Yang Chen-Ning and Particle Physics

What significant law of physics did Yang Chen-Ning question in his research on particle interactions?

In which year did Yang Chen-Ning and Tsung-Dao Lee publish their breakthrough paper on the fallibility of conservation of parity?

Which experiment was conducted to test Yang Chen-Ning and Tsung-Dao Lee's hypothesis about conservation of parity?

Which university did Yang Chen-Ning attend for his PhD in nuclear physics?

What was the primary focus of Yang Chen-Ning's research after moving to Princeton in 1949?

Yang Chen-Ning's Contributions to Particle Physics

Yang Chen-Ning was a Chinese-born theoretical physicist who revolutionized particle physics.
He received a Nobel Prize in Physics for his groundbreaking research on subatomic decay.
He earned a PhD in nuclear physics from the University of Chicago.
In 1949, he moved to Princeton to study subatomic decay.
Subatomic decay is the transformation of one subatomic particle into others.
The principle of conservation of parity states that different directions in particle interactions are indistinguishable.

Questioning the Conservation of Parity

Yang questioned the law of conservation of parity for certain “weak” interactions.
He collaborated with Tsung-Dao Lee in 1956.
Their research proposed that conservation of parity does not apply to certain weak interactions like radioactive decay.
They suggested an experiment to test their proposition.

Experiment and Nobel Prize

Chien-Shiung Wu conducted an experiment that confirmed Yang and Lee's hypothesis.
Yang and Lee's work on weak interactions and the experimental verification earned them the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1957.

Other Contributions and Achievements

In 1954, Yang and Robert Mills proposed the Yang-Mills theory on elementary particles.
Yang later became the director of the theoretical physics research center at Stony Brook University in 1965.

Explore the landmark contributions of Yang Chen-Ning to particle physics, including his questioning of the conservation of parity. This quiz covers his Nobel Prize-winning research and the significant experiments led by collaborators like Chien-Shiung Wu. Test your knowledge on the evolution of theories in subatomic physics and their implications.