{"id":301750,"date":"2026-01-24T18:43:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T18:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/301750\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T18:43:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T18:43:18","slug":"wilczeks-multiverse-revisiting-the-peaks-of-nobel-laureate-chen-ning-yangs-remarkable-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/301750\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilczek\u2019s Multiverse | Revisiting the peaks of Nobel laureate Chen-ning Yang\u2019s remarkable career"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the latest instalment of his exclusive series for the South China Morning Post, American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek pays tribute to the mathematical beauty of Yang\u2019s contributions. Read his previous articles here<\/a>.Chen-ning (Frank) Yang,<\/a> a towering figure in modern physics<\/a>, died on October 18, 2025 in Beijing, shortly after his 103rd birthday. Let us celebrate his profound contributions to our understanding of the world, his remarkable life and his living legacies.<\/p>\n

The landscape of Yang\u2019s work features many peaks, but two tower above all: the discovery in 1954, together with Robert Mills, of what became known as the Yang-Mills equations; and the Nobel Prize-winning suggestion in 1956, together with Tsung-Dao Lee, that the weak interactions violated parity (left-right) symmetry.<\/p>\n

These were historic achievements and they deserve to be seen that way. Thus inspired, let\u2019s do some sightseeing.<\/p>\n

In 1889 Heinrich Hertz wrote that \u201cthese mathematical formulas have an independent existence and an intelligence of their own, that they are wiser than we are, wiser even than their discoverers, that we get more out of them than was originally put into them\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Chen-ningChen-ning Yang (left) and Tsung-Dao Lee, who together became the first Chinese-born scientists to be awarded the Nobel Prize for physics. Photo: China Project<\/p>\n

For Hertz, this was not a philosophical flourish but a lived truth. James Clerk Maxwell\u2019s system of equations, first set down in 1864, brought electricity, magnetism and light within a single elegant structure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the latest instalment of his exclusive series for the South China Morning Post, American theoretical physicist and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[271],"tags":[60114,1793,148854,77979,381,77983,14589,18,148851,35250,148848,19,148852,17,148849,20500,148853,452,133,2636,77985,148850],"class_list":{"0":"post-301750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-anhui-province","9":"tag-beijing","10":"tag-chen-ning-frank-yang","11":"tag-chien-shiung-wu","12":"tag-china","13":"tag-edward-teller","14":"tag-einstein","15":"tag-eire","16":"tag-electromagnetic","17":"tag-hefei","18":"tag-heinrich-hertz","19":"tag-ie","20":"tag-institute-for-advanced-study","21":"tag-ireland","22":"tag-james-clerk-maxwell","23":"tag-nobel-prize","24":"tag-parity","25":"tag-physics","26":"tag-science","27":"tag-tsinghua-university","28":"tag-tsung-dao-lee","29":"tag-yang-mills-equations"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115951554031342937","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}