted person, and the brief message had only one meaning - China's atomic bomb was developed by Chinese himself. Mr. Yang couldn't help but burst into tears when he read this, and had to leave the table to go to the bathroom to tidy up his appearance. He asked: "Afterwards, I wondered why there was such a big emotional shock, for the pride of the nation." Proud to be a pioneer? - I still can't think clearly. The answer is actually in the text. Mr. Yang writes:

If one day a director were to film Deng Jia's biography, I would suggest to him that the background music should be a song from the May Fourth era, which I learned from my father as a child.

My father was born in 1896, an era when the Chinese nation was still at the mercy of others. He loved this song all his life:

Chinese boys, Chinese boys, hold the sky with one hand.

The Great River of the Yangtze River, the East of Asia, E'e Kunlun, the Great Wall of Wings, the Kingdom of Tianfu, take the multi-purpose Hong, the Yellow Emperor's gods.

Wind, tiger, cloud dragon, all nations come to the same, the proud son of heaven I am horizontal.

I have a sword, a generous conglomerate, a middle stream, a great country, a decisive victory on the battlefield, a long rainbow, and many strange husbands in ancient and modern times.

Broken head yellow dust, Yanran Legong, still hot blood is still red. [11]

Mr. Yang himself is a good director, and his montage is really clever: the division of China by the great powers, China's nuclear program, the same window of middle school and university, the film in the United States, Oppenheimer, "Hanging Ancient Battlefield Text", after a series of long shots, short shots, large close-up zooms and contrasts between dynamic and static chiaroscuro, here brushed a flash out of the May Fourth era salvation song lyrics, the music suddenly rose... A string of square characters, under the mobilization of Mr. Yang, shows a vivid vitality: the contemplation of history, the director's monologue, and the double impact of visual and acoustic effects arch out a tall and plump heroic image. [12]

What is also inconceivable is that some boring keyboard warriors have taken advantage of Mr. Yang's nostalgia for his old friend to confuse the public, not knowing that the deep friendship between Yang and Deng is based on common ideas, that is, to make the motherland quickly rich and strong, to wash away the shame suffered in modern times, and to stand on their own feet among the nations of the world at an early date. [13] In 1971, when Mr. Yang first returned to China, the first person he wanted to meet with the relevant units was Deng Jiaxian, who was still in a "study class" in a certain place in the northwest. It was Mr. Yang's concern that promoted the process of Deng Jiaxian's complete resumption of normal work in the Ninth Yuan of the Ministry of Nuclear Industry. Ms. Xu Luxi, Mrs. Deng Jiaxian's wife, said that "Mr. Yang Zhenning came back to save Deng Jiaxian's life", and she also expressed her views on many occasions on the friendship between Yang and Deng and Mr. Yang's meticulous care, as well as Deng Jiaxian's high praise for Mr. Yang. [14]

Old state new life

In 1982, Mr. Yang wrote in the epilogue to a physics paper about his background and mental journey of joining the United States, and inserted a touching detail:

One night in the '60s, I was on my way to the Brookhaven lab and took a train from New York to Patchogue. The night was already deep, and the rickety carriage was empty. An old man sat behind me, and I began to talk to him. A native of Zhejiang, he was born around 1890 and has been in the United States for more than 50 years, sometimes doing laundry and sometimes washing dishes in restaurants. He was never married and always lived alone in a house. He was obviously very friendly to people. I thought to myself, does that mean he doesn't have pain and hatred? When the car arrived at Bayshore, the old man staggered down the dimly lit aisle to the rear of the car and got out of the car trembling. Looking at his back, which had been bent by the years, my heart was filled with sorrow and anger. [15]

Mr. Yang's "sorrow and anger" come from a deep understanding of the humiliation suffered in modern China, from the influence of traditional culture, from the teachings of his father, and from his personal observation experience in the United States. On different occasions, Mr. Yang repeatedly mentioned this feeling, and even at the celebration dinner hosted by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Prize Foundation for his and Mr. Lee Jung-do's award, Mr. Yang mentioned the "barbaric massacre and shameful plunder" of the Eight-Power Alliance, as well as "the angry feelings of Chinese". [16]

In articles such as "Father and Me", "Deng Jiaxian", "Review and Prospect of Modern Science Entering China"[17], "Reflection on the Roots"[18], Mr. Yang repeatedly mentioned "national shame", saying that "it was an era of arbitrary slaughter, an era of danger of the destruction of the country and the extinction of the species", and "the darkest and most tragic era in the 5,000-year history of the Chinese nation." [19] In the article "Reflections on the Roots" included in the Shuguang Collection, Mr. Yang added a photograph of the trial in the British Concession in Shanghai in the early 20th century: a Chinese man with long pigtails kneeling in front of the hall, and a foreigner judge and Chinese official standing on a high platform, without and without written explanation. The following list of China's bullying by the great powers is often cited by Mr. Yang, which goes back to 1898:

Germany forcibly occupied Jiaozhou Bay in Shandong Province, "leased" for 99 years.

Russia forcibly occupied Dalian, Lushun, Liaoning, and "leased" it for 25 years.

France forcibly occupied Guangzhou Bay in Guangdong and "leased" for 99 years.

