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Elementary Particles: A Short History of Some Discoveries in Atomic Physics
When in 1957 Chen Ning Yang, with his colleague Tsung Dao Lee, suggested that, in layman's words, the right- and left-handed basic constituents of matter behaved differently, and when experiment confirmed that the laws of nature do distinguish between a system and its mirror image, our knowledge of fundamental physical principles took one of the sudden turns which have characterized its history. Dr. Yang's approach is topical and reflective as he reviews the history of our knowledge of the infinitesimal components that make up the atom. Throughout the book he gives special emphasis to the interplay between the theoretical and experimental aspects of the subject. This approach makes the reader keenly aware of the nature of work in this field, at once full of excitements and frustrations, inspiration and disappointment. The discoveries of the elementary particles are described and illustrated, and a fold-out chart at the end of the book provides a complete list of the particles and their properties for ready reference.
68 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1963
About the author
Chen Ning Yang
27 books5 followersChen Ning Yang, byname Frank Yang is a Chinese theoretical physicist whose research with Tsung-Dao Lee showed that parity—the symmetry between physical phenomena occurring in right-handed and left-handed coordinate systems—is violated when certain elementary particles decay. Until this discovery it had been assumed by physicists that parity symmetry is as universal a law as the conservation of energy or electric charge.
In the year 1957, Yang was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics along with Tsung-Dao Lee "for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles".
Yang’s father, Yang Ko-chuen (also known as Yang Wu-chih), was a professor of mathematics at Tsinghua University, near Peking. While still young, Yang read the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and adopted “Franklin” as his first name. After graduation from the Southwest Associated University, in K’unming, he took his B.Sc. in 1942 and his M.S. in 1944. On a fellowship, he studied in the United States, enrolling at the University of Chicago in 1946. He took his Ph.D. in nuclear physics with Edward Teller and then remained in Chicago for a year as an assistant to Enrico Fermi, the physicist who was probably the most influential in Yang’s scientific development. Lee had also come to Chicago on a fellowship, and the two men began the collaboration that led eventually to their Nobel Prize work on parity. In 1949 Yang went to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and became a professor there in 1955. He became a U.S. citizen in 1964.
Yang is known for, amoung other things:
Landau–Yang theorem
Parity violation
Yang–Mills theory
Yang–Baxter equation
Byers-Yang theorem
In the year 1957, Yang was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics along with Tsung-Dao Lee "for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles".
Yang’s father, Yang Ko-chuen (also known as Yang Wu-chih), was a professor of mathematics at Tsinghua University, near Peking. While still young, Yang read the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and adopted “Franklin” as his first name. After graduation from the Southwest Associated University, in K’unming, he took his B.Sc. in 1942 and his M.S. in 1944. On a fellowship, he studied in the United States, enrolling at the University of Chicago in 1946. He took his Ph.D. in nuclear physics with Edward Teller and then remained in Chicago for a year as an assistant to Enrico Fermi, the physicist who was probably the most influential in Yang’s scientific development. Lee had also come to Chicago on a fellowship, and the two men began the collaboration that led eventually to their Nobel Prize work on parity. In 1949 Yang went to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and became a professor there in 1955. He became a U.S. citizen in 1964.
Yang is known for, amoung other things:
Landau–Yang theorem
Parity violation
Yang–Mills theory
Yang–Baxter equation
Byers-Yang theorem
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