Westlake University's Huxin Lecture Series, in partnership with the Academy of Chinese Culture, included a special event on May 27 at its Yungu campus in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province, paying tribute to renowned physicist and Nobel laureate Chen-Ning Yang.

The event, entitled "Chen-Ning Yang and His World: Edge, Luck, Conflict and Fusion", was the second lecture of the Academy of Chinese Culture and Westlake University's special "Tang Yijie Lectures for Contemporary Scholars". 

Chen Fong Ching, academician and Senior Chair Professor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, was the keynote speaker at the event.

Chen Fong Ching, academician and Senior Chair Professor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, delivers the keynote speech at the second lecture of the "Tang Yijie Lectures for Contemporary Scholars" at Westlake University in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province on May 27, 2023. [Photo provided to ezhejiang.gov.cn]

"In terms of academic style, Yang is very unique," Chen told the audience. "He is eclectic and can freely switch back and forth between completely different ways of thinking."

Born near the Yangtze River Delta region in China in 1922, Yang travelled to the United States to study and teach in the 1940s. In 1957, he and Tsung-Dao Lee won the Nobel Prize in Physics for proposing the principle of parity non-conservation in weak interactions.

His "Yang-Mills Gauge Field Theory" is one of the most important achievements in physics in the 20th century.

In 2003, Yang returned to China to live and teach with a mission to promote academic exchange between China and the world.

Cai Ronggen, theoretical physicist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, speaks at the second lecture of the "Tang Yijie Lectures for Contemporary Scholars" at Westlake University in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province on May 27, 2023. [Photo provided to ezhejiang.gov.cn]

Other speakers at the event included Cai Ronggen, a theoretical physicist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. 

Cai recalled listening to Yang speak at the 40th anniversary celebration of the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in June 2018.

"He expressed hope that the Institute of Theoretical Physics would carry forward the fine traditions of the past and make new contributions to the new world of theoretical physics," Cai said.

"He pointed out that all outstanding young people in theoretical physics hope to do better in choosing new directions and new topics and contribute to the development of theoretical physics."

A panel of experts speak at the second lecture of the "Tang Yijie Lectures for Contemporary Scholars" at Westlake University in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province on May 27, 2023. [Photo provided to ezhejiang.gov.cn]

Pan Jianwei, a quantum physicist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was also a guest speaker.

Pan explained that Yang played a major role in his own career. Under Yang's guidance, Pan went to Heidelberg University in Germany in 2003 to carry out research and would later return to the University of Science and Technology of China in 2008.

"It was he who urged me to return to China to pursue my work," Pan recalled.