The British seized Weihaiwei in Shandong and the New Territories in Hong Kong. The former "leased" for 25 years, the latter "leased" for 99 years. [20]

At 00:00 a.m. on July 1, 1997, Mr. Yang had the honor to attend the Handover Ceremony held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center as a guest. Watching the five-star red flag rise to the sound of the march of righteousness, I thought that if my father could witness this exciting historical moment, he would be even more excited than himself. Mr. Yang passionately wrote the following words:

He was born in 1896, one hundred and one years ago, in the era of the Maguan Treaty and the Gengzi Reparations, in the motherland that was broken up and impoverished, bullied and insulted by the great powers, and essentially divided. The Chinese intellectuals of their generation, witnessing the arbitrariness of the foreigners in the concession, endured the endless bullying of outsiders such as the Twenty-one Clause, the May Thirtieth Massacre, the September 18 Incident, and the Nanjing Massacre, and tasted the taste of racial discrimination after going abroad. [21]

Half a month later, on July 16, Mr. Yang was invited to give a speech at a dinner party celebrating the return of Hong Kong's higher education circles, saying that "Hong Kong's return to the motherland is a century-old historical event" and that "Chinese often say that the Opium War is a national shame, and hong Kong's return to the motherland is a national shame." In fact, the Opium War was also the national shame of the British, and the return also snowed the national shame of the British. He then explains that "shame" means differently than "shame" and can't both be translated as shame, because the word shame means doing something that shouldn't be done. The Opium Wars were the English shame, not the Chinese shame.

He also mentions the famous British historian Toynbee, who, in his 1947 civilization on Trial, described the "redeewing sence of shame" of suffering from his mother when he learned the true background of the Opium War from his mother as a child, believing that the British should be ashamed of their violations of public international law. Mr. Yang praised Toynbee for "looking back at the major events of world history with a macroscopic perspective, and on the other hand trying to predict the future"; but he believed that Toynbee's prediction of the general trend of the world in 50 years had two mistakes: "First, he did not foresee the collapse of the Soviet Union. Second, he did not foresee the rise of a mighty China. [22] In Reflections on the Roots, Mr. Yang again mentions Toynbee's book and its predictions of the future world, further developing his own views:

I think that in another hundred years, if the most important historical facts of the 20th century and have the greatest long-term impact on human history are discussed, it will not be the two world wars; it will not be the rise and fall of Hitler; nor will it be the rise and disintegration of the Soviet Union, but in this century:

(1) Human beings have greatly enhanced their productive forces through the use of science and technology;

(2) The Chinese nation has really "stood up." [23]

Mr. Yang is a patriot, but by no means a narrow nationalist. He is grateful for his contribution to humanity in Western civilization, especially modern science, and for the achievements he achieved by studying in the United States. In his speech at the 1957 Nobel Prize celebration dinner, he referred to the 1901 Xin ugly treaty and the staggering amount of Gengzi reparations, and "about 10 years later, in a typical American gesture, the United States decided to return the portion of the reparations to China that it shared." The money was used to establish a fund to create a university, Tsinghua University, and a scholarship for graduate students studying in the United States. I am a direct beneficiary of both projects. At the end of the speech, Mr. Yang solemnly declared:

As I stand here today to recount all this to you, I feel with a heavy heart the fact that, in more than one sense, I am a common product of the two cultures of China and the West, which are both in conflict and in harmony. I would like to say that I am both proud of my Chinese roots and background, and satisfied with my dedication to modern science, which is part of the origin of human civilization in the West – and I will continue to dedicate my efforts to it. [24]

In December 2007, Mr. Yang, with the assistance of Ms. Weng Fan, compiled the "Dawn collection" and wrote a touching preface at the moment. The article starts out in an extraordinary way, talking about "New Youth" and Lu Xun's "Iron House", as well as the blood-screaming "Diary of a Madman"; that was the May Fourth era, which was also the era when Mr. Yang was born. Later, he wrote About Wang Guowei's Shen Hu, Chen Yinke's Elegy, and the cultural traces that the children in Tsinghua Garden did not understand. Then jumping to the Southwest United University during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, it is very natural to lead to a poem written by Chen Yinke in Mengzi, "Nandu" and "Beigui", which means timeless; at that time, Mr. Yang was a first-year student of the United Nations University. The above plot is completed in one go, the text is minimalist, and the mood is extremely heavy. At this point, the sharp turn of the pen is not only a broken topic, but also brings the reader out of the "iron room":

The era of Lu Xun, Wang Guowei and Chen Yinke was a long night in the history of the Chinese nation. My classmates and I grew up in this long, seemingly endless night.

Fortunately, the Chinese nation finally completed this long night and saw the dawn. I'm eighty-five years old and I can't see the light of day. Weng Fan promised to see it for me, and would verify a passage from Feng Youlan's "Inscription on the Monument to the Southwest United Congress":

Our country, as the ancient country of the world and the heavenly capital of East Asia, should have been the legacy of the Han and Tang Dynasties, and was advanced in the world. In the future, when the founding of the country is completed, it will occupy a unique position in the history of the world. The great powers of the Gai dynasty are new but not ancient; Greece and Rome have ancient but no present. But our country, eternal, new and old, so-called "although the zhou is an old state, its life is renewed" is also. [25]

Cultural accomplishment

Mr. Yang's extensive knowledge and cultural accomplishment undoubtedly benefited from the enlightenment education of his parents. His mother taught him to read and invited an old gentleman to come to the house for schoolwork (with his cousins). Mr. Yang remembers that the first book he read was "Long Wen Whip Shadow", and he once memorized it well. His father was not only a doctor in the United States, a university professor and a mathematician, but also a humble gentleman with outstanding humanistic accomplishment. When Mr. Yang was six or seven years old, his father, who had just returned from the United States, explained to him the movement of celestial bodies with large and small balls, taught him to understand the English alphabet, told about arithmetic problems, and knowledge of traditional culture such as Ganzhi, Bagua, Tang poetry, Chinese history, Beijing opera, and Go. When Mr. Yang was about nine or ten years old, his father found that his mathematical skills were very strong, and two years later he wrote the words "Zhenning seems to have a different temperament" behind a photo of his son. However, instead of teaching Mr. Yang to analyze geometry and calculus, he invited Mr. Lei Haizong's proud disciples to teach him to read Mencius, and Mr. Yang in middle school could recite the full text of Mencius.

A little older, Mr. Yang began to read his father's books in foreign languages on his bookshelf, and was more impressed by some theorems in Hardy and Wright's Introduction to Number Theory, as well as some wonderful images in Spasser's Finite Group Theory; and later read Hardy's Pure Mathematics, as well as the abbreviated version of Newton's Principles. He also read many popular science books in original texts, including the American mathematical historian E.T. Bell's "The Great Mathematician", as well as the popular science masterpieces of British astronomers and physicists A. Eddington, J. Kings and others. After entering the university, Mr. Yang's reading scope was wider, and in addition to difficult scientific monographs such as Heisenberg's "Physical Principles of Quantum Theory", he was also keen to read English novels. In this regard, Huang Kun, who is in the same class, seems to be more obsessed. According to Mr. Yang, J. Conrad, R. Kipling, and J. Gowlswartz, these famous writers, were all introduced to him by Huang Kun. Mr. Yang also read foreign masterpieces in college, such as "Pride and Prejudice", "The Three Musketeers", "Les Misérables", "Treasure Island", "The Last of the Mohicans", "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", etc., most of which are original versions. A few years ago, I met Mr. Yang at Tsinghua University, and I was surprised by the conversation about the British scholar C.P. Snow's college novel "Dean". He admired Lu Xun and Ba Jin, and was also familiar with the works of contemporary overseas Chinese writers Nie Hualing, Yu Lihua, Tong Yuanfang, and Ha Jin (Jin Xuefei). [26]

Mr. Yang likes to read poetry and occasionally writes poetry. Mr. Pan Guoju recalled that one year he was in Japan with Mr. Yang on a tour of the ancient capital of Nara, and Mr. Yang touched the scenery and memorized Li Shangyin's long poem word for word. [27] In 1978, on his way to Lhasa, Mr. Yang looked down from the air at the gorge where the Brahmaputra River turned, and wrote two poems with feeling, the last sentence of which reads, "If you ask about the future of the mountain, the heavens will compete for the day and night." [28] The atmosphere is majestic, and the heavens and people are one. In 1983, Mr. Yang wrote a poem praising the Chern Class in the fiber cluster theory developed by Mr. Chen Shengshen, the second half of which is "the creation of love geometry, the four force fiber energy." The profound meaning of Du Fu's "articles on ancient things, gaining and losing inches of mind" implies the deep meaning of Du Fu's "articles on ancient things, gaining and losing inches of mind", connecting the four forces of nature with the contributions of the five geometry masters Euler, Gauss, Riemann, Kadang and Chen Shengshen. [29] Mr. Yang also translated du fu and Lu You's famous sentences into English. [30] Translated from the epitaph written by the English poet Pope for Newton into Chinese. Sometimes he would write English poems for recreation with Weng Fan, and then rewrite Xu Zhimo's poems, you one sentence, I one sentence, enjoy it. [31]

Mr. Yang has talked freely about Chinese culture with Pan Guoju and others, which mentions Chinese poetry and Western poetry, true insight, and many words:

Chinese poetry, because of its linguistic and grammatical structure, has many places that Western poetry cannot reach. Because English poetry is too direct, this is also closely related to the problem of westernization of the Chinese discussed above. The structure of Western language grammar is more accurate, which has many advantages, such as if you want to write legal documents, of course you want the more accurate the better, and in ancient Chinese philosophy, there are many words that people still can't argue, which is good or bad. If you think of it as a poetic or macroscopic philosophy, sometimes it is better if it is inaccurate.

When we look at a Chinese poem and an English poem, the biggest feeling is that the Western poem is too obvious, everything is told to it, and when the poetry is exhausted, there is no poetry. I think this is closely related to the cultural traditions of the West. Western cultural traditions have long placed special emphasis on accuracy, like Greek geometry is very accurate, for example, the Greeks found that there are only five regular polyhedra, which is a very wonderful portrait, without accurate geometric ideas it is impossible to think of this theorem.

Western poetry is more specific than Chinese poetry, longer than Chinese poetry. Most Western poetry is reasonable, while Chinese poetry is mainly about love. Some people think that the poetry of the Song Dynasty is more reasonable than the poetry of the Tang Dynasty, which is correct, but when compared with Western poetry, Western poetry goes further. Chinese literary forms are basically still mainly lyrical, and it is indeed good that Chinese poetry is mainly lyrical. I don't think it can be too accurate, and if it is too accurate, it can't be said.

