Portrait of Tsung-Dao Lee

Birthday profile

Tsung-Dao Lee

Tsung-Dao Lee, Chinese-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2024)

Born
November 24, 1926
Died
August 4, 2024
Zodiac sign
Sagittarius
Birth year
1926

About Tsung-Dao Lee

Tsung-Dao Lee (Chinese: 李政道; pinyin: Lǐ Zhèngdào; November 24, 1926 – August 4, 2024) was a Chinese-American physicist known for his work on parity violation, the Lee–Yang theorem, particle physics, relativistic heavy ion (RHIC) physics, nontopological solitons, and soliton stars. He was a university professor emeritus at Columbia University in New York City, where he taught from 1953 until his retirement in 2012. In 1957, at the age of 30, Lee won the Nobel Prize in Physics with Chen Ning Yang for their work on the violation of the parity law in weak interactions, which Chien-Shiung Wu experimentally proved from 1956 to 1957, with her well known Wu experiment. Lee remains the youngest Nobel laureate in the science fields after World War II. He is the third-youngest Nobel laureate in sciences in history after William L. Bragg (who won the prize at 25 with his father William H. Bragg in 1915) and Werner Heisenberg (who won in 1932 also at 30). Lee and Yang were the first Chinese laureates. Since he became a naturalized American citizen in 1963, Lee is also the youngest American ever to have won a Nobel Prize. == Biography == === Family === Lee was born in Shanghai, China, with his ancestral home in nearby Suzhou. His father Chun-kang Lee (李駿康; Lǐ Jùn-kāng), one of the first graduates of the University of Nanking, was a chemical industrialist and merchant who was involved in China's early development of modern synthesized fertilizer. Lee's grandfather Chong-tan Lee (李仲覃; Lǐ Zhòng-tán) was the first Chinese Methodist Episcopal senior pastor of St. John's Church in Suzhou.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

The world when Tsung-Dao Lee was born

Tsung-Dao Lee was born in 1926. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1926

  • #1 song"Bye Bye Blackbird"
  • Top movieThe General (Buster Keaton)
  • Best-selling bookThe Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentGertrude Ederle swims the English Channel
  • Top headlineA.A. Milne publishes Winnie-the-Pooh
  • Technology milestoneFirst demonstration of television
  • Defining fadFlagpole sitting
  • Notable inventionPop-up toaster
  • World population2.01 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderCalvin Coolidge
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population117.4M

1926 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Tsung-Dao Lee's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19262026
Gas$0.23$3.45/gal
Average home$6,000$435,000
Average income$3,620$67,500
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population117.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.