Benjamin W. Lee

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Benjamin W. Lee (Korean language: 이휘소) (1935 - June 16, 1977) was a Korean American theoretical physicist. He was born in Seoul, Korea. He was a professor of physics at the University of Chicago, and head of the theoretical physics department at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. He graduated from Miami University and received a masters degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. On June 16, 1977, he was killed in a car accident not far from Kewanee, Illinois. He was regarded by his peers as a world-class elementary particle physicist at the time of his sudden death. He was particularly well regarded by Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Laureate.

Lee studied symmetry principles and weak interactions. The Benjamin W. Lee Prize is named in his honor.^{[citation needed]} The prize is administered by the Department of Physics and Astronomy of Stony Brook University and comes with a relatively modest monetary award. Among its receipients are Sultan Catto and Hyunoo Shim.

[edit] Mysterious Death & Conspiracy

Prior to his car accident, Lee was exclusively invited to Korea by then President, Park Chung Hee. Coincidently, at the time, South Korean government was in pursuit of the development of nuclear warhead capabilities. In Korea, many people regards Lee's death as a big conspiracy executed by America's various clandestine agencies, namely the CIA for obvious reasons.

His death, has produced fictional literacy, and films in Korea. Moo-goong-wha kochi pi-ut sum ni da ('The Flower Blossoms') was a novel that somewhat followed the life of Lee.