OCPA mourns the passing of Dr. Chen-Ning Yang
Dr. Chen-Ning Yang, a world-renowned physicist, Nobel Prize laureate in Physics, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, professor at Tsinghua University, and honorary director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Tsinghua University, passed away at 12:00 on October 18, 2025, in Beijing due to illness, at the age of 103.
Dr. Chen-Ning Yang was born in Hefei, Anhui Province in 1922 and moved with his parents to Tsinghua Garden in 1929. In 1938, he was admitted to the National Southwestern Associated University. He entered the Tsinghua University Graduate School in 1942, earning a Master of Science degree in 1944. In 1945, as a Tsinghua University government-sponsored student to study abroad in the United States, he enrolled at the University of Chicago, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1948 and subsequently remained at the university for postdoctoral work. In 1949, he joined the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, becoming a permanent member in 1952 and a professor in 1955. In 1966, he was appointed as the Einstein Professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he founded the Institute for Theoretical Physics (now known as the C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics) and worked there until 1999. Since 1986, he has been invited to serve as a Distinguished Chair Professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. From 1997, he has held the position of Honorary Director of the newly established Tsinghua University Center for Advanced Study (now renamed as the Institute for Advanced Study), and since 1999, he has been a professor at Tsinghua University.
Dr. Chen-Ning Yang is one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century, having made extraordinary contributions to the development of modern physics. The "Yang-Mills gauge theory," which he proposed with Mills, laid the foundation for the Standard Model of particle physics and is regarded as one of the cornerstones of modern physics—a fundamental physical theory comparable in importance to Maxwell's equations and Einstein's theory of general relativity. In collaboration with Dr. Tsung-Dao Lee, he proposed the revolutionary idea of parity nonconservation in weak interactions, for which they were jointly awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics, becoming the earliest Nobel laureates of Chinese ethnicity. He also discovered the key equation for one-dimensional quantum many-body problems, known as the "Yang-Baxter equation," opening new directions of research in statistical physics and quantum groups, among other fields in physics and mathematics. His numerous achievements across various domains of physics—including particle physics, field theory, statistical physics, and condensed matter physics—have had a profound and lasting impact on the development of these disciplines. He has been elected as a foreign member of academies of sciences in more than ten countries and regions and has received honorary doctoral degrees from over twenty renowned universities worldwide. Among his many honors are the U.S. National Medal of Science, the Franklin Medal, the Lars Onsager Prize, the King Faisal International Prize in Science, the China International Science and Technology Cooperation Award, and the Qiu Shi Lifetime Achievement Award.
Dr. Chen-Ning Yang maintained a lifelong devotion to his homeland and made outstanding contributions to China's scientific and educational endeavors. In 1971, he made his first visit to the People's Republic of China, sparking a wave of visits by oversea Chinese scholars and earning recognition as the pioneer in building academic bridges between China and the United States. Later, he proposed to central leadership the restoration and strengthening of basic scientific research. He personally raised funds to establish the "Committee for Educational Exchange with China," which consistently supported nearly a hundred Chinese scholars for advanced studies in the United States—scholars who would later become key figures in China's technological development. He dedicated extensive efforts to promoting domestic scientific exchange and progress, providing advice and exerting significant influence on major scientific projects and the formulation of science and education policies in China. His returning to China and work in China has had a profound impact on the reform and development of higher education in China.
Dr. Chen-Ning Yang has been a long-standing supporter of OCPA since the establishment of OCPA in the 90’s. He served as a panelist for the OCPA Awards and a plenary speaker and advisory committee member at numerous OCPA conferences. His support and advices were invaluable to the development of OCPA. OCPA mourns the loss of Dr. Chen-Ning Yang and expresses deep condolences to his family, friends and colleagues.