8 ms·
Tsung-Dao Lee, physicist who challenged a law of nature, has died
- toomuchtodo 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsung-Dao_Lee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsung-Dao_Lee
- Koshkin 2y agoI wonder if the autograph in this copy of a T.D.'s book is real. https://www.amazon.com/Symmetries-Asymmetries-Particles-Jessie-Lectures/dp/0295965193 https://www.amazon.com/Symmetries-Asymmetries-Particles-Jess...
- neonate 2y agohttps://archive.ph/7Gtuz https://archive.ph/7Gtuz
- toomuchtodo 2y agoRelated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41173850 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41173850
- dang 2y agoWe'll merge that thread hither since this one is currently on the frontpage. Thanks!
- CHB0403085482 2y agoRIP Dr Lee....
- dredmorbius 2y agoNPR Obit (from an earlier submission): <https://www.npr.org/2024/08/06/nx-s1-5065675/chinese-american-physicist-tsung-dao-lee-dies https://www.npr.org/2024/08/06/nx-s1-5065675/chinese-america...>
- Jun8 2y agoChien-Shiung Wu, who conducted the experiment that proved Lee’s (and Yang’s) theory didn’t share the Nobel Prize with them in 1956. When I read people lamenting the fact that Rosalind Franklin didn’t get the Nobel due to sexism I wonder why Wu is not mentioned. For more information on the circumstances see https://physicsworld.com/a/overlooked-for-the-nobel-chien-shiung-wu/ https://physicsworld.com/a/overlooked-for-the-nobel-chien-sh...
- zem 2y agoI believe a large part of it is that DNA is a famous discovery, and lots of people have heard of the double helix story. far fewer would know about Lee and Yang or understand the first thing about what they discovered.
- sampo 2y ago> the fact that Rosalind Franklin didn’t get the Nobel due to sexism The primary reason why Rosalind Franklin didn't get a Nobel is that she died in 1958. It's maybe not easy to speculate what would have happened in the alternate timeline where she had lived until the Nobel nominations started to happen.
- KingMob 2y agoFor those unaware: the Nobel is not awarded posthumously.
- dekhn 2y agoThe primary reason Franklin didn't get the Nobel is that she didn't contribute the key component of the discovery: that DNA is a double helix that is antiparallel.
- ioblomov 2y agoIn his memoir of their discovery, The Double Helix, James Watson suggests that, had Franklin not died due to cancer a few years after their ground-breaking research, she might have shared their Nobel. He further speculates that since her protege Aaron Klug later won the Nobel in chemistry for his X-ray crystallography work (techniques she introduced him to), it wouldn't be far-fetched to imagine her having been a double laureate.
- thbb123 2y agoThis headline would suggest Tsung-Dao Lee challenged the law of gravity by jumping from a building and failing to make his point.
- g15jv2dp 2y agoI don't think anybody understood the headline like that.
- dwighttk 2y agoThat was my first thought… I thought it was silly, but it was my first thought.
- throw310822 2y agoAnd the lesson is.. never challenge a law of nature. Also, this comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL8chWFuM-s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL8chWFuM-s
- dessimus 2y agoOne might even say: He fought the law, and the law won.
- dghughes 2y agoYeah that headline is bonkers. As if there were a duel and Lee lost.
- perihelions 2y agoFeynman wrote a exceptionally clear explanation of this experiment and what it meant: - "To illustrate the whole problem still more clearly, imagine that we were talking to a Martian, or someone very far away, by telephone. We are not allowed to send him any actual samples to inspect; for instance, if we could send light, we could send him right-hand circularly polarized light and say, “That is right-hand light—just watch the way it is going.” But we cannot give him anything, we can only talk to him. He is far away, or in some strange location, and he cannot see anything we can see. For instance, we cannot say, “Look at Ursa major; now see how those stars are arranged. What we mean by ‘right’ is …” We are only allowed to telephone him." - "Now we want to tell him all about us. Of course, first we start defining numbers, and say, “Tick, tick, two, tick, tick, tick, three, …,” so that gradually he can understand a couple of words, and so on. After a while we may become very familiar with this fellow, and he says, “What do you guys look like?” We start to describe ourselves, and say, “Well, we are six feet tall.” He says, “Wait a minute, what is six feet?” Is it possible to tell him what six feet is? Certainly! We say, “You know about the diameter of hydrogen atoms—we are 17,000,000,000 hydrogen atoms high!” That is possible because physical laws are not invariant under change of scale, and therefore we can define an absolute length. And so we define the size of the body, and tell him what the general shape is—it has prongs with five bumps sticking out on the ends, and so on, and he follows us along, and we finish describing how we look on the outside, presumably without encountering any particular difficulties. He is even making a model of us as we go along. He says, “My, you are certainly very handsome fellows; now what is on the inside?” So we start to describe the various organs on the inside, and we come to the heart, and we carefully describe the shape of it, and say, “Now put the heart on the left side.” He says, “Duhhh—the left side?” Now our problem is to describe to him which side the heart goes on without his ever seeing anything that we see, and without our ever sending any sample to him of what we mean by “right”—no standard right-handed object. Can we do it?" https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_52.html https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_52.html
- Modified3019 2y ago“Try to teach an alien on a telephone about left and right” actually sounds like a fun game to try with a class full of kids. I would solve this particular circumstance by using the andromeda galaxy (“the closest galaxy”) as a reference, but it definitely stumped me for a bit.
