China’s scientific community is mourning the death of Nobel-winning physicist Tsung-Dao Lee

“He made great contributions to the development of science and technology, education and talent cultivation in China,” said the deceased.

Born in Shanghai in 1926, he enrolled at the National Che Kiang University (now Zhejiang University) during the turmoil of the war years and in 1945 transferred to the National Southwestern Associated University, an institution founded in from Peking, Tsinghua and Nankai Kunming universities in Yunnan province.

The following year, selected by his teacher for a Chinese government scholarship, he headed to the US where he began his graduate studies at the University of Chicago and was accepted as a doctoral student by Professor Enrico Fermi , who also won the Nobel Prize in physics.

In 2011, when Columbia University — where Lee began in 1953 as an assistant professor and taught for nearly six decades — honored his retirement, the university said the physicist “had be a legend” while he’s at it.

In 1956, Lee was named the youngest university professor and a year later, when he was only 31 years old, he won the Nobel Prize, becoming the second scientist to receive the honor.

In a statement mourning his death, Columbia University said, “His major contribution to his field has had a lasting impact on academic and experimental physics”.

Robert Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atomic bomb, once praised Lee as one of the greatest physicists of his time and said that his discoveries were characterized by “remarkable innovation , flexibility and style”.

Lee received the Nobel Prize as a Chinese citizen before becoming an American in 1962. In 1972, as the geopolitical climate changed and US-China relations warmed, Lee returned to in his country for the first time after 27 years overseas.

Over the years, he visited frequently to give lectures and promote scientific progress in China.

He is remembered by Chinese scientists for his contributions to China’s scientific development, including the China-US Physics Examination and Application Program (CUSPEA), the first international talent exchange program after China’s opening up. .

He started and promoted CUSPEA after being shocked by the fact that China was lagging far behind the world in the field of science and technology. From 1979 to 1989, more than 900 outstanding Chinese physics students were sent to America to receive a first-class education.

In an obituary Monday afternoon, physicist Tang Chao, now a professor at Westlake University and a CUSPEA scholar representative, wrote that the prospective program was “historically significant and changed the course of history. ours”.

He said that the young researchers trained under this project have become leaders and the highest groups in many fields, working in famous universities and research centers in the country and abroad, and to be prominent leaders in the private sector.

Lee went on to help China cultivate top talent by establishing a Special Group for Gifted Youth at the University of Science and Technology of China in Anhui Province in 1978, which trained nearly 2,000 young people.

In the 1980s, he persuaded China’s higher education institutions and research organizations to establish a postdoctoral training system.

After the CUSPEA project ended, Lee turned his attention to the development of Chinese high-energy physics, coordinating between the US and China to promote the development of several large-scale projects.

Wang Yifang, director of the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) in Beijing, recalled Lee’s contribution to boosting high-energy physics in China in an article published in the institute’s official report on Monday.

He linked the success of high energy physics research and China’s success in the past half years to Lee’s efforts, saying that they could not be separated from Lee’s strong support and help everywhere.

“Mr. Lee’s support has never been rhetoric: he has devoted energy and practical action. Because of his position and influence at home and abroad, his role is sometimes was important,” Wang said.