Chinese word is a word and a sound, the rhythm can be very clear and accurate, english a word has two syllables, three syllables, therefore, not accurate enough. Chinese characters have a flat entry, which is not found in Western characters. The leveling into the verses is opposed, and the syllables are sonorous, which is not found in Western poetry. Recently, some people have developed new poetry, Chinese the development of new poetry is easier to achieve than the development of English poetry, because although new poetry is liberated from the laws of old poetry, it can create new laws, and it is easier to create new laws, because it is a word and a sound, and at the same time there is a flat entry, if well coordinated, it can form a wonderful structure. [32]

Regarding the new poems, Mr. Yang appreciates Kitajima's works, and according to Li Xin's paraphrase of Kitajima's wife, Gan Qi, Mr. Yang is the "nobleman" of her family. After Kitajima's father was seriously ill and hospitalized, Mr. Yang personally visited him, which led to Kitajima's permission to return to China to visit his family. [33] On March 14, 2001, Mr. Yang wrote a modern poem "To the North Island" in Stony Brook, which I also recorded below:

though

You and I have different preferences,

Different encounters,

Different experiences;

albeit

I'm studying the structure of matter.

You are describing the call of the heart;

And

The role of life that you and I play,

Also appeared on a completely different stage;

But --

I can't, and I can't believe, that we don't have anything in common

Ultimate care!

Mr. Yang is not an absolute rejection of Western poetry, he admires the poems of william Blake, a romantic poet with mystical tendencies in 18th-century Britain, quoting his "naïve prophecy" in "Beauty and Physics", arguing that the "extremely concentrated nature of contemporary physical themes and their all-encompassing characteristics" can be described by such immortal famous sentences:

There is a world in a grain of sand,

There is a paradise in a flower.

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

Eternity is not a momentary time. [34]

Aesthetic taste

Mr. Yang's artistic taste is very high, according to the narrative of Pan Guoju, Weng Fan and others, Mr. Yang can express his unique views on the characteristics of different artists and different genres whenever he goes to museums and art galleries, lingers between different styles of works. Regarding Chinese painting, Mr. Yang believes:

Chinese painting has a glorious history in the tradition of art. The artistic conception of Chinese painting is very different from That of Western painting, and one of the big differences is in the relationship between the individual and nature. Chinese painting is rarely dominated by people. Artistic conception requires people to melt between nature. In comparison, Western painting is almost a celebration of the conflict between man and nature. [35]

The artistic conception pursued by traditional Chinese painting is completely different from that of Western traditional painting, which is an image of "looking at things and taking images", not an image of photography; an image of god, not a shape; an image of "the unity of heaven and man", not an image of praising nature. I think this spirit of thinking comes from the I Ching. [36]

Perhaps influenced by his old friend Xiong Bingming, Mr. Yang pays special attention to the art of sculpture, especially the works of Wu Weishan, who pioneered the freehand sculpture style, believing that he "explores the true meaning of the word 'China' again and again from the long and complex history of China for three thousand years." His sculptures create an exquisite balance between the divine and the physical, and this balance is the foundation of Chinese art. Mr. Yang especially mentioned works such as "Qi Baishi", "Fei Xiaotong", "Queen of the Netherlands", "Untitled", and quoted the feeling of the sculptor who captured the moment when his daughter returned home and created "Spring Wind" - "If there is no poetry in a person's heart, there is no simple emotion, the work will certainly not be touching." Mr. Yang summarized the characteristics of Wu Weishan's sculpture into three words: true, pure and simple, believing that he was "destined to become one of the great sculptors of the 21st century". [37-38]

Most of mr. Yang and his generation of intellectuals admired Lu Xun. In "Remembering Bingming", Mr. Yang said that his friends' articles, poems and sculptures were "all hammered out with a thousand hammers and hammered out", and Lu Xun's head portrait is his masterpiece, "Lu Xun's depth and Lu Xun's stubbornness have all been hammered out by him". Only by visiting the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature and standing in front of the head in the west corner of the museum will we discover how accurate Mr. Yang's use of the word "hammering" is.

It is made of steel, gray-black tone, basically square, the characters are angular, only one eye, half open and half closed. People who have been to the Museum of Modern Literature pay little attention to it, and perhaps some people find it less beautiful, and art critics do not have much opinion. Mr. Yang's observations and interpretations are impressive, and can be called a wonderful art review:

Lu Xun's head was welded with iron sheets, more than two meters high, and placed on a large stone about two-thirds of a meter high. Director Shu Yi said that from the design to the cutting of iron sheets to welding to the final installation, "Mr. Xiong personally did it."

The three-dimensional sense of the avatar is very prominent. Many pieces of iron have created many different surfaces, piece by piece, layer by layer, welded together with welding wires, creating a majestic metal three-dimensional with condensed power - Lu Xun's head. It always impressed me with a melancholy and heavy temperament, keen and deep observation, and an uncompromising spirit.

The avatar faces southeast. I can imagine that when the sun shines, different planes are of course different in light and shade. From the front, there should be many thick lines that outline the face of the avatar. When I think of this, I immediately think of the religious paintings of the French painter Rouault. He used thick lines to outline the realm of compassion and compassion. Lu Xun's head in the sun should also show Lu Xun's deep inner world.

