Nobel laureate Lee to present Zachariasen Lecture today

Nobel laureate Tsung-Dao Lee (Ph.D.'50) will present "Symmetry and Asymmetry," the fifth annual Zachariasen Lecture in Physics, at 4:15 p.m. today, Nov. 9, in Kersten 115.

Lee, now a professor of physics at Columbia University, shared the 1957 Nobel Prize in physics with former Chicago classmate Chen Ning Yang (Ph.D.'48) for their "penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws, which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles." In particular, Lee and Yang made the important prediction that parity is not conserved by the weak interaction, a prediction that was experimentally verified within months. Both Lee and Yang are former students of renowned Chicago astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who also later won the Nobel Prize.

The Zachariasen Lecture is named in memory of William Houlder Zachariasen, who was Chairman of Physics from 1945 to 1949 and from 1956 to 1959. The lectures are presented by distinguished alumni of the department.