Tsung-Dao Lee and his colleague, physicist Chen Ning Yang, developed the revolutionary theory that the unusual behavior of the K meson (a subatomic particle) is a result of its violating a supposedly inviolable law of nature, conservation of parity , which defines the basic symmetry of nature. A few months after their theory had been announced, fellow physicist Chien-Shiung Wu obtained experimental confirmation of their remarkable discovery. For their work, Lee and Yang were awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in physics.

Lee was born in Shanghai, China, on November 24, 1926. He was the third of six children born to Tsing-Kong Lee, a businessman, and Ming-Chang Chang. Lee attended the Kiangsi Middle School in Kanchow and, after graduation, entered the National Chekian University in Kweichow. After the invasion of Japanese troops in 1945, Lee fled to the south, where he continued his studies at the National Southwest Associated University in Kunming.

Immigrates to...