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"One must enjoy the study of physics, and not let fame and fortune hinder one's life." Mr. Tsung-Dao Lee has written an immortal legend in his nearly 100-year life in physics.

Shanghai Jiao Tong University issued an obituary today that Mr. Tsung-Dao Lee, a world-renowned scientist, Nobel Prize winner in physics, Chinese-American physicist, foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, member of the Third World Academy of Sciences, member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, member of the Italian National Academy of Sciences, lifelong director of the China Advanced Science and Technology Center, honorary professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and honorary director of the Tsung-Dao Lee Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, died at 2:33 a.m. local time on August 4, 2024 at his home in San Francisco, USA, at the age of 97.

In 1957, 31-year-old Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their joint discovery of "parity non-conservation in weak interactions". Tsung-Dao Lee was also one of the first Chinese to win the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Tsung-Dao Lee has been engaged in physics research for a long time and has done a series of milestone work in the fields of particle physics theory, nuclear theory and statistical physics.

At the same time, Tsung-Dao Lee always cared about the scientific education of his motherland. Since 1972, he has returned to China many times to give lectures and offer suggestions. After the reform and opening up, he has spared no effort to promote the progress of China's scientific education, and has made irreplaceable contributions to China's scientific education strategic layout, frontier exploration of high-energy physics, high-level talent training, and international exchanges and cooperation.

Achievements in multiple disciplines

Tsung-Dao Lee was born in Shanghai in 1926. His ancestral home is Suzhou. He studied at Zhejiang University and Southwest Associated University from 1943 to 1945.

At the age of 17, he entered the Department of Chemical Engineering at Zhejiang University, but soon realized that his real interest was in physics. His predecessors in physics, Professors Shu Xingbei and Wang Ganchang, helped him transfer to the Department of Physics. Due to the invasion of the Japanese invaders, he transferred to Southwest Associated University at the age of 19. The following year, Professor Wu Dayou, a famous teacher in the Department of Physics, recommended him to the University of Chicago in the United States. He only studied in college for two years and was accepted as a doctoral student by Nobel Prize winner Professor Fermi without a college diploma. Four years later, the 24-year-old Tsung-Dao Lee received his doctorate and became a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. At the age of 29, he became a professor at Columbia University and was the youngest full professor in the history of the school.

In 1954, Tsung-Dao Lee proposed the "Lee model", which played an important role in exploring the basic issues of quantum field theory. In 1956, he and Chen-Ning Yang proposed the proposition that parity is not conserved in weak interactions. The following year, after experimental verification, they jointly won the Nobel Prize in Physics and the Einstein Science Award.

Since the 1960s, Tsung-Dao Lee has conducted systematic research on non-conservation issues under the combined transformation of positive and negative particle transformations and space reflection. Since the 1970s, he has made pioneering contributions in establishing and developing the quantum theory of solitons, proposing the concept of anomalous nuclear states, establishing and developing random lattice gauge theory, and using time as a discrete dynamics variable to establish discrete dynamics theory. He has published a large number of scientific papers and written scientific monographs such as Field Theory and Particle Physics.

Tsung-Dao Lee has made outstanding achievements in many disciplines, and has won the Nobel Prize in Physics, the Einstein Science Award, the G. Bude Medal, the Galileo Medal, the highest Italian Knight's Medal, the China International Science and Technology Cooperation Award, the New York City Science Award, the Chinese Government Friendship Award, the Japanese Rising Sun Medal, etc. He was selected as the most influential overseas expert in China in the 30 years of reform and opening up (2009) and a Chinese cultural figure (2015). He was also elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World, and the Italian National Academy of Sciences.

In 1994, Tsung-Dao Lee was elected as one of the first foreign academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Accelerate the cultivation of basic research talents in China

With a fervent love for his motherland and a strong desire to serve his country, Tsung-Dao Lee promoted the development of science, technology and education in China. With the outstanding vision of an outstanding scientist, he vigorously promoted the development of high-energy physics in China around the Beijing Electron-Positron Collider; he facilitated the establishment of the "Junior Class" at the University of Science and Technology of China, the establishment of CUSPEA (China-US Joint Entrance Examination for Physics Graduates), suggested the establishment of postdoctoral and National Natural Science Foundation systems, the establishment of the China Center for Advanced Science and Technology, and the establishment of the Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, promoting China's basic research to focus on fundamental scientific issues.

At the beginning of reform and opening up, in order to accelerate the training of basic research talents, Tsung-Dao Lee personally founded and promoted the Sino-US joint training program for physics graduate students, the famous CUSPEA project. These students from CUSPEA have contributed new forces to global physics research and injected the most advanced concepts into China's physics research.

