Yang Zhenning loved physics when he was young and wanted to be an experimental physicist. When Yang Zhenning went to the United States to study in 1943, he decided to write a paper on experimental physics. From 65438 to 0946, Yang Zhenning entered the postgraduate class hosted by Fermi at the University of Chicago, hoping to write an experimental paper under Fermi's guidance. At that time, Fermi was busy doing military technology research in Argonne National Laboratory. China people who have just arrived in the United States like Yang Zhenning can't just enter Argonne's laboratory, so Fermi suggested that Yang Zhenning do some theoretical research with Taylor first, and the experiment can be done in Ellison's laboratory.

Allison, a professor of physics at the University of Chicago, was going to build an accelerator with 400,000 electron volts, which was the most advanced at that time. On Fermi's recommendation, Yang Zhenning became one of Allison's six graduate students. However, in the nearly 20 months of working in the laboratory, Yang Zhenning's physical experiments went very smoothly, and explosions often occurred during the experiment, so that there was a joke circulating in the laboratory at that time: where there was an explosion, there was Yang Zhenning. At this point, Yang Zhenning had to admit painfully that his hands-on ability was worse than others!

One day, Dr. Taylor, who has been paying attention to Yang Zhenning and is known as the father of American hydrogen bombs, asked Yang Zhenning with concern: "Isn't your experiment very successful?"

"yes." Facing the respected predecessors, Yang Zhenning said sincerely.

"I don't think you need to insist on writing an experimental paper. You wrote a theoretical paper. I suggest you enrich your doctoral thesis. I can be your mentor. " Taylor said bluntly to Yang Zhenning.

Yang Zhenning listened to Taylor's words, and his mood was very complicated. On the one hand, he felt from the bottom of his heart that he really couldn't do the experiment; On the other hand, he is unwilling to admit defeat, and he very much hopes to make up for his lack of experimental ability by writing an experimental paper. He is very grateful to Taylor for his concern, but it is not easy for him to make up his mind to give up his idea.

"I want to think about it and tell you in a couple of days." Yang Zhenning said earnestly.

Yang Zhenning thought hard for two days. He remembers one thing when he was in elementary school in Xiamen: once in a handicraft class, Yang Zhenning made a chicken with great interest and took it home for his parents to see. My parents smiled and said, "Very good, very good. Is it a lotus root? " The past came to mind one by one, and he had to admit that his hands-on ability was really not strong.

Finally, Yang Zhenning accepted Taylor's suggestion and gave up writing experimental papers. From then on, he resolutely turned his main direction to theoretical physics research, and finally won the Nobel Prize in physics with Li Zhengdao in June 1957, becoming the only Chinese descendant who won the Nobel Prize with a China passport.

Giving up is sometimes difficult, even painful. Giving up at the right time requires not only courage and courage, but also foresight and wisdom. Only by abandoning fantasy and glitz can the tree of life reap rich and sweet fruits.