Tsung-Dao 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.

In 1946, Lee was presented with an unusual opportunity. One of his teachers at Kunming was the theoretical physicist Ta-You Wu. When Wu decided to return to the United States (where he had worked toward his Ph.D. degree), he invited Lee to accompany him. Lee accepted the offer and subsequently enrolled at the University of Chicago, the only American university that would accept him for graduate study without an undergraduate degree.

At Chicago, Lee selected a topic in astrophysics for...