MOSCOW, August 6 Chinese-American physicist Li Zhengdao, who received the Nobel Prize for research in the field of particle physics, has died at the age of 97, the TV channel reports CGTN with reference to the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
According to the TV channel, the scientist died in his home in San Francisco.
Born in Shanghai, Li Zhengdao completed his graduate studies at the University of Chicago under the tutelage of famed physicist Enrico Fermi.
Throughout his career he made pioneering contributions to particle physics, nuclear theory and statistical mechanics. In 1954, he introduced a renormalizable model of field theory, commonly known as the «Lie model», which played an important role in solving fundamental questions in quantum field theory.
In 1956, Lee discovered a violation of the parity law in weak interactions. This revolutionary work was experimentally confirmed the following year, fundamentally changing the understanding of symmetry in physics. This discovery earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics and the Albert Einstein Prize for Science in 1957. At the age of 31, Li became the second youngest scientist ever to receive a Nobel Prize.