Symposium Honors Nobel Prize Winner C.N. Yang’s Stony Brook Legacy

From left: Chang Kee Jung, chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy; Stony Brook University President Andrea Goldsmith; and George Sterman, distinguished professor of physics and director of the C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics. Photos by John Griffin.

Few scientists reshape the foundations of their discipline. Fewer still help build a university around the pursuit of those ideas.

Nobel Prize-winning physicist C.N. "Frank" Yang accomplished both at Stony Brook University.

On March 12, scientists, students and family members gathered at the Charles B. Wang Center Theatre for a symposium, "C.N. Yang and His Impact on Stony Brook," celebrating Yang's life and the decades he spent helping transform Stony Brook into a global center for theoretical physics.

Stony Brook President Andrea Goldsmith opened the symposium by reflecting on Yang's role during the university's early years.

"I love that idea that Princeton and all the elite universities around the country are the gateway to Stony Brook because this is such an exceptional university, and C.N. Yang was one of those people," Goldsmith said. "It is a pleasure to kick off this celebration of a man who was such an instrumental pioneer at this university, as well as a Nobel laureate pioneer of physics whose brilliance and creativity reshaped the world of physics here at Stony Brook."

C.N. "Frank" Yang

Goldsmith noted that Yang's influence extended far beyond his scientific achievements.

"He was a faculty leader, he was a visionary, he was a revered friend to so many, and he was a pioneer who chose to come to Stony Brook in its very early days as an entrepreneur to help build up the excellence of this outstanding university," she said.

Goldmith also made a major announcement honoring Yang's legacy, a $12 million endowment gift from Stony Brook alumnus Jack Yongfeng Zhang, PhD '87, and his wife, Mary Zi-Ping Luo, for the C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics (YITP). Through matching support from New York State and the Simons Infinity Investment program, the investment will generate a total impact of $36 million to support research at the institute.

Immediate Impact

Yang arrived at Stony Brook in 1966 from the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, already recognized as one of the world's most influential physicists. Less than a decade earlier he and Tsung-Dao Lee had received the Nobel Prize in Physics for demonstrating that a fundamental symmetry of nature known as parity does not hold in certain particle interactions. The discovery overturned long-standing assumptions about the laws governing the universe.

George Sterman, distinguished professor of physics and director of the YITP, described the time Yang joined the university as transformative.

"Sixty years ago, C.N. Yang arrived in Stony Brook and it was exciting news," Sterman said. "He committed his unique wealth of accomplishment and perspective to this new university."

Chang Kee Jung, chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, described Yang's work as foundational to modern particle physics.

"Frank Yang's discovery of parity violation in the weak interaction with T.D. Lee was a paradigm-changing breakthrough that fundamentally altered our view of the universe," Jung said.

Yang's later work on Yang-Mills theory proved equally influential, providing the mathematical framework underlying the Standard Model of particle physics and continuing to shape research today.

Reflecting on the scale of Yang's contributions, Zhang said, "C.N. Yang is one of the greatest physicists in the 20th century, making extraordinary contributions to the development of modern physics. His many achievements represented by Yang-Mills gauge field theory, parity non-conservation in weak interaction and the Young-Baxter equation are brilliant jewels in the temple of human science."

Building a Foundation

Many speakers said Yang's most enduring contribution to Stony Brook was the scientific community he built at the university.

Peter van Nieuwenhuizen, who joined Stony Brook in 1975 and later served as director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics (ITP), recalled Yang recruiting him to campus.

"I was for many years Frank Yang's deputy director of the institute which is named after him," van Nieuwenhuizen said. "But I'm also the only person still around who worked with him, so I decided I'll not give you a very formal talk. I'm going to tell you some anecdotes I had with him."

His first visit to campus was memorable.

"When I came here, it was a disaster. There was mud," he said, recounting how his shoe became stuck while walking across campus. Despite the conditions, the intellectual environment fostered by Yang convinced him to stay. "I decided to accept and I stayed here the rest of my life. Frank was the center around which the institute existed. Successful institutes need somebody around which it forms."

One of the most consequential relationships Yang developed at Stony Brook was his friendship with mathematician Jim Simons, who passed away in 2024. Their conversations helped bridge mathematics and theoretical physics and eventually inspired the creation of the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics.

"When I first came to Stony Brook to be math department chair, Frank invited me up to show me what he had been doing," Simons recalled in recorded video remarks played during the symposium. "He covered the board and he covered the board. I didn't understand a thing because I didn't know any physics."

Over time those discussions deepened into a collaboration that revealed unexpected connections between mathematics and physics.

Marilyn Simons said those conversations ultimately had a lasting impact.

"Jim finally was able to make sense out of everything that Frank was saying," she said. "And Frank was astounded that mathematicians had done this."

She later learned just how significant those discussions had been.

"Jim said later that it was these conversations that he had with Frank and ITP that planted the seeds for the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics," she said.

Stony Brook Provost Carl Lejuez reflected on Yang's influence on the university.

"You really can't think of someone who had more of an impact than C.N. Yang in building that ethos for the university and being part of building what people think about Stony Brook today," Lejuez said, citing the generations of scientists and students who came to Stony Brook because of Yang's reputation and leadership.

Speakers throughout the symposium emphasized that Yang's ideas continue to shape modern research.

"It would not be exaggeration to say that his ideas shaped the state of contemporary theoretical physics to a great extent," said Alexander Zamolodchikov, the C.N. Yang/Wei Dong Endowed Chair and professor of theoretical physics.

Simons Center for Geometry and Physics theoretical physicist Zohar Komargodski noted that Yang's work continues to drive new discoveries decades after its creation.

"Yang-Mills theory is seventy years old, but it's basically a child," Komargodski said. "It's still developing. We're still learning what the properties of this theory are."

Amy Liao, PhD '93, co-founder and chief executive officer of Couragene, said Yang's influence extended beyond physics to the people he mentored.

"Frank Yang lived fully in the present through his fearless pursuit of truth, his generosity toward students and his humility in all that he did," she said. "By that measure, his life was truly eternal."

- Beth Squire