Turning to the back of the head, I saw a passage from the "Weeds and Tomb Texts" engraved by Bingming: "In the midst of the frenzy of Haoge, I was cold; I saw the abyss in the sky." See nothing in all eyes, be saved in hopelessness... When I am in dust, you will see my smile! ”

This is a few sentences that have been read creepily, and it is a condensed lu xun with a truly original taste. Engraved on the head, future generations will never forget the dark era that Lu Xun experienced. I haven't read these words before. Reading today, I can't help but think that if Lu Xun were to come back to life, have the opportunity to observe the earth-shaking changes of the Chinese nation in the more than sixty years after his death, and have the opportunity to look forward to the future world of the next century, what kind of articles he would write? [39]

Taste the style

In his 1983 compilation of English essays[40], Mr. Yang added a short "afterword" to many of the early scientific papers published, describing the background of the paper and some related people and events, almost all of which are beautiful essays. [41] However, my current positioning (and I guess it is also the expectation of the commemorative meeting and the editorial board) is not to talk about Mr. Yang's scientific achievements, and the reading experience of those short articles can only be left to him. On the other hand, I think that Mr. Yang is a scientific master with an artist's temperament, and when studying and commenting on his prose, it is impossible to avoid his praise for the "melody of nature", which is related to his literary accomplishment and aesthetic taste. Therefore, I will focus on the research taste and unique style of the famous scientists discussed by Mr. Yang; to some extent, it can also be regarded as Mr. Yang's "master's own way".

Regarding style, in the afterword to "The Popularization of the Method of Extraction in Hyperlattice Statistical Theory", Mr. Yang recalled his university life and marveled at the good atmosphere of Southwest United University, mentioning that "in every field of creative activity, a person's love and hatred, coupled with his ability, temper and opportunity, determines his style, and this style in turn determines his contribution." He admits that he was influenced by the Fermi style at the University of Chicago, adding that "love and hatred and style are as important to scientific research as they are to literature, art, and music, and that "my preference for certain aspects of physics was formed during my years in Kunming." He then mentions that he learned to appreciate Einstein and Dirac in college, although the two of them had very different styles; he also admired Schrödinger, but "Heisenberg's style did not resonate with me." [42]

In 1986, Mr. Yang gave a lecture at the Graduate School of the University of Science and Technology of China, introducing and commenting on the work of Fermi, Taylor, Oppenheimer, Einstein, Pauli, Heisenberg, Dirac, and Onsage, and also talked about his relationship with most of them. He particularly admired Dirac, saying that his ideas were often different, but the final conclusion was like a "stroke of God". At the end of the speech, Mr. Yang summarized the elements of doing a good job in physics into three P's, that is:

Perception - vision, see what is right to grasp.

Persistence – Persistence, if you see it right, you have to insist.

Power - power, with strength, can pass the level, encounter difficulties you have to break through. [43]

"Beauty and Physics" is probably the most beautiful scientific prose written by Mr. Young, and the article begins with the words of Boltzmann, showing that the master of science has his own unique style like a great musician: a good mathematician or physicist can recognize Cauchy, Gauss, or Helmholtz after reading a few pages; just as a good musician can recognize Mozart, Beethoven, or Schubert after hearing a few syllables. He then focused on the styles of Dirac and Heisenberg, describing Dirac's style with the verse "Autumn Water Articles Do Not Stain Dust", calling him "without any scum, straight to the depths, to the mysteries of the universe." ”

Speaking of the Dirac equation, Mr. Yang said that it was an earth-shattering achievement and an epoch-making milestone, "out of nothing, out of nowhere" pointing out why electrons have spins, why the momentum of the spin angle is 1/2 instead of an integer, and how it led to the bizarre concept of "negative energy", so that the most famous Heisenberg at that time was troubled by his inability to understand the origin of this divine calculation. Mr. Yang borrowed the "sexual spirit" in Chinese literature to describe Dirac's style, and the original text is like this:

I wanted to write down the style of his article to my friends in literature, history, and art, but I never knew how to write it. Last year, I happened to see an article in the "Great Park" column of Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao, which quoted Gao Shi's poem in "Answering Hou Shaofu": "Sex is out of everything, and the wind and bones are extraordinary." I was very pleased and felt that it would be better to describe Dirac's equations and antiparticle theory in these two verses: on the one hand, Dirac's equations are indeed all-encompassing, and the inspiration to describe Dirac with the word "out" is particularly evocative. On the other hand, in the four years after 1928, he ignored the cynicism of Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauli and other great physicists of the time, always adhered to his theory, and finally won a complete victory, just in line with the "wind and bone extraordinary".

But what is a "sexual spirit"? The dictionary interpretation of these two words combined is not pertinent. Intuitively adding up "disposition", "nature", "mind", "soul", "inspiration", "spirit", "ghost", etc. seems to refer to a direct, primitive, unpolished line of thought, which happens to be the spirit of Dirac's equation. It was at this time that Dr. Tong Yuanfang of the University of Chinese in Hong Kong and I talked about an article in the June 1996 issue of Qian Suoqiao in the Twenty-first Century, and I learned about the "sexual spiritualism" of Yuan Hongdao (and later Zhou Zuoren, Lin Yutang, etc.). Yuan Hongdao said that his brother Yuan Zhongdao's poems were "lyrical and informal", which is also characteristic of Dirac's style. "Not flowing from his own chest, refusing to write", and just describes Dirac's originality!

