| 1 | Name: | Dr. Chen Ning Yang | |
| Institution: | State University of New York | ||
| Year Elected: | 1964 | ||
| Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 106. Physics | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1922 | ||
At age 35, Chinese-American physicist Chen Ning Yang was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Tsung-Dao Lee, for the theory that weak force interactions between elementary particles do not have parity (mirror reflection) symmetry. He is also well known for his collaboration with Robert Mills in developing a gauge theory of a new class; such "Yang-Mills" theories are now a fundamental part of the standard model of particle physics. Born in China, Dr. Yang received his Master of Science degree from Tsinghua University and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where he worked with Edward Teller and Enrico Fermi. In 1949 he moved to the Institute for Advanced Study and in 1965 to the State University of New York, Stony Brook, where he served as Albert Einstein Professor of Physics until his retirement (now Emeritus) in 1999, when he returned to Tsinghua University. Dr. Yang is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His many honors include the National Medal of Science (1986) and the King Faisal International Prize (2001). In 1993 Dr. Yang was presented with the American Philosophical Society's Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences. The citation read "for profound and original contributions to physics - especially the discovery of the non-conservation of parity and of non-Abelian gauge fields which laid the foundations for new intellectual structures - and a love of mathematical beauty which helped him reveal the mysterious working of nature." | |||