2007-9-14

Chen Ning Yang was born in Hefei, capital of Anhui Province in China on September 22, 1922. His origin of birth was the original Fengyang Fu in Anhui Province. His father Yang Kechun (style name Wu Zhi) received his mathematics doctorate in the University of Chicago, and served for many years as the Head of Mathematics Department in Tsinghua University and the National South-West Associated University after returning China. From 1938 to1944, Chen Ning Yang had studied in the Department of Physics of the National South-West Associated University, and won his bachelor and master's degrees successively. Yang's bachelor thesis mentor was Wu Dayou, and his master's thesis mentor was Wang Zhuxi. In 1945, he went to the United States to study, and won his philosophy doctorate of the University of Chicago in 1948. From 1958 to 1979, he was granted science doctorate by Princeton University and other 5 institutions in Poland and the United States. He successively served as a senior researcher of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and professor at Princeton University. He is also one member of the American Academy of Science and the British Royal Society. Since 1966, he had served as Chair Professor and Director of the Albert Einstein Institute of Theoretical Physics of the State University of New York, Stony Brook (SB). On May 21, 1999, he made his official retirement. On the same day, the State University of New York, Stony Brook (SB) named the Institute of Theoretical Physics as " Chen Ning Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics". In the same year, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the school.

In 1956, Chen Ning Yang and Tsung Dao Lee jointly proposed the Parity Nonconservation Theory in Weak Interaction, thus won the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics. This theory has completely changed the human's understanding of symmetry, and has opened a new horizon for people to correctly understand the world of microscopic particles. The Non-Abelian Gauge Field Theory he proposed greatly facilitates the research of the four basic interactions. He has done a lot of pioneering work in particle physics. Besides, Chen Ning Yang is also a pioneer and founder in statistical physics, condensed matter physics, quantum field theory, mathematical physics, and many other important research areas.