www.chinaview.cn 2004-10-22 15:18:47
BEIJING, Oct. 22 (Xinhuanet) -- In September, Yang Zhenning (Yang Chen-ning), 82, a Chinese American Nobel laureate of physics, gave his first lecture to more than 130 freshmen in Qinghua University.
He opened his lecture with these remarks: “I hope you will learn not only physics and calculus this semester, because I also want you to learn some English. I hope by speaking slowly you can understand most of what I say.”
The Nobel laureate's move to open lectures for freshmen in university soon gave rise to a flurry of discussion in the country, where most scholars put researching rather than teaching as their priority. Classrooms, especially those of freshmen in university, are the least expected places to see prominent scholars.
Soon discussions spread on the Internet debating whether a Nobel laureate should spend his time and energy teaching freshmen.
Yang's lecture for the Qinghua freshmen originated from a conversation between him and Zhu Bangfen, dean of the physics department of the university, after he resettled on the campus in December 2003.
“Zhu told me that many prominent professors in the country nowadays were reluctant to give lectures, not to say giving lectures to undergraduates,” Yang remembered during an interview with a reporter from the CCTV, adding that Zhu suggested he give lectures to freshmen to set a model.
Yang was born on Sept. 22, 1922, in Hefei, Anhui Province in eastern China. Brought up in the peaceful and academically inclined atmosphere of the campus of Qinghua University, where his father was a professor of mathematics, Yang received his college education at the National Southwest Associated University in Kunming, southwestern China, and completed his Bachelor of Science degree there in 1942.
He earned his Master of Science degree in 1944 from Qinghua University, which had moved to Kunming during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-1945).
He went to the United States at the end of the war on a Qinghua University fellowship, and entered the University of Chicago in January 1946, where he came under the strong influence of professor E. Fermi.
After receiving his Ph.D. degree in 1948, Yang served for a year at the University of Chicago as an instructor. He started working with the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey from 1949, where he became a professor in 1955.
Yang has worked on various subjects in physics, but has his chief interest in two fields: statistical mechanics and symmetry principles.
In 1957, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Lee Tsung-dao “for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws, which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles.”
Talking about his freshmen lecture, Yang said: “My physics lectures are about basics. Teaching in Qinghua is not a very difficult thing for me. Actually I have high hopes in this matter. I will write an article after a semester's lecture to compare my experience here with that in the State University of New York at Stony Brook. It will not only be about difference between the two schools but also be a good example on difference between the Chinese and Western cultures. I like this teaching job very much, which I believe will not make me too tired.”
Yang was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Academia Sinica, and honored with the Albert Einstein Commemorative Award in 1957. The U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce named him one of the outstanding young men of 1957. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate of the Princeton University, N.J. in 1958.
In 1966, he joined the State University of New York at Stony Brook and became the director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics. He retired in 1999.
“Explanations about basic definitions and formulas are often neglected in our lectures,” a retired professor of Qinghua University said after listening to one of Yang's freshmen lectures.
“Mr. Yang attached importance to the basic things in physics in his lecture. He stressed the relationship between mathematics and physics. He also told the students some important events in the history of physics, giving them much room to think.”
Yang resettled on the Qinghua campus at the end of 2003. He lived for eight years from 1929 to 1937 on the campus when his father taught as a mathematics professor at the university.
“I climbed every tree and studied every single piece of grass (on the campus during those years),” he once said.
“I started a new journey when I returned to Qinghua,” he said. “My main aim is training some young people in the university. Everyone knows that the university has China's most brilliant young people. If I can help usher them onto the right road in their studies and researches, it's a worthy thing to do.”
Summing up his several months of living on the campus, Yang said: “For the past several months I've been immersed in the Chinese culture. Some of the culture I am familiar with, and some of it is new to me. Compared to the China in my childhood, today's China has developed a lot and many things are different. I have had a lot of thinking comparing China with my 50 years in the United States.”
By citing difference in family member relations in China and the United States, Yang said while filial piety had been an important element of the Chinese culture, the Western culture had nothing close to it.
He said filial piety was good and deserved preservation. “Many elements in the Chinese tradition have lasting value,” he said.
Recently, Yang has developed a liking for reading biographies. “When a person reaches 80, the things he or she is concerned with are quite different from those he or she cared about as a young person,” he said.
He cited Qi Baishi, a noted Chinese painter, who used to mark his paintings with “painted at the age of 73” or “painted at the age of 82.”
“When I saw those inscriptions before, I didn't think much about it and thought they represented a hobby of the master. Now when I am over 80, I understand. He wrote them for several reasons. First, he was subconsciously saying I had successfully lived up to age 79. Secondly, he wanted to say the fact that he could make these paintings at age 79 meant he still had a long future,” Yang said.
Yang named his dwelling on the Qinghua campus Return to Roots Chamber. He wrote a poem in ancient Chinese style after he returned to the campus. Part of it translates:
“The nation of China has changed tremendously, and I feel a sacred mission in my native country. As the young students harbor lofty aspirations, I want to be supportive of them as the roots of a tree.”
(Shenzhen Daily)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-10/22/content_2126143.htm