Regarding Heisenberg's style, Mr. Yang wrote: Some people think that Heisenberg is slightly superior to Dirac, because an article in the summer of 1925 led to a great development in quantum mechanics, but his personal aesthetic taste was more inclined to Dirac. Heisenberg is quoted in an interview with the historian of science Kuhn to illustrate the atmosphere before the birth of quantum mechanics:

When climbing a mountain, you want to climb a certain mountain, but often there is fog everywhere... You have a map, or something like that, or some other index, that knows your destination, but still falls into the fog. And then...... Suddenly, vaguely, only for a few seconds, you see some images in the fog, and you say, "Oh, this is the big rock I'm looking for." The whole situation changed from then on, because although you still didn't know if you could climb to the rock, at that moment you said, "I know where I am now." I had to climb close to the boulder and then I knew how to move forward.

Starting from this self-description by Heisenberg, Mr. Yang continues to describe the passion and confusion of the physicists of that era - after the big stone, there are too many landscapes, too many things to do, and then summarizes Heisenberg's style as follows:

All of Heisenberg's articles have one thing in common: hazy, unclear, and dregs, in stark contrast to the style of Dirac's essays. When you read Heisenberg's article, you will marvel at his originality, but you will feel that the problem is not finished, it has not been cleaned, and it must be developed; and after reading Dirac's article, you will also marvel at his originality, but at the same time you will feel that he seems to have developed everything to the end, and there is nothing more to do. [44]

For the reasons why Heisenberg and Dirac's styles are different, Mr. Yang analyzes the connotations of physics from their respective concerns, and believes that on top of the three major categories of physics, namely experimentation, symbolic interpretation and theoretical architecture, there is also a mathematics as the language of theoretical physics, Heisenberg's equations and Dirac's equations are the top contributions in the theoretical architecture, but the two are written in very different ways: Heisenberg's inspiration comes from his understanding of experimental results and image theory, and Dirac's inspiration comes from his intuitive appreciation of mathematical beauty.

In his speech commemorating the centenary of Heisenberg's birth, Mr. Yang also quoted Heisenberg's analogy of mountaineering, and he once again summarized the styles of several physics masters. The text reads:

In ancient Chinese art and literary criticism, there was a tradition of using a few words to describe the unique style of each painter or poet in an impressionistic manner. Now allow me to make a preliminary tentative comparison of these four great physicists in the same way, but in English:

Pauli - power

Fermi – solidity, strength

Heisenberg – Deep Insight

Dirac – Cartesian purity[45]

In 2005, coinciding with the centenary of Einstein's "Year of Miracles", Mr. Yang was invited to give a conference report after the opening ceremony of the 22nd International Congress on the History of Science held in Beijing, and he traced the background before the arrival of the new era of physics, saying that "Einstein had the opportunity to revise the system created by Newton more than two hundred years ago, but this opportunity was of course also open to contemporaries." Einstein's ability to seize the opportunity is related to his vision of "free perception" and "distant perception." He found a word in the book of his friend Pais, Einstein's authoritative biographer: apartness, and felt that it was most appropriate to describe Einstein's style. Mr. Yang writes:

Solitude, distance, and free vision are interrelated features and are a necessary factor in all scientific, artistic, and literary creative activities. [46]

Chen Zhifan wrote a very interesting essay, mentioning that Xiong Bingming once wanted to be a statue of Mr. Yang, but it did not work out. From this, an emotion arose, saying that although you Xiong Bingming has talent, how can you carve in more than seventy years of friendship and understanding of old friends? Presumably, he didn't know how many times he had the knife, how many times he had bent the iron rod, and maybe the portrait had taken shape, but he was still not satisfied with looking left and right. In fact, not only carving, but also science, the most precious may not be sought. [47]

When I started writing this little article, I didn't think about the title. "Flowing clouds and flowing water" and "indifferent and lofty" are all conventional; like Mr. Yang, I am not capable of summarizing the master's style in one word. Seeing that he was about to finish his pen, the "sexual spirit" that Mr. Yang found in Chinese literature suddenly jumped into his mind, which was a word that he thought best summarized the Style of Dirac, and indeed had the taste of "the stroke of God". How could this not be the case with many of the essays written by Mr. Yang? As clear as autumn water, "without any dregs, straight to the depths", the comments do not show axe marks, the narrative cloud is light and breezy, and the lyricism is natural. To borrow Yuan Hongdao's words of praise for his brother - "The situation changes with the situation, and the words are born one by one." [48] This is where the title of this article comes from.

exegesis

[1] Liu Blunt (signed Mengyin), "Ingenious Editing": The Aesthetic Taste of Scientific Masters from the Dawning Collection", Science culture review, No. 1, 2008.

[2] Selected works by Jia Pingwa, Elegant Chinese: Thirty-Two American Texts That Influenced Me (Modern and Contemporary Essay Reader), Tianjin: Hundred Flowers Literary and Art Publishing House, 2005.

[3] Li Xin, "Mr. Yang Zhenning I Know", originally published in Shenzhen Jingbao, March 2-3, 2015; reprinted from Morning Dawn Collection, Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 2018.

[4] Wang Yuanhua and Gao Jianguo, "Dialogue on the Collected Works of Yang Zhenning and Humanistic Care", 2002, unpublished.

