21 Quotes by Chen Ning Yang

Nature seems to take advantage of the simple mathematical representations of the symmetry laws. When one pauses to consider the elegance and the beautiful perfection of the mathematical reasoning involved and contrast it with the complex and far-reaching physical consequences, a deep sense of respect for the power of the symmetry laws never fails to develop.

A graduate student who is still learning courses is not really taking a maximum advantage of a research university's offerings. He should already be finished with course-taking, as he would then be able to shape his own taste about what is a good subject for research work in the graduate school.

The strongest interactions are the nuclear interactions, which include the forces that bind nuclei together and the interaction between the nuclei and the z mesons. It also includes the interactions that give rise to the observed strange-particle production.

Science has become something that everybody knows he has to pay attention to, but not everybody is a believer. So I don't think we should equate science with religion. But, that science is progressively playing a more and more important part in the life of every individual is obvious.

The application of group theory to physics became one of the main branches of physics that I specialized in.

I think America is a new country. It is a young culture. The spirit of the opening of the West is still with the Americans. It's a very practical and individual-based kind of philosophy that had worked in America for a long time, had been very successful. And the spirit is very much there.

I think in the sciences there is still the general belief that America is still tops. For America to lose that, I think, would be very bad, not just speaking as a scientist myself. I think it would be very bad for the morale of the whole country.

Qinghua was first established as a preparatory school in 1911. In 1928, it became a university. In 1929, my father joined Qinghua as a professor, so that was also the year that I moved to that campus because my father brought the whole family along.

The existence of symmetry laws is in full accordance with our daily experience. The simplest of these symmetries, the isotropy and homogeneity of space, are concepts that date back to the early history of human thought.