- netdevnet 2y agoIs it just me or does anyone also get this odd feeling when people use phrases like "challenged a law of nature". Makes it sound like he did something that is physically impossible when he actually attempted something that was believed to be impossible or highly unlikely
- teleforce 2y agoYes, it's not only you, it'll less confusing and more accurate statement should be who challenged the understanding of natural laws but then the headline would not be sensational. Anything that challenged law of nature can be considered miracles for biblical examples the creation of Adam and Eve without parents, and Jesus virgin birth.
- pnut 2y agoWell he ended up dying, so the lesson is clearly, be careful who you challenge.
- KwisatzHaderack 2y ago> Lee became Dr. Fermi’s sole doctoral student in theoretical physics, meeting with him every week. It was an extraordinary learning experience, partly because of Dr. Fermi’s teaching technique, which Dr. Lee explained in the 2007 interview with the Nobel Institute. “‘You see,’ he said, ‘there are things that I would like to know,’” Dr. Lee recalled Dr. Fermi saying. “‘Lee, why don’t you look up and give me a lecture next week.’” “I was very happy to teach Fermi,” Dr. Lee added. “Of course, this is an excellent way of building the student’s confidence. And then he would ask me questions and I would have to answer.” Was fascinated by this. His advisor, Fermi, made Lee teach him stuff, not the other way around!
- lokimedes 2y agoPope without pontification!
- Koshkin 2y agoIndeed, Fermi was called "the Pope of physics." Fermi’s “intuito fenomenale” — phenomenal intuition — and his near infallibility in predicting the results of experiments were characteristics that prompted colleagues at the University of Rome to designate him “the Pope.”
- busyant 2y ago> Fermi, made Lee teach him stuff, not the other way around! In grad school, one of my profs said something to the effect of, "We expect you to aggressively eradicate any ignorance you have on the whatever papers we assign to you before lecture." Then we were Socratically interrogated in lecture. For me, it was a great way to learn, even if I'm not remotely in the class of Fermi and Lee.
- nyc111 2y ago“subatomic particles, contrary to what scientists thought, are always symmetrical.” This cannot be called challenging a law of nature. He questions what his colleagues generally believed. He challenges a convention of physics profession not a law of nature. But we know that media must exaggerate to sell papers.
- davrosthedalek 2y agoNo. What he challenged was an assumed law of nature. All laws of nature are assumed, as you cannot prove them, or only proof them in the context of a theory (which you then have to assume). It was not a convention.
- nyc111 2y agoSo, before Lee made his discovery physicists believed (or assumed, or conjectured, or theorized) that “the laws of physics were identical whether observed directly or as a mirror image." Lee and Yang proposed that this did not always hold. Their proposal was later confirmed by experiments. So, what physicists believed before Lee, was not a law of nature. Lee challenged what his colleagues believed to be true. But you are right all so called laws of physics are provisional.
- lutorm 2y agoI met Lee briefly, along with a few other Nobel laureates, in 1991 at a weird symposium in Japan. Unlike some of the others, he was very friendly and relaxed. RIP.
- treetalker 2y agoThe photograph capturing the expression of Albert Camus among the other laureates is gold.
- greatNespresso 2y agoJust clicked to see his face, confirmed it's was worth it
- nyc111 2y ago"for discovering that subatomic particles, [...] are always symmetrical." "for overturning what had been considered a fundamental law of nature — that particles are always symmetrical" The first sentence from the subhead is wrong. The second sentence is correct. "the laws of physics are not identical when observed directly or as a mirror image."
- timetraveller26 2y agoWho wrote this headline? It may sound as if breaking a nature's law was the direct cause of his death.
- gsuuon 2y ago".. and let that be a lesson to the rest of you"
- xiaodai 2y agoThe first Chinese national to win a Nobel Prize!
- Iwan-Zotow 2y ago[flagged]
- wkat4242 2y agoIs this the reason for the black line on HN today? Or is it someone else?