"My life can be said to form a circle" — An interview with Nobel laureate Professor Chen-Ning Yang

Abstract

Editor's note: Chen-Ning Yang (杨振宁, 1 October 1922 –), or C.N. Yang or by the English name Frank Yang received the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics with Tsung-Dao Lee for their work on parity non-conservation of weak interaction. Yang and Robert Mills also proposed the non-abelian gauge theory, widely known as the Yang–Mills theory. Yang and Baxter found the Yang–Baxter equation that plays an important role in integrable models and has influenced several branches of physics and mathematics. Professor C.N. Yang is not only a great physicist, but also an outstanding educator and a thoughtful philosopher. This edited interview was conducted in 2014 by the author. Parts of the Chinese version were published in a few Chinese newspapers and magazines at the time. This English version, translated by Tyler Ross from New York, USA, provides readers worldwide with an opportunity to share and understand Professor Yang's long-lasting successful journey and thoughts on scientific preparation and innovation, cross-disciplinary integration, and effective collaboration, in particular how Yang's in-depth understanding and appreciation of mathematics in his successes in physics. This interview is also to celebrate Professor Yang's 101st birthday and his public speech at Zhejiang University in China in 2014.

Keywords

• chen-ning yang
• interview
• nobel laureates
• scientific preparation
• cross-disciplinary integration
• effective collaboration