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"Diligently study the laws of nature for pleasure": The Story of Professor T.D. Lee's Nobel Prize Manuscript Tie

one In the history of science, some great ideas are born beside precision instruments in laboratories, while others are born on casually scribbled draft paper. Today, we are going to share the story of a Nobel Prize manuscript retrieved from a "wastebasket" and how it transformed into an exquisite tie.

PART 1 The "Scientific Legacy" in the Wastebasket

In April 1956, Professor Tsung-Dao Lee and Professor Chen-Ning Yang first originated the breakthrough idea of parity nonconservation. At that time, Professor Lee at Columbia University and Professor Yang at Princeton University met frequently to discuss the "θ–τ puzzle" in depth, officially starting their collaborative research on the problem of parity nonconservation. In June of the same year, at the invitation of the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in the United States, Professor Lee brought his family to Long Island, New York, for a two-month summer visit. The laboratory provided large draft pads for each office. Professor Lee casually calculated daily, writing down formulas and ideas, tearing them off and throwing them into the wastebasket when finished. Professor Eugene Church, a nuclear physicist in the next office, could not bear to see these precious sparks of thought discarded, and silently retrieved and saved the draft papers every night.

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In October 1957, Professor T.D. Lee and Professor C.N. Yang unexpectedly won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their theory of "parity nonconservation." Professor Church immediately donated this batch of precious manuscripts to the American Physical Society (APS), creating the most famous "scientific legacy in the wastebasket" in the history of the Nobel Prize. One page of the manuscript was even selected as the cover of the December 1957 issue of Physics Today, a journal of the American Physical Society. The interwoven formulas, sketches, casual annotations, and scattered ink stains on the manuscript vividly present the exploratory process of theoretical physics research from chaos to clarity, becoming a direct witness to the birth of the theory of parity nonconservation.

PART 2 From Academic Cover to National Gift

Half a century later, in 2006, coinciding with Professor T.D. Lee's 80th birthday, a grand academic thought symposium was held in Beijing to commemorate his 60 years of devotion to physics research. During the preparation of the event, Professor Lee sent two framed manuscript copies to Comrade Wen Jiabao, then Premier of the State Council. One was the cover of the December 1957 issue of Physics Today, and the other was Professor Lee's manuscript on neutrino research dated March 25, 2006. Today, the two mounted manuscript replicas, Professor T.D. Lee's complete original Nobel Prize manuscripts, and his Nobel Prize medal are all treasured in the Tsung-Dao Lee Library at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

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Looking back at history, on October 1, 1956, Professor T.D. Lee and Professor C.N. Yang's paper "Question of Parity Conservation in Weak Interactions" was officially published in the top physics journal Physical Review; Professor Chien-Shiung Wu's experimental verification of the parity nonconservation result was announced in January 1957 and officially published in February of the same year. John Simpson, a physicist at the University of Chicago, nominated this theoretical achievement on January 29, 1957, just two days before the Nobel Prize nomination deadline. The Nobel Committee rapidly evaluated it. From the publication of the paper on October 1, 1956, to the announcement of the award on October 31, 1957, it set one of the fastest records "from paper to award" in Nobel Prize history, demonstrating the epoch-making significance and profound impact of this achievement.

PART 3 70th Anniversary: Letting Science be "Tied" to the Heart

four In 2026, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the publication of Professor T.D. Lee and Professor C.N. Yang's theory of parity nonconservation, the Tsung-Dao Lee Institute and the Tsung-Dao Lee Science and Art Center of Shanghai Jiao Tong University meticulously designed two cultural and creative ties with this historically significant Nobel Prize manuscript as the core pattern. This not only pays tribute to this great discovery that rewrote the history of physics, but also honors Professor T.D. Lee's open-mindedness and scientific life of "Diligently study the laws of nature for pleasure, why let empty fame bind this body."

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From the drafts in the office wastebasket in 1956, to the journal cover that swept the physics world in 1957, and now to the cultural and creative tie worn on the chest, this manuscript has spanned 70 years of time and space. It tells us that science is not only rigorous formulas, but also an art of exploration full of warmth and stories.

Reprinted by Hai Tong