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China 'needs strong will'
Safety record seen in space missions would have prevented milk crisis: Nobel laureate
By Leong Weng Kam, Senior Writer
More than just a companion, says Prof Yang of his second wife. She has translated some of his writings into Chinese.
Seated comfortably in a dentist's chair in a Beijing clinic recently, Professor Yang Chen Ning looked around him before asking his dental surgeon: 'Where were all these instruments and equipment made, including the chair I am on?'
'Germany,' the dentist replied.
The 86-year-old Nobel laureate was surprised that simple products such as scalers and cuspidors attached to dental chairs were still being imported from the West.
The dental surgeon told him China-made ones were not as good, adding: 'I don't know why we fail to make them well, and yet we can launch men into space successfully in our very own Shenzhou VII spacecraft.'
Prof Yang related this anecdote to his relatives and friends over dinner about a fortnight ago to explain how the tainted milk scandal could happen in China.
In Singapore with his 32-year- old wife Weng Fan, he said China's safety record for its satellite launches surpasses even that of the United States and Russia. The country also produced one of the world's best defence weapons and systems.
Why?
'Because the country had both the resources and will to make them happen,' he said.
However, the same could not not be said of the country's dairy industry.
Baby formula milk and other dairy products from China were recently found tainted with the industrial chemical melamine. A worldwide ban on these products went into effect after thousands of Chinese children who drank them fell ill.
Prof Yang blames the sorry state of affairs squarely on poor organisation and lack of central control.
'If China had decided 15 years ago that it would produce the best dairy products in the world, there would be no tainted milk scandal today,' he said.
The China-born American scientist is still remembered for his contributions to fundamental developments and new directions in physics such as the Yang-Mills field theory.
He won the 1957 Nobel Prize for Physics with Professor Lee Tsung- dao for their discovery of parity violation, which involves the interaction of nuclear forces.
Prof Yang is now a professor at Tsinghua University's Centre for Advanced Studies in Beijing and professor-at-large at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
He had a busy time when he was in Singapore the previous week. He received an honorary doctorate from the Nanyang Technological University, gave a public lecture, and launched a book of his latest essays and selected writings.
He also attended the wedding of his wife's elder sister, Weng Ke, 34, to Singaporean businessman Wong Teck Yen, 36, at the Fullerton Hotel.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, the professor said the Chinese as a people are not yet as disciplined as those in the West.
Good central control and leadership, he added, are still necessary to ensure success of large-scale national events and projects in the country. He cited the Beijing Olympics, the Sichuan earthquake rescue operations and the country's space programmes as examples.
He described China's tainted milk problems as complex ones involving 'too many parties, including tens of thousands of farmers and manufacturers'.
Quality control, he said, might be a good start to licking the problem.
Singapore could help by providing testing and certification facilities for China's dairy products, he suggested.
'If the Chinese do it themselves, it may not be as credible as someone else more neutral like Singapore,' he added.
Articulate in both Mandarin and English, the octogenarian has his pulse very much on current world affairs.
For instance, he blames the ongoing US-led global financial crisis on the Bush administration's lax fiscal and economic policies, which allowed Wall Street too much freedom to maximise income at the expense of the public.
Citing Lehman Brothers, for example, he said the failed US investment bank was allowed a leverage of 1:36. If it had US$1 million (S$1.5 million) in capital, it could borrow US$36 million.
'And because of the exuberance of their growth, the whole world followed, including Singapore,' he added.
He reckoned the rest of the world would suffer as a result of the 'excesses of the investment banks in the US over the past 10 years'.
However, he felt a world depression like that seen in the 1930s would not happen, for two reasons.
One, the productivity of the world is now on a completely different footing from the past, as countries are more interdependent and their economies tied more closely together.
Two, he believed that China - with its population of 1.3 billion and an economy which has been growing at about 10 per cent annually for the past 20 years - would be a main growth area which would help everybody else.
Still immersed in work
The son of a mathematician and a housewife, Prof Yang was born in Hefei in Anhui province in 1922.
