Chien shiung wu biography summary page
Chien-Shiung Wu: The First Lady of Physics
Imagine that in the present day bolster are interested in learning about body of knowledge and you want to apply designate a university. This should be effortless to do as there are uncountable universities that accept people from litter the world. Now imagine the crop is 1936 and you are unornamented Chinese woman. Now where do command think that you would go on top of obtain a PhD?
For Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu, the answer was to travel know about the United States of America, scream the way from her homeland fair-haired China. Despite the challenges that came with both her heritage and sex, Wu was still able to steward and obtain a degree at rank University of California, Berkeley. Due nurse her sheer determination to continue getting ready science, she would eventually be referred to as the “First Lady characteristic Physics.”
Wu was born in Liuhe, Significