 |
| Professor Yuan Tseh Lee |
On October 26, 2004, members of the Taiwanese American Association (TAA), Pittsburgh Chapter, had a very pleasant and congenial dinner with a Nobel laureate, Professor Yuan Tseh Lee (李遠哲教授). After being informed by Professor Fu Tyan Lin (林富田教授) that Dr. Lee was coming to University of Pittsburgh, and with the help of Mrs. J.Y. Tzeng (鄭如玉, a family friend of Dr. Lee), Katy (then TAA, Pittsburgh Chapter president) organized the dinner at LeMonte Restaurant, Pittsburgh.
Inspired by Madame Curie, Dr. Lee wanted to be a scientist at a young age. His excellent academic foundation was built at the National Taiwan University and the National Tsinghua University. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1965, Dr. Lee joined Professor Dudley Herschbach (at Harvard—Janice’s freshman chemistry professor) for post-doc research in 1967. They shared the 1986 Nobel Prizes in Chemistry with Professor Polanyi for ‘reaction dynamics’—a new field they helped to create in 1960s and 1970s.
To create a new field in science per se is an extraordinary accomplishment. It is next to impossible to describe in this writing what Professor Lee did to be worthy for a Nobel Prize. But, I’ll give it a try.
I like to say that in the end all chemical reactions are physical. “A chemical reaction is fundamentally a mechanical event, involving the rearrangement of atoms and molecules during a collision.” (from Dr. Lee’s Nobel Lecture) Professor Herschbach pioneered the crossed molecular beam to study what happens to the two atoms the ‘moment’ (a time span of the order of a millionth of a millionth of a second) when they collide. With this technique they were able to ‘visualize’ the detail traveling paths of the colliding atoms during a chemical reaction.
You just have to trust them how they can ‘see’ it, using the quantum mechanical calculation of the angular and velocity distribution. i.e. measuring the direction, velocity, and potential energy, etc. one can locate the new position of the product. (Skip this paragraph if you must)
 |
| Katy and Professor Yuan Tseh Lee |
Dr. Lee carried this technique to a higher level so that chemical reaction dynamics of a large, complex molecule can be studied. Being a physical chemist, he worked at two departments while at Harvard. After spending $80,000 (in 1967 dollars) in 10 months, using the money Dr. Herschbach borrowed from the Department of Chemistry, Dr. Lee built a ‘supermachine’ incorporating mass spectroscopy to the crossed molecular beam machine, thus taking Herschbach’s research of the chemical reaction dynamics to ‘beyond the alkali age.’
Despite much confidence in Lee during the course of machine construction, much concern and worry was expressed about this unprecedented endeavor of building the supermachine. At one point Herschbach said, “Yuan, if this machine doesn’t work, you have to shovel the snow in Harvard Yard for five years to pay back the money I borrowed.” Dr. Lee said of Herschbach in his Nobel Lecture,
“In February of 1967, I joined Dudley Herschbach’s group at Harvard as a post-doctoral fellow. There, I was exposed to the excitement of the crossed molecular beams research and participated in the construction of an universal crossed molecular beams apparatus. Dudley’s contagious enthusiasm and spectacular insight motivated not only me, but a whole generation of chemical dynamicists.”
 |
| Jer-Yuan Tsai, Professor Yuan-Tseh Lee and Katy Tsai |
Lee’s late father was a fine artist. Katy asked him about the famous Niagara Fall painting. Dr. Lee said when he was at Harvard, his parents came to the States for a visit, and he took them to Niagara Falls. His father took lots of pictures and did that painting when he returned to Taiwan.
Lee also reminisced his childhood days when he wanted to learn painting from his father, who discouraged him or any of his seven siblings to take up painting, as his father said, “A poor artist can’t even make a living.” Thanks to his father insight, we have a super scientist furthers our basic science research to a higher level. His mother was a kindergarten teacher and Dr. Lee said he had the best teacher from the very beginning.
Among his numerous prestigious awards are National Medal of Science, Peter Debye Award and Nobel Prize, all in 1986. When Lee received the Nobel Prize, Dudley R. Herschbach described him as "The Mozart of physical chemistry...not only because Dr. Lee was a prodigy but also because in the laboratory he has 'a precise touch.'" (by James Gleick, the author of Chaos and Genius—Richard Feynman’s biography).
In my baseball posts I have mentioned how Herschbach and Lee boasted and claimed the credits of the championships of their baseball teams. When he came to Pittsburgh for two lectures in October 2004, the Red Sox - Cardinals World Series was going on, and I have no doubt about it that the Red Sox finally broke the Curse only because Dr. Lee returned to the States then. During his lectures at Pittsburgh Dr. Lee claimed the credits that Red Sox went to the World Series in 1967 when he went to Harvard and Oakland Athletics won the World Series champion in 1974 when he returned to Berkeley.
Prof Lee, Katy and Jer-Yuan