He had his early education in China and managed to obtain a master's degree in science despite the ongoing Sino-Japanese War between the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Immediately after the war in 1945, he - like his father before him - won a scholarship to study at Chicago University where he completed his postgraduate studies.
He continued his work at the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton University and then the State University of New York in Stony Brook before he retired in 1999.
Alert and feisty, Prof Yang, who has problems only with his hearing, is determined to live a full life.
Although he is retired, he is still fully involved in his frontier research work which he started when he was a postgraduate student more than 60 years ago at Chicago University. He moved to China in 2003 after his first wife died. They have three grown-up children, all living in the US.
'For the past 10 years, I have been researching mainly on the history of physics and count myself fortunate to be able to do so at my age,' he said.
Recently, he submitted two research papers related to theoretical investigation in atomic structures for publication in American science journals.
He said: 'During the process of my research, I find my perception and ingenuity in mathematical calculations still intact, except that I get tired more easily than when I was young.'
And his secrets for good health and longevity?
'One important thing is to keep an interest in many things, including current affairs,' he said.
His latest interest is making movies with his camcorder, which he carries with him wherever he goes.
He did not shy away from discussing his marriage four years ago, when he was 82 and Weng Fan just 28.
The couple met in 1995 at an international physics seminar in Shantou, where Ms Weng, then a 19-year-old freshman, lived.
She was the guide for the scientist and his late wife, and left a good impression on the couple.
They lost touch after the seminar, but two months after Prof Yang's wife died from an illness at age 74 in October 2003, Ms Wang sent him a Christmas card.
He followed up with a call and their relationship began.
A few months later, Prof Yang proposed to her and she accepted readily. The marriage is also her second.
The professor described his young wife as 'a gift from God' and said she has been more than just a companion.
Indeed, Ms Weng - who holds a master's degree in translation from a foreign languages and trade university in Guangzhou - has translated some of his writings into Chinese.
Well aware of his mortality, Prof Yang said he has already given her his blessings to re-marry upon his death.
'But right now, we are very happy together.'
Safety record seen in space missions would have prevented milk crisis: Nobel laureate
By Leong Weng Kam, Senior Writer
More than just a companion, says Prof Yang of his second wife. She has translated some of his writings into Chinese.
Seated comfortably in a dentist's chair in a Beijing clinic recently, Professor Yang Chen Ning looked around him before asking his dental surgeon: 'Where were all these instruments and equipment made, including the chair I am on?'
'Germany,' the dentist replied.
The 86-year-old Nobel laureate was surprised that simple products such as scalers and cuspidors attached to dental chairs were still being imported from the West.
The dental surgeon told him China-made ones were not as good, adding: 'I don't know why we fail to make them well, and yet we can launch men into space successfully in our very own Shenzhou VII spacecraft.'
Prof Yang related this anecdote to his relatives and friends over dinner about a fortnight ago to explain how the tainted milk scandal could happen in China.
In Singapore with his 32-year- old wife Weng Fan, he said China's safety record for its satellite launches surpasses even that of the United States and Russia. The country also produced one of the world's best defence weapons and systems.
Why?
'Because the country had both the resources and will to make them happen,' he said.
However, the same could not not be said of the country's dairy industry.
Baby formula milk and other dairy products from China were recently found tainted with the industrial chemical melamine. A worldwide ban on these products went into effect after thousands of Chinese children who drank them fell ill.
Prof Yang blames the sorry state of affairs squarely on poor organisation and lack of central control.
'If China had decided 15 years ago that it would produce the best dairy products in the world, there would be no tainted milk scandal today,' he said.
The China-born American scientist is still remembered for his contributions to fundamental developments and new directions in physics such as the Yang-Mills field theory.
He won the 1957 Nobel Prize for Physics with Professor Lee Tsung- dao for their discovery of parity violation, which involves the interaction of nuclear forces.
Prof Yang is now a professor at Tsinghua University's Centre for Advanced Studies in Beijing and professor-at-large at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
He had a busy time when he was in Singapore the previous week. He received an honorary doctorate from the Nanyang Technological University, gave a public lecture, and launched a book of his latest essays and selected writings.