[5] Chen Zhifan, "Letter to Mr. Yang Zhenning on February 16, 1997", reprinted from "Joseph's Poems: The Theory of Unified Field", ed. Tong Yuanfang, The Lonely Gallery, Nanjing: Jiangsu Literature and Art Publishing House, 2007.

[6] Yang Zhenning, "Father and Me," Twenty-first Century, December 1997 issue.

[7] Yang Zhenning, "Father and Me", Twenty-first Century, December 1997 issue; this passage is quoted from the English Anthology and Afterword, translated Chinese verse as "Chinese Roots and American Nationality".

[8] Yang Zhenning, "Mother and Me", Dawning Collection, Traditional Chinese Edition, Singapore: World Science and Technology Publishing Company, 2008.

[9] Yang Zhenning, "Remembrance of Bingming," 21st Century, February 2003 issue.

[10] Yang Zhenning, "Deng Jiaxian," 21st Century, June 1993.

[11] Yang Zhenning, "Deng Jiaxian," 21st Century, June 1993 issue.

[12] Liu Blunt (signed Mengyin), "Ingenious Editing": The Aesthetic Taste of Scientific Masters from the Dawn collection," Science culture review, No. 1, 2008.

[13] Speaking of China's nuclear program and the experiences of Deng and Yang, Hu Shenghua restored the historical truth with a serious history of physics, which mentioned that "according to the design of Ye Qisun and others, Deng Jiaxian's burden will most likely be shouldered by Yang Zhenning", and the conclusion is that "Yang Zhenning gave up experimental physics, chose to stay in the United States, and eventually became an outstanding theoretical physicist, and won the Nobel Prize, which is the honor of the world's physics cause and his own glory." He once said that his greatest contribution was to "help change the psychology of Chinese who feel inferior to others", and this great contribution should be able to eliminate most of his feelings of regret. See Hu Shenghua, "Yang Zhenning's Sense of Guilt," Science Network Blog, 2013-06-25, http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-980214-702556.html

[14] Xu Luxi, "Speech at the Banquet Celebrating Mr. Yang Zhenning's 90th Birthday," June 30, 2012, unpublished.

[15] Yang Zhenning, "Chinese Roots and American Origins", originally published in Selected Works and Afterwords in English; reprinted from The Collected Works of Yang Zhenning (Part I), edited by Zhang Dianzhou, Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1998.

[16] This translation is quoted from Yang Zhendong and Yang Cunquan, ed., Yang Zhenning on Reading and Governing Learning (Chapter 3, Section 5, "I Am a Child Born in Common Chinese and Western Cultures"), Guangzhou: Jinan University Press, 1998.

[17] Yang Zhenning, "Review and Prospect of Modern Science Entering China", originally published in The Hong Kong Ming Pao Monthly, October 1993 issue; reprinted from Shuguang Collection, Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 2008.

[18] Yang Zhenning, "Reflections on the Roots", originally published in Democracy and Science, No. 3, 2004; reprinted from Shuguang Collection, Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 2008.

[19] Yang Zhenning, "Deng Jiaxian", Twenty-first Century, June 1993 issue.

[20] Yang Zhenning, "Deng Jiaxian", 21st Century, June 1993 issue.

[21] Yang Zhenning, "Father and Me," Twenty-first Century, December 1997 issue.

[22] Yang Zhenning, "From the Beginning of National Shame", originally published in the supplement of Hong Kong's Ming Pao, July 20, 1997; reprinted from Shuguang Collection, Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 2008.

[23] Yang Zhenning, "Reflections on the Roots", originally published in Democracy and Science, No. 3, 2004; reprinted from Shuguang Collection, Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 2008.

[24] Yang Zhenning, "Speech at the Nobel Prize Ceremony", Chinese translation originally published in Zhang Meiman's compilation of Yang Zhenning on Scientific Development; reprinted from Zhang Dianzhou's Collected Works of Yang Zhenning (Part I), Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1998.

[25] Yang Zhenning, "Foreword", Shuguang Collection, Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 2008.

[26] In addition to "Father and Me" and "Mother and Me", references include: Yang Zhenning, "Modern Physics and Passionate Friendship", originally published in The Hong Kong Monthly Ming Pao, August 1991 issue; reprinted from The Collected Works of Yang Zhenning ( Part 2), edited by Zhang Dianzhou, Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1998; Yang Zhenning, "Preface to the Collected Works of Yu Lihua", reprinted from Zhang Dianzhou's Collected Works of Yang Zhenning (Part I), Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1998; Jiang Caijian, "The Collected Works of Yu Lihua", reprinted from Zhang Dianzhou's Collected Works of Yang Zhenning (Part I), Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1998; Jiang Caijian Biography of Yang Zhenning - The Beauty of Norms and Symmetry (New Revised Edition), Guangzhou: Guangdong Economic Publishing House, 2011; Yang Jianye, Biography of Yang Zhenning (Revised Edition), Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 2012; Yang Zhendong and Yang Cunquan, eds., Yang Zhenning on Reading and Governance, Guangzhou: Jinan University Press, 1998; Cai Tianxin, "Interview with Yang Zhenning: My Life Can Be Counted as a Circle", Legend of Mathematics, Beijing: The Commercial Press, 2016.

[27] Pan Guoju, "Yang Zhenning's Governance and Personality", originally published in Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore, April 13, 1985; reprinted from Pan Guoju et al., eds., "Heavy Evening Sunshine in the World: An Interview with Yang Zhenning Weng Fan", Beijing: Science Press, 2007.

