Lee Tsung-Dao (1926- )

Chinese-born US physicist whose research centred on the physics of weak nuclear forces. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1957 for his investigations of weak nuclear forces between elementary particles. He proposed that they might disobey certain key assumptions; for instance, the conservation of parity. He shared the Nobel Prize with his colleague Yang Chen Ning.

Lee was born in Shanghai, China. He fled Japanese invaders to study at the National Southwest University in Kunming (1945), where he first met his friend and colleague, Yang. Lee went to the USA in 1946 when he was awarded a scholarship to study at the University of Chicago. He worked at the University of California, Berkeley (1950-51), the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey (1951-53), and Columbia University (1953), becoming, at age 29, their youngest full professor (1956-60). Lee returned to IAS (1960-63), then continued his research at Columbia (1963). A humble and reserved scientist, he stated that thinking left him no time for hobbies.