He also attended the wedding of his wife's elder sister, Weng Ke, 34, to Singaporean businessman Wong Teck Yen, 36, at the Fullerton Hotel.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, the professor said the Chinese as a people are not yet as disciplined as those in the West.
Good central control and leadership, he added, are still necessary to ensure success of large-scale national events and projects in the country. He cited the Beijing Olympics, the Sichuan earthquake rescue operations and the country's space programmes as examples.
He described China's tainted milk problems as complex ones involving 'too many parties, including tens of thousands of farmers and manufacturers'.
Quality control, he said, might be a good start to licking the problem.
Singapore could help by providing testing and certification facilities for China's dairy products, he suggested.
'If the Chinese do it themselves, it may not be as credible as someone else more neutral like Singapore,' he added.
Articulate in both Mandarin and English, the octogenarian has his pulse very much on current world affairs.
For instance, he blames the ongoing US-led global financial crisis on the Bush administration's lax fiscal and economic policies, which allowed Wall Street too much freedom to maximise income at the expense of the public.
Citing Lehman Brothers, for example, he said the failed US investment bank was allowed a leverage of 1:36. If it had US$1 million (S$1.5 million) in capital, it could borrow US$36 million.
'And because of the exuberance of their growth, the whole world followed, including Singapore,' he added.
He reckoned the rest of the world would suffer as a result of the 'excesses of the investment banks in the US over the past 10 years'.
However, he felt a world depression like that seen in the 1930s would not happen, for two reasons.
One, the productivity of the world is now on a completely different footing from the past, as countries are more interdependent and their economies tied more closely together.
Two, he believed that China - with its population of 1.3 billion and an economy which has been growing at about 10 per cent annually for the past 20 years - would be a main growth area which would help everybody else.
Still immersed in work
The son of a mathematician and a housewife, Prof Yang was born in Hefei in Anhui province in 1922.
He had his early education in China and managed to obtain a master's degree in science despite the ongoing Sino-Japanese War between the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Immediately after the war in 1945, he - like his father before him - won a scholarship to study at Chicago University where he completed his postgraduate studies.
He continued his work at the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton University and then the State University of New York in Stony Brook before he retired in 1999.
Alert and feisty, Prof Yang, who has problems only with his hearing, is determined to live a full life.
Although he is retired, he is still fully involved in his frontier research work which he started when he was a postgraduate student more than 60 years ago at Chicago University. He moved to China in 2003 after his first wife died. They have three grown-up children, all living in the US.
'For the past 10 years, I have been researching mainly on the history of physics and count myself fortunate to be able to do so at my age,' he said.
Recently, he submitted two research papers related to theoretical investigation in atomic structures for publication in American science journals.
He said: 'During the process of my research, I find my perception and ingenuity in mathematical calculations still intact, except that I get tired more easily than when I was young.'
And his secrets for good health and longevity?
'One important thing is to keep an interest in many things, including current affairs,' he said.
His latest interest is making movies with his camcorder, which he carries with him wherever he goes.
He did not shy away from discussing his marriage four years ago, when he was 82 and Weng Fan just 28.
The couple met in 1995 at an international physics seminar in Shantou, where Ms Weng, then a 19-year-old freshman, lived.
She was the guide for the scientist and his late wife, and left a good impression on the couple.
They lost touch after the seminar, but two months after Prof Yang's wife died from an illness at age 74 in October 2003, Ms Wang sent him a Christmas card.
He followed up with a call and their relationship began.
A few months later, Prof Yang proposed to her and she accepted readily. The marriage is also her second.
The professor described his young wife as 'a gift from God' and said she has been more than just a companion.
Indeed, Ms Weng - who holds a master's degree in translation from a foreign languages and trade university in Guangzhou - has translated some of his writings into Chinese.
Well aware of his mortality, Prof Yang said he has already given her his blessings to re-marry upon his death.
'But right now, we are very happy together.'
r than yours !!
