Public Lecture by Nobel Laureate Professor Yang Chen Ning

I had an awful presentation on RFID this morning. Please forgive me, I woke up 10 minutes before the class started and was in a hurry to get to school. In fact, I should have some “rehearsal” with my group mates before the class starts. Anyway, it’s over.

I rush to Hotel Le Meridian after tutorial as I am attending Prof. Yang’s lecture. The lecture starts at 2pm. I anticipated a large crowd to attend this lecture so I went earlier. When I reached there, to my surprise, I am the first person. So I snapped some pictures of the hotel and a photo of mine in front of a giant mirror.



The title of the lecture is : Science and Technology in the 21st century. Prof. Yang started off with Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century. He then showed a photo of him taken together with Rabi and Lamb. It's a black and white photo. He said that Lamb was the oldest living Nobel Laureate for physics. He then touched something about MRI-Magnetic Resonance Image. He also mentioned some other names like Hilbert, Godel, Turning and Von Neumann. After that, he went into Quantum Mechanics. He stressed that Quantum Mechanics is one of the most important fundamental for a computer. This is because men develop semi conductor from Quantum mechanics and computer chip comes from semi conductor. I first heard about Quantum Mechanics from Bro. Oh, one of my secondary school teachers. It was a very interesting topic and I get some books to study about it. But it’s too hard for me to understand the Quantum Mechanics theory.

Prof. Yang then talked about Biotechnology. He mentioned that the Double Helix report is the most important report ever in Biotechnology. I managed to copy some of the quotes of the Double Helix report. However my handwriting speed couldn’t cope with his lecture pace so it’s just half hanging.

“It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism….”



It was Q&A session after the lecture. I get the chance to ask him some questions. It was my pleasure to get the chance to interact with a Nobel Laureate. Initially, I wanted to ask something about Theory of Relativity but I don’t think I know much about Einstein Theory so I changed my mind. I asked about the Manhattan Project instead. I get to know from the fliers that he was in University of Chicago in 1946. Enrico Fermi – the father of atomic bomb is actually Prof. Yang’s lecturer. I asked him to share his experience of the Manhattan Project since he was in University of Chicago at that time. He said that during that time, USA and China are on bad terms. His family members are all in China; therefore he said that he was “smart” enough to stay away from that project. He also defended Enrico Fermi’s decision to develop Atomic bomb for USA saying that he was left with no choice since he do not want the Atomic Bomb technology falls into Adolf Hitler’s hands.

After the whole lecture ends, Prof. Yang has a press conference in the VIP room. I somehow managed to get into the VIP room. Do not ask me how I get into there, it was by chance. The reporters asked him something about the renewed energy. Maybe tomorrow we can read about the full reports in the newspaper. I do not hear any reporters asking questions about whether his wife is pregnant. It seems that Malaysia’s reporters are very “obedient”. After the pc, I wanted to take a photo with Prof. Yang but he left very quickly. If I managed to take a photo with him, maybe I will withdraw from UTAR tomorrow and enroll in a physics course.




I rush back to campus to attend my finance lecture after that. My mind is just full of the physics theory – Quantum Theory, Theory of Relativity, Einstein, Stephen Hawking…. that I couldn’t absorb anything in the finance class. What the lecturer said about Foreign Direct Investment, Joint Venture and etc just couldn’t go into my mind.

Prof. Yang is having another lecture tomorrow in UM about his theory – Symmetry. I’m still considering whether to attend since this topic is too technical for me. Maybe I will go cos the desire to take a photo with prof. Yang is still burning wild in my heart. Though this is not the most interesting lecture I had attended, it is certainly the most high profile lecture I had ever attended. Most importantly, I regain my love and affection towards physics – the subject once I thought could be my career.

p/s : Entertainment club is currently working on a Pepsi ad. It might be ready by next week(I use the word "might" as it is subject to uncertatinty. I will post it as soon I finish editing the whole video clip. BTW, Entertainment club's president had come out with his own blog. Click here to see what he wrote for his first post.