Nobel laureate physicist Tsung-Dao Lee passes away at 97

Nobel laureate and Chinese-American physicist Tsung-Dao Lee passed away at the age of 97 in San Francisco on Sunday local time, according to the Institute of High Energy Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Lee, born in Shanghai on Nov 24, 1926, entered the University of Chicago in 1946 and received his doctorate in June 1950. After graduation, he worked in a number of universities and institutions, including the University of Chicago, the University of California, Berkeley, and the Institute for Advanced Study, in the U.S. He was appointed honorary professor of Peking University in 1984.

Throughout his career, Lee made groundbreaking contributions to particle physics, nuclear theory and statistical mechanics.

In 1956, Lee worked with another Chinese-American physicist Chen-Ning Yang and put forward the idea that parity is not conserved in the weak interaction. After experimental verification, they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics and the Einstein Prize in Science in 1957.

In 1994, the Chinese Academy of Sciences elected Lee to be one of China's first group of foreign academicians.

Since 1972, Li had given lectures in China many times and made suggestions on the development of China's scientific undertakings. He made great contributions to the strategic layout of China's science education, frontier exploration of high-energy physics, high-level personnel training and international exchanges and cooperation.

Lee proposed to establish the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and played a leading role in promoting China's basic research and enhancing China's original innovation capacity.

He advocated the establishment of the cooperation mechanism of the PRC-U.S. Joint Committee on High Energy Physics and the establishment of the Beijing Electron-Positron Collider, China's first high-energy accelerator, and facilitated the formation of the Beijing Spectrometer and the Daya Bay neutrino experiment international cooperation groups, providing guidance and help for China to achieve a series of breakthroughs in the forefront of high-energy physics in the world.

He proposed to establish research centers like the Beijing Institute of Modern Physics, the China Center of Advanced Science and Technology, the Zhejiang Institute of Modern Physics, and the Center for High Energy Physics of Peking University to promote cutting-edge scientific research, international exchanges and cooperation and the growth of young scholars, and win policy support for building an open education and research base and a nurturing environment for talents.

Lee spent his entire life pursuing science, becoming an inspiration for future generations of researchers and scholars.

"You have to do everything with your own hands until you master the tricks, and that's the way it is with scientific research -- by doing it over and over again. I have not much else to entertain myself but doing scientific work. It is like breathing to me, my life, and my source of contentment," said Lee in a 2001 documentary.

Nobel laureate physicist Tsung-Dao Lee passes away at 97

China's vision for deep space exploration begins with the moon and will move to the universe beyond to the Mars, Jupiter and wider solar system, according to the chief designer of China's lunar exploration project.

Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's Lunar Exploration Project and director of China's Deep Space Exploration Laboratory, introduced the long-term vision for the country's space program in an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN).

"We define the exploration of the moon and celestial bodies and space beyond it as deep space exploration. The moon is the starting point. The next focus is on the moon. Chang'e-7 will land on the south pole of the moon and search for water. Chang'e-8 will land at the south pole of the moon and will join Chang'e-7 to form the basic structure of the south pole station on the moon," said the chief designer.

Wu said China also plans to build an international lunar research station, which is a larger scale and longer-term ambition.

"Then we want to build a navigation, communication, and remote sensing constellation centered on the moon, which we are now studying," said Wu.

"Our next step is a manned lunar landing. China aims to achieve this around 2030. You see, the symbol of our lunar exploration project is a person's footprint," said the chief designer.

"Deep space exploration also includes collecting and returning asteroid samples, and collecting samples from large celestial bodies such as Mars, and the exploration of Jupiter system. Jupiter is the largest celestial body in the solar system except the sun, and is equivalent to the size of 1,300 Earths. Jupiter and its satellites are a big system," he said.

Wu said missions in the future will be able to send 50 tons of payload per launch to the moon.

"To realize this deep space exploration, we need rockets and launch vehicles with greater thrust. So we came up with this concept of deep space exploration. The deep space exploration laboratory is responsible for the launch vehicle with greater thrust, to study the rocket with greatest thrust in the country. Now we can send eight tons of payload to the moon, in the future we'll be able to send 50 tons of payload to the moon per launch," said Wu.

China plans more exploration of moon, Mars, Jupiter, wider solar system: chief designer