C.N. Yang: Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Defined Stony Brook’s Scientific Excellence

Chen-Ning Yang, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who founded Stony Brook University's globally renowned Institute for Theoretical Physics, died on October 18at the age of 103.

During his 33 years on Stony Brook's campus and for the many decades following as professor emeritus, Yang was a powerful force propelling the University's rapid rise to global distinction. He joined Stony Brook in 1966 as one of its early faculty members, and his appointment was a beacon attracting other exceptional faculty and students. Moreover, his enduring influence includes substantial, lasting scholarly relationships between Stony Brook and China.

"The world has lost one of the most influential physicists of the modern era, and Stony Brook has lost a revered friend, visionary and former faculty leader," said Stony Brook University President Andrea Goldsmith. "C.N. Yang's profound intellect, generous spirit and endless curiosity formed the foundation of the University's current excellence in theoretical physics and the sciences more generally. His legacy will continue through his transformational impact on the field of physics and through the many colleagues and students influenced by his teaching, scholarship and mentorship."

A Nucleus of Stony Brook's Strength

Stony Brook University's founding president, John Toll, recruited Yang to Stony Brook from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton as the Albert Einstein Professor of Physics and founding director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics, which now bears his name. President Toll's vision was to create a public university unrivaled in the sciences, and Yang was an essential catalyst to achieve that aim.

Today, Stony Brook is celebrated as one of this nation's most successful agents of social mobility and as an elite research university. One of the youngest members of the prestigious Association of American Universities, members of Stony Brook's faculty have received the Nobel, Abel, Breakthrough, MacArthur Foundation and Pulitzer Prizes among many other distinguished accolades.

Toll's recruitment "came completely out of the blue," Yang said in an interview decades later. "It was a difficult decision. I had asked myself many times whether the decision was correct, and my answer has always been, 'It is correct.' I think that my coming to Stony Brook opened a new chapter of my life. I think it's a rewarding chapter."

Yang's work revolutionized the field of particle physics, and his impact on our understanding of the nature of the universe is compared to that of Einstein, Dirac, and others. In 1957, Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee received the Nobel Prize for their work on the weak interaction, which describes the radioactive decay of atoms. The Yang-Mills Theory reshaped the development of physics and modern geometry in the second half of the 20th century. Today, Yang-Mills-Higgs equations are used by scholars to describe particle interactions.

"C.N. Yang was the piece of the puzzle that set Stony Brook on its trajectory. His recruitment, less than a decade after he won the Nobel Prize, brought our campus onto the global stage and let the world know this University was committed to becoming a world-class institution," said Richard Gelfond '76, Stony Brook Foundation Board of Trustees Chair.

The C.N. Yang Institute of Theoretical Physics

Since its launch nearly 60 years ago with C.N. Yang as its director, the C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics (YITP) has been conducting world-leading research and has grown in stature and size. The Institute has been highly successful in attracting federal and foundation funding, with current major grants from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Simons Foundation, and the Heising-Simons Foundation. YITP is now home to 12 faculty, 30 graduate students, and seven postdoctoral fellows.

Among the many notable achievements of YITP's faculty is Peter Van Nieuwenhuizen's work with colleagues developing the highly influential theory of supergravity, which successfully integrates the force of gravity into a particular kind of quantum field theory. His work was awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2019. Following Yang's directorship from 1966 to 1999, Van Nieuwenhuizen led the Institute until 2002 and is now a Distinguished Professor Emeritus and the Yang Lecturer at YITP.

The Yang Institute of Theoretical Physics is currently led by its third director, George Sterman, extending the Institute's long-term focus on quantum field theory. Sterman is widely recognized for his work in quantum chromodynamics and has developed theorems used to interpret high-energy collisions.

'I tell my students, the structure of everything oftentimes has a hidden beauty in it. If you can sense vaguely some of this beauty, do not let go.' - C.N. Yang

Today's internationally recognized faculty also include Professors Alexander B. Zamolodchikov, Leonardo Rastelli, Robert Shrock and Martin Rocek. Professor Zamolodchikov, the C.N. Yang-Wei Deng Professor of Theoretical Physics, shared the 2024 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for his profound contributions to statistical physics and quantum field theory. Professor Rastelli is the Renaissance Chair in Theoretical Physics with research interests at the intersection of string theory and quantum field, and Distinguished Professor Rocek's foundational work on superspace and supergravity, and Shrock's on the physics of neutrinos, helped build our current understanding of those fields.

Sterman, who was hired by C.N. Yang and considered him a mentor, said of Yang: "His leadership and profound intellectual curiosity set the tone and pace for the Institute. He did not dictate the direction of our investigations, but his personal example - his unmatched drive for discovery - established a benchmark that all of us continue to strive for today."

Yang and Jim Simons: An Auspicious Friendship

Another seminal faculty leader hired by President Toll was James Simons, who came to Stony Brook in 1968 to chair the University's Mathematics Department. Simons, whose imaginative force mirrored Yang's, won the United States' top mathematical prize in 1976, in part for work that relates to the Yang-Mills theory.

"When I came to Stony Brook, [Yang] was good enough to tell me some of the things that he was doing," Simons said. "At a certain point, I realized that what he was doing involved mathematics very similar to what I was doing."

Yang and Simons quickly forged a close friendship and long-term working relationship. The two scholars discovered their shared interest in a mathematical concept called fiber bundles, then an emerging area of geometry which they discovered to have important implications for theoretical physics. Their scholarly collaboration is credited with bringing math and physics together and deepening our understanding of the physical universe and its basic mathematical structure.

After Simons left the University, much of his transformative philanthropy at Stony Brook was directed to areas inspired by his work with and admiration for Yang. For nearly two decades, Simons and the Simons Foundation have generously supported the work of the Yang Institute of Theoretical Physics, providing invaluable assets to recruit globally eminent faculty and jump-start the work of promising graduate students and early career scholars.

Their academic partnership ultimately inspired Simons' gift to create the renowned Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, which opened at Stony Brook in 2010. The YITP maintains a close and mutually beneficial relationship with the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, enhancing research and education at the intersection of disciplines.

Spurring Global Scholarship and Friendships

C.N. Yang used his extraordinary influence to create lasting relationships between China and the United States. As China's first Nobel Laureate and its first renowned scientist to visit China in the early 1970s, when U.S.-Sino relations began to ease, he set in motion decades of deep academic partnerships and meaningful friendships.

Yang's exalted status in China served as a magnet, attracting many gifted students and scholars to Stony Brook. Furthermore, Stony Brook is honored to have numerous academic partnerships in China, including Tsinghua University, Peking University, Nanjing University, the University of Science and Technology of China, and Xi'an Jiaotong University, among others.

Yang's commitment to international friendship extended to inspiring the philanthropic support of Stony Brook's Chinese alumni and friends. For example, Chinese business leader Wei Deng, founder and chair of Bright Oceans Corporation, established an endowed chair at Stony Brook in Yang's honor.

The C.N. Yang-Deng Wei Endowed Chair in Physics and Astronomy is held by and was central to Stony Brook's recruitment of YITP Professor Zamolodchikov. His 2017 investiture ceremony in Beijing drew more than 100 people from China, including Yang. As Professor Zamolodchikov remarked at the ceremony, "I take it as an extraordinary honor to accept the position associated with the name of C.N. Yang, whose status in theoretical physics is nothing short of legendary."

"When planning for a year, plant corn.
When planning for a decade, plant trees.
When planning for life, train and educate people."

~ Chinese Proverb