杨振宁，1922年10月1日出生于安徽合肥，世界著名物理学家，现任香港中文大学讲座教授、清华大学教授、美国纽约州立大学石溪分校荣休教授、中国科学院院士、美国国家科学院院士、台湾“中央研究院”院士、俄罗斯科学院院士、英国皇家学会会员，1957年获诺贝尔物理学奖；是中美关系松动后回中国探访的第一位华裔科学家，积极推动中美文化交流和中美人民的互相了解；在促进中美两国建交、中美人才交流和科技合作等方面，做出了重大贡献。
1942年，毕业于西南联合大学；1944年，获清华大学硕士学位；1945年，获穆藕初奖学金 ，赴美留学；1948年，获芝加哥大学哲学博士学位，任芝加哥大学讲师、普林斯顿高等研究院研究员；1955年，任美国普林斯顿高等学术研究所教授；1966年，任美国纽约州立大学石溪分校教授兼物理研究所所长；1986年，任香港中文大学博文讲座教授；1998年，任清华大学教授；2017年，恢复中华人民共和国国籍；2018年，任西湖大学校董会名誉主席。
杨振宁在粒子物理学、统计力学和凝聚态物理等领域作出了里程碑性的贡献。20世纪50年代和R.L.米尔斯合作提出非阿贝尔规范场理论；1956年和李政道合作提出弱相互作用中宇称不守恒定律；在粒子物理和统计物理方面做了大量开拓性工作，提出杨－巴克斯特方程，开辟了量子可积系统和多体问题研究的新方向等 。，杨振宁推动了香港中文大学数学科学研究所、清华大学高等研究中心、南开大学理论物理研究室和中山大学高等学术研究中心的成立。
清华大学前校长顾秉林对杨振宁作出了高度评价，“杨先生是我国科学工作者的一面旗帜”。顾秉林透露，他任校长时杨振宁推荐了著名计算机专家姚期智来清华任教，为后来清华引进大量高端人才起到了十分重要的作用。“他还把在清华的工资都捐了出来，用于引进人才和培养学生。”
中国科学院院士葛墨林说，“很多人学问很大，脾气也比较大一点，而杨先生，你跟他什么都可以说。”，“杨振宁是位尊重人的忠厚长者，什么事都可与他辩论。”葛墨林认为，南开理论物理研究室的师生，不仅在学问上受惠于杨振宁，人品、学风上也受益颇多。杨振宁“宁拙毋巧，宁朴勿华”的要求，影响极大。
Zhen-Ning Franklin Yang (Traditional Chinese: 杨振宁; pinyin: Yáng Zhènníng) (born 22 September, 1922) is a Chinese American physicist who worked on statistical mechanics and symmetry principles.
In 1957, at the age of 35, he and Tsung-Dao Lee received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their theory that weak force interactions between elementary particles did not have parity (mirror-reflection) symmetry. Chien-Shiung Wu experimentally verified the theory. His relationship with Lee turned sour around 1962 after they had received the Nobel Prize. Their quarrel has been who, among the two of them, first proposed the idea of parity non-conservation for weak interaction up to the present day.
Yang is also well known for his collaboration with Robert Mills in developing a gauge theory of a new class. Such “Yang-Mills theories“ are now a fundamental part of the Standard Model of particle physics.
Born in Hefei, Anhui, China Yang attended elementary school in Beijing, and middle school first in Beijing, then in Kunming.
He received his Bachelor of Science degree from National Southwestern Associated University in Kunming in 1942. Two years later, he studied for his Master of Science degree with a full scholarship at Tsinghua University, at the time also in Kunming. He attended the University of Chicago on a Tsinghua University Fellowship in January 1946. There he studied for his Ph.D. with Edward Teller and after receiving it in 1948, remained for a year as an assistant to Enrico Fermi. In 1949 he moved to the Institute for Advanced Study and in 1965 to the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
He has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Academia Sinica, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by Princeton University (1958).
Yang married Chih-li Tu (杜致礼 Dù Zhìlǐ), a teacher, in 1950 and has two sons and a daughter: Franklin Jr., Gilbert, and Eulee (in order of age). His father-in-law was the Kuomintang General Du Yuming.
He retired from Stony Brook in 1999 and returned to Tsinghua University. His wife died in the winter of 2003. At the age of 82, Yang became engaged to 28-year old Weng Fan (翁帆) who is studying for her masters at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, and married her in early 2005. He has since received much criticism from some Chinese media.