[28] Yang Zhenning, "Space and Time", originally published in The 1970s, Hong Kong, March 1979; reprinted from The Collected Works of Yang Zhenning (Part 1), Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1998.

[29] Yang Zhenning, "Zanchen Class", originally published in Hong Kong,1970s, February 1983; reprinted from Zhang Dianzhou, ed., The Collected Works of Yang Zhenning (Part 1), Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1998.

[30] According to Ling-Lie Chau, professor of theoretical physics and mathematics at the University of California, Davis, reprinted from Zhang Dianzhou, ed., The Collected Works of Yang Zhenning (Part I), Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1998.

[31] Pan Xinghua, "An Interview with Yang Zhenning and Weng Fan", originally published in Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore, July 9, 2006; reprinted from Pan Guoju et al., "The Heavy Evening Sunshine on Earth: An Interview with Yang Zhenning Weng Fan", Beijing: Science Press, 2007.

[32] Pan Guoju and Han Chuanyuan, "Ning Humble No Coincidence: A Conversation with Professor Yang Zhenning", originally published in Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore, January 17, 1988; reprinted from Zhang Dianzhou, ed., The Collected Works of Yang Zhenning (Part 2), Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1998.

[33] Li Xin, "Mr. Yang Zhenning I Know", originally published in Shenzhen Jingbao, March 2-3, 2015; reprinted from Morning Dawn Collection, Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 2018.

[34] Yang Zhenning, "Beauty and Physics", originally published in the Twenty-first Century, April 1997 issue. According to many Chinese translations of this poem, Mr. Yang's article quotes the original English poem, and the annotations at the end of the poem indicate that chen Zhifan's translation is used. His fondness for this verse also influenced his beloved disciple Zhang Shousheng, whose tombstone is engraved on the back of the poem in another Chinese translation, which was modified on the basis of Xu Zhimo's translation: one sand and one world, one flower and one heaven, infinite in the palm of the hand, the moment is eternal.

[35] Yang Zhenning, "My Impressions on Some Social Issues", originally published in Forty Years of Reading and Teaching, Hong Kong: Sanlian Bookstore, 1985; reprinted from Zhang Dianzhou, ed., The Collected Works of Yang Zhenning (Part I), Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1998.

[36] Yang Zhenning, "The Influence of the I Ching on Chinese Culture," originally published in Nature Magazine, No. 1, 2005; reprinted from Shuguang Collection, Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 2008.

[37] Yang Zhenning, "Preface to Wu Weishan's Characteristics of Sculpture"; reprinted from the Ten-Year Edition of The Shuguang Collection, Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 2018.

[38] Yang Zhenning, "Reading Wu Weishan Sculpture: True and Pure." Park", originally published in Guangming Daily, May 9, 2001; reprinted from Shuguang Collection, Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 2008.

[39] Yang Zhenning, "The Museum of Modern Chinese Literature and Lu Xun's Head," Shuguang Collection, Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 2008.

[40] Chen Ning Yang, Selected Papers 1945-1980, With Commentary（即《选集与后记》）, San Francisco: Freeman and Co. 1983.

[41] Mr. Yang's speeches and daily conversations are as clear and natural as his essays, for example, the mathematician Zhang Yitang made a breakthrough in the "twin prime conjecture", like the Goldbach conjecture, which proved extremely difficult and seemed to be understood by everyone, so there were various interpretations. At the 2016 "Qiushi Award Ceremony", Mr. Yang presented Zhang Yitang with an award and briefly introduced his work, he used a "relative prime pair" as a metaphor, and explained the problem clearly in three words and two words, so that Zhang Yitang said, "If I were to introduce it myself, it would certainly not be so good." See Guangming Daily reporter Wang Qinghuai's "Yang Zhenning explains Zhang Yitang's 'twin prime conjecture' in a language that primary school students can understand", Guangming Micro-Education Network, 2016-10-17, https://www.sohu.com/a/116363704_372464

[42] Yang Zhenning, "Remembering My University Life in China", originally published in Selected Works and Afterwords in English; reprinted from The Collected Works of Yang Zhenning (Part 1), edited by Zhang Dianzhou, Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1998.

[43] Yang Zhenning, "The Story of Several Physicists", originally published in Physics Magazine, No. 11, 1986; reprinted from Zhang Dianzhou, ed., The Collected Works of Yang Zhenning (Part 1), Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1998.

[44] The above three quotations are from Yang Zhenning, "Beauty and Physics", originally published in the Twenty-first Century, April 1997 issue.

[45] Yang Zhenning, "Wona Heisenberg", originally published in the Twenty-first Century, April 2002 issue.

[46] Yang Zhenning, "Albert Einstein: Opportunity and Vision," Science and Culture Review, No. 4, 2005.

[47] Chen Zhifan, "Can't Be Carved Out", quoted from Tong Yuanfang, ed., The Lonely Gallery, Nanjing: Jiangsu Literature and Art Publishing House, 2007.

[48] Yuan Hongdao, "Shu Xiao Xiu Poem", quoted in Yuan Hongdao Collected Notes School, Shanghai: Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 1981.

This article is reprinted with permission from the WeChat public account "New Tsinghua", which was originally published in the "Collected Works of Mr. Yang Xiaoning's 100th Birthday" (edited by the Institute for Advanced Study of Tsinghua University).