Contents
Tsung-Dao Lee
Helping reveal that weak interactions do not obey mirror symmetry.
Parity investigation · Physics Nobel
- Born
- 24 November 1926
- Birthplace
- Shanghai, China
- Died
- 4 August 2024
More people
Tsung-Dao Lee
Tsung-Dao Lee was a Chinese-American physicist who shared the 1957 Nobel Prize with Chen Ning Yang.
Early life
Education during war
Studied in China during the disruption of the Second World War.
Chicago doctorate
Completed doctoral research under Enrico Fermi.
Career
- 1950s
American institutions
Worked in several research centres before joining Columbia University.
- 1956
Parity research
With Yang, proposed tests of an unverified symmetry assumption.
- 1957 onward
Columbia career
Continued research across particle and statistical physics.
Contributions
Parity investigation
Showed that evidence for parity conservation in weak interactions was lacking.
Physics Nobel
Shared the prize following experimental confirmation of parity violation.
Particle theory
Worked on fields including high-energy and many-body physics.
Beyond physics
Scientific exchange
Helped establish programmes allowing Chinese students to pursue physics study in the United States.
Art and science
Encouraged connections between scientific ideas and artistic expression.
Sources & photo credit
Life, career and references ↗Nobel Prize: award and biography ↗Photo: Nobel foundation. Public domain · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
