Chinese Nobel Prize-winning physicist Chen Ning Yang delivers a speech at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, on April 14, 2014. (Chinatopix via AP)
Renowned Chinese physicist Chen Ning Yang, who won the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics, died of illness in Beijing on Saturday, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.He was 103-years-old.The prestigious Tsinghua University, where he studied and served as a professor, paid tribute to him in a statement.“His life stands as a timeless chapter in human history—one that shines not only for China but for the global community of thinkers and innovators. His legacy will live on forever” the statement said. The eldest of five siblings, Yang, along with fellow theoretical physicist Lee-Tsung Dao, was jointly awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on parity laws. Their research led to ground-breaking discoveries about elementary particles – the fundamental building blocks of matter.Three years earlier, Yang, also known as Franklin or Frank, co-authored a set of equations with American physicist Robert Mills. The resulting Yang-Mills theory described how three of nature’s four fundamental forces — the electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions — operate in the subatomic world. The Yang-Mills theory also laid the mathematical foundation for what came to be known as the Standard Model, which unifies these forces and explains the behaviour of all known elementary particles. In addition to his ground-breaking research, Yang was a prolific author, with numerous articles published in journals including the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, Physical Review, Reviews of Modern Physics, and the Chinese Journal of Physics.