In 1979, the first batch of CUSPEA pilots were selected at Columbia University where Tsung-Dao Lee taught, and the second batch included physics departments from five other universities. In 1980, Tsung-Dao Lee sent more than 200 invitation letters to the deans and professors of physics departments at 53 high-level American universities and received support. "In addition to the regular enrollment plan in the United States, recruiting nearly 100 physics graduate students from a special foreign country every year is unprecedented in American history," said Tsung-Dao Lee. In February 1980, the CUSPEA plan was officially implemented. In the first phase, 127 domestic physics college students were admitted and sent to dozens of American universities to study physics. Until the last batch of students in 1988, the project sent a total of 915 students in 10 years, and 84 top American universities participated in it.

At the "21st Century Physics and China's Development - CUSPEA Scholars Seminar", Tsung-Dao Lee said that in the 10 years since CUSPEA was implemented, no one has taken a backdoor exam. CUSPEA students are all very remarkable. Their grades are among the best in American graduate schools, which has left a very good impression on American universities and laid a good foundation for Chinese students to study in the United States in the future. He also said: "I deeply feel that CUSPEA is meaningful and valuable. In some ways, it is more meaningful than my work on parity non-conservation."

In 1985, Tsung-Dao Lee advocated the establishment of the postdoctoral system and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, which continued to build a force of hundreds of thousands of scientific and technological innovation in my country. In 1998, he initiated the establishment of the Qin Hui-yi and Tsung-Dao Lee China Undergraduate Internship and Training Fund, which selectively cultivated thousands of basic science reserve forces in my country and became an important carrier for the cultivation of innovative talents in my country.

Tsung-Dao Lee's Indissoluble Bond with Shanghai

There is a Tsung-Dao Lee Institute in Shanghai Zhangjiang Science City, and there is also a Tsung-Dao Lee Library in Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Tsung-Dao Lee Institute

As early as 1987, Tsung-Dao Lee was hired as a visiting professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. On May 27, 2009, Tsung-Dao Lee was invited by the president of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Academician Zhang Jie, who is also a physicist, to give a master lecture for teachers and students. During the lecture, he proposed to donate his life-long manuscripts, Nobel medals, scientific and artistic works, and the villa at No. 47 Wanping Road to Jiao Tong University.

Tsung-Dao Lee Library

In 2014, the Tsung-Dao Lee Library was completed at the Minhang campus of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Tsung-Dao Lee delivered a speech via video: "Talented people emerge in every generation, and heroes have always been young. I donated my lifelong collection of scientific documents and research manuscripts to Shanghai Jiao Tong University, hoping that young friends who come to the library can gain inspiration and successfully reach the peak of science."

The Tsung-Dao Lee Collection Room is located on the third floor of the Tsung-Dao Lee Library, which displays more than 1,000 books collected by Lee from the 1950s to this century, including nearly 750 Chinese books such as classic literary works "Dream of the Red Chamber" and "Zizhi Tongjian", and nearly 250 English books such as Lee's personal academic papers and other physics monographs.

Donated by Tsung-Dao Lee

Original Nobel Prize Medal

Tsung-Dao Lee once said: "Science and art are inseparable, like the two sides of a coin." He set an example by personally practicing what he preached. Together with Li Keran, Wu Zuoren, Huang Zhou, Hua Junwu, Wu Guanzhong and many other art masters, he created a total of 21 works of art with deep scientific connotations, such as "Nucleons are as heavy as cows, collisions create new states" and "Infiniteness", all of which are collected in the Tsung-Dao Lee Library. In addition, Tsung-Dao Lee also donated money to establish a science and art lecture fund to support the holding of related series of activities.

Laboratory Building of Tsung-Dao Lee Institute

At the end of 2014, Tsung-Dao Lee proposed to the leaders of the Party and the country to establish an international scientific institute in Shanghai, benchmarking the Bohr Institute, which was established in 1921 and had a major impact on the field of quantum mechanics, to engage in cutting-edge research in physics and astronomy. With the strong support of relevant national ministries and Shanghai and other parties, the Tsung-Dao Lee Institute was established at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in November 2016.

Tsung-Dao Lee once said that "scientific achievements come from young people". As a special research institute established by a university, the Tsung-Dao Lee Institute inherits the spirit of the master and cultivates more and better young people.

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Photo: Data map Editor: Chu Shuting Responsible editor: Jiang Peng

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