Chinese Nobel Prize-winning physicist Tsung-Dao Lee, praised by Oppenheimer, dies at 97
- Robert Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atomic bomb, once praised Tsung-Dao Lee as one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists of the time
Chinese-American physicist Tsung-Dao Lee, who in 1957 became the second-youngest scientist to receive a Nobel Prize, died on Sunday at his home in San Francisco at age 97, according to a Chinese university and a research centre.
Lee, whose work advanced the understanding of particle physics, was one of the great masters in the field, according to a joint obituary released on Monday by the Tsung-Dao Lee Institute at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Beijing-based China Centre for Advanced Science and Technology.
Lee, a naturalised US citizen since 1962, was also a professor emeritus at Columbia University in New York.
Robert Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atomic bomb, once praised Lee as one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists of the time, whose work showed “remarkable freshness, versatility and style.”
Lee was born in Shanghai on November 24, 1926, the third of six children to a merchant father, Tsing-Kong Lee, and a mother, Ming-Chang Chang, who was a devout Catholic, according to local newspaper Wenhui Daily.
He went to high school in Shanghai and attended National Chekiang University in Guizhou province and National Southwest Associated University in Kunming in Yunnan province.
After his second-year year, he received a scholarship from the Chinese government to attend graduate school in the United States.
