Tsinghua University held a ceremony Monday to celebrate Nobel Prize winner Chen Ning Yang's 80th birthday.

Yang, born on September 22, 1922, in east China's Anhui Province, shared the 1957 Nobel Prize for Physics with Trung Dao Lee for their groundbreaking theory on particles.

Tsinghua University awarded Yang an honorary professorship in 1998.

Yang said he hoped to see that both China and the world have made great progress in science and technology when he is 90.

When asked what his major contributions were, Yang replied that he had helped the Chinese overcome their sense of inferiority.

Many famous scientists from at home and abroad, who were attending a seminar held in Tsinghua, took part in the birthday celebration.

(Xinhua News Agency June 17, 2002)