Chen Ning Yang, Nobel laureate and physics pioneer, dies at 103

Chen Ning Yang, also known as Yang Zhenning, one of the world's most influential physicists, has died at the age of 103, Chinese state media reported. CCTV cited illness as the cause of death. Yang, along with fellow theoretical physicist Tsung-Dao Lee, was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics for their groundbreaking work on parity laws, which led to critical discoveries about elementary particles, the fundamental building blocks of matter. In addition to his research, Yang served as a professor at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University and held the position of honorary dean at the Institute for Advanced Study within the institution.

Why Chen Ning Yang denounce his American citizenship. Yang Zhenning relinquished his US citizenship, which he had obtained in 1964, and became a citizen of the People's Republic of China in 2015, returning to the country where he grew up. The Chinese Academy of Sciences had to create special rules to transfer his membership from foreign to domestic, a first in its history, as per a report by The China Project.

Over his prolific career, Yang made significant contributions to physics, particularly in statistical mechanics and symmetry principles. He received the Albert Einstein Commemorative Award in 1957 and an honorary doctorate from Princeton in 1958.