Chen Ning Yang, known as Frank Yang, (born Oct. 1, 1922, Hofei, Anhwei, China—died Oct. 18, 2025, Beijing), Chinese-born U.S. theoretical physicist. Yang attended university in Kunming, receiving a B.Sc. in 1942 and M.S. in 1944. He enrolled at the University of Chicago in 1946, studying with Edward Teller and earning a Ph.D. He became a professor at Princeton University in 1955 and a U.S. citizen in 1964. Yang showed that parity is violated when elementary particles decay. This and other work in particle physics won him the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1957, which he shared with Tsung-Dao Lee. Yang’s research focused mostly on interactions involving the weak force among elementary particles. He also worked in statistical mechanics.
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