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Recently, Tsung-Dao Lee passed away in the United States at the age of nearly 98, and the scientific community at home and abroad mourned. Lee is one of the great physicists of the 20th century and will be remembered forever. At the same time, his great contribution to China's scientific cause will also be engraved in the history of contemporary Chinese science, which will make people remember and think.
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As a scientific genius, Tsung-Dao Lee was recognized by his teachers and friends soon after he entered college. He also entered the vision of China's science and technology leadership very early. As early as the winter of 1949 to the spring of 1950, the newly established Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted a national survey of outstanding scientific talents, and Tsung-Dao Lee was recommended to be included in the modern physics group. He was the youngest scientist among the 42 people in the physics group and the total list of more than 800 people, at the age of 23.
In 1957, when Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, China sent Professor Zhang Wenyu as a representative to Stockholm, Sweden to congratulate them. During his stay in Sweden, Tsung-Dao Lee learned about the situation of the domestic scientific community in detail from Zhang Wenyu and expressed his willingness to contribute to the ever-changing scientific cause of the motherland.
In 1962, after arrangements in China, Tsung-Dao Lee met his younger brother and sister in Hong Kong. Although he had his mother and younger brother in Taiwan, he refused to visit Taiwan many times in order not to hinder his connection with the mainland. In the early 1970s, Sino-US relations thawed, and Tsung-Dao Lee immediately seized the opportunity to return to China for the first time after leaving the country for 26 years.
From September 19 to October 31, 1972, Tsung-Dao Lee returned to China for the first time for a six-week visit. In between his busy visits and exchanges, and visits to relatives and friends, he gave four academic reports in Beijing and Shanghai. He also brought a new microcomputer, two integrated circuits, and some materials to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. While visiting universities and research institutes in Shanghai and Beijing, he also shared his views on the need to strengthen basic theoretical research and the need not to divide the various disciplines of the physics department too finely. Before leaving Beijing, he was received by Premier Zhou Enlai. In May 1974, Tsung-Dao Lee returned to China for another visit and was received by Chairman Mao Zedong, who talked for two hours.
During the two visits, Li Zhengdao won the trust of domestic leaders and the scientific community with his rigorous and realistic spirit as a scientist and his frankness and selflessness as a patriot, laying the foundation for his later role in the scientific cause of his motherland.
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From the late 1970s to the 1990s, Tsung-Dao Lee made suggestions for the national scientific cause, from supporting the construction of high-energy accelerators to facilitating the establishment of the China High Energy Science and Technology Center, from returning to China for lectures many times to implementing the Sino-US Joint Training Program for Physics Graduates (CUSPEA), from promoting the establishment of the National Natural Science Foundation to establishing and implementing the postdoctoral system in China, etc. His role is irreplaceable. During this period, Tsung-Dao Lee showed great breadth of mind and responsibility, which is even more admirable.
Tsung-Dao Lee made key contributions to China's high-energy physics, especially the construction of high-energy accelerators. In 1973, the state approved the establishment of the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and began the construction of high-energy accelerators. By the mid-1980s, it had gone through a very tortuous journey of ups and downs over the past 10 years. During this period, Tsung-Dao Lee was always involved in it. He respected domestic decisions and, out of his understanding of the international high-energy physics frontier trends, he promptly put forward opinions and suggestions. In particular, he used his special channel of contact with senior officials to do a lot of work and played a key role.
Tsung-Dao Lee played a key role in promoting the high-energy physics cooperation between China and the United States, especially in the process of signing the high-energy physics cooperation agreement between the two countries, which effectively promoted the development of high-energy physics in my country. The successful construction of the Beijing Electron-Positron Collider not only became a symbol of the country's support for basic research in the 1980s and 1990s, but also became a difficult but good start for the construction of my country's large-scale scientific projects.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the domestic science and technology field suffered from problems such as brain drain and aging of talent. There was a saying in society that "those who make missiles are not as good as those who sell tea eggs." Li Zhengdao used his special influence to obtain tens of millions of dollars from overseas to establish the China Advanced Science and Technology Center at the Chinese Academy of Sciences to support basic research, promote international exchanges, and also fund research in the fields of deserts, Yellow River water resources, and climate change that were facing difficulties at the time. These measures were like timely help.
From his own personal experience, Tsung-Dao Lee deeply realized the key role of scientific masters in the development of science. He not only used his personal connections to promote famous scientists from the United States and Europe to visit and give lectures in China, but also used his vacations to return to China to give lectures. In particular, in April 1979 and November 1981, Tsung-Dao Lee taught particle physics and statistical mechanics for three hours a day at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Nearly a thousand teachers and students from universities and research institutes across the country went to Beijing to attend the lectures, which was an unprecedented event. After that, he returned to China several times almost every year to give lectures, and held many discussions with graduate students and college students, until he could no longer bear the fatigue of traveling due to physical reasons in his old age.
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Perhaps the longest-lasting scientific legacy of Tsung-Dao Lee for Chinese science is CUSPEA. This project was conceived in 1979 when Tsung-Dao Lee was lecturing at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He discovered a group of outstanding young graduate students and selected five of them to study for a master's degree in the Department of Physics at Columbia University in the United States. Soon he directly contacted the physics departments of some well-known universities in the United States and established a special channel for organizing written tests and interviews in China to select talents to study in the United States. By 1989, in 10 years, 915 outstanding talents had been selected to study for doctoral degrees in more than 90 universities in the United States and Canada.
In 1981, when explaining the importance of this program to domestic leaders, Tsung-Dao Lee said that among the more than 5,000 people who went abroad to study at that time, only a very small number studied for a doctorate degree in graduate schools of top American universities, which was very unfavorable for the cultivation of top talents; the goal of CUSPEA was to cultivate and create top talents in the field of physics.
The success of CUSPEA also led to similar programs in the fields of biochemistry and chemistry in China and the United States, and sent more than 400 and 200 outstanding talents to the United States to pursue doctoral degrees in biochemistry and chemistry, respectively. These scholars were outstanding students of domestic universities at the time, and many of them later became Chinese elites in the world scientific community.
In 1981, China's academic degree system was formally established. In 1982, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and domestic universities awarded the first batch of doctoral degrees. On May 27, 1983, the first batch of 18 doctors in New China received their degree certificates at the grand degree awarding conference held by the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council. Tsung-Dao Lee then suggested that China establish a postdoctoral system. In May 1984, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Education conducted a pilot program for the postdoctoral system, and the Institute of High Energy Physics and the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences took the lead in the trial in the country. In July 1985, the State Council approved the formal implementation of the postdoctoral system in the country.
One of the original intentions of Tsung-Dao Lee to promote the establishment of the postdoctoral system was to encourage CUSPEA students to return to China after completing their studies. However, from the 1980s to the 1990s, very few students returned to China. At the same time, the employment situation of graduate students in physics in Europe and the United States also faced various difficulties, and many CUSPEA scholars switched to other disciplines. Tsung-Dao Lee and his CUSPEA were criticized in various ways. However, with the advent of the new century, more and more CUSPEA scholars returned to China in various forms to develop, playing an increasingly important role in China's science and technology and education fields, and Tsung-Dao Lee's foresight was gradually recognized by people again.
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Li Zhengdao once said, "My greatest wish and comfort in life is to do something useful for my country." Li Zhengdao spent the rest of his life fulfilling his promise.
During the implementation of CUSPEA, Tsung-Dao Lee and his secretary and assistant devoted countless time and energy to it. It is reported that every round of students, from applying for admission to studying and living, and even the protests from the post office due to the large number of letters sent, were all coordinated and resolved by Tsung-Dao Lee himself.
Liu Huaizu, a former assistant of Tsung-Dao Lee, recalled that after the high-energy accelerator "Project 87" was discontinued, the living expenses of more than 40 "Tsung-Dao Lee Scholars" who were studying high-energy physics in various research laboratories in the United States were suddenly stopped. They were in a very difficult situation. In the end, thanks to Mr. Lee "who took great efforts to help solve the problems one by one, no problems occurred."
When bidding farewell to Mr. Tsung-Dao Lee, it may be necessary to seriously think about his role and significance in the development of contemporary Chinese science. With his special influence, Tsung-Dao Lee promoted the development of contemporary Chinese science, especially high-energy physics, promoted the cultivation of high-end Chinese scientific and technological talents, and promoted the construction of China's scientific and technological system. In this process, the trust and connection mechanism he established with the domestic scientific and technological community was crucial. Scientific decision-making should not be more complicated than the scientific problem itself, but in some occasions in China, the complexity of scientific decision-making often exceeds the scientific problem itself. Tsung-Dao Lee won the trust of decision-makers with the rigor of a scientist and the sincerity of a patriot, and thus played an important role in the decision-making process of some key issues, making a unique contribution to the development of contemporary Chinese science.
In today's era, science is a top priority for national modernization, and it is also a highly internationalized and highly institutionalized cause. Can Tsung-Dao Lee and the scientific talents he promoted and cultivated play a greater institutional role in China's scientific cause? This is probably not a personal matter for them, but a matter of building a high-level scientific and technological power that is self-reliant and self-reliant, an unprecedented cause. Mr. Tsung-Dao Lee can no longer work hard for China's scientific cause. I hope that the outstanding talents he cultivated can play a more important role in China's scientific cause. I believe this is also his wish.
(The author is a professor at the School of Humanities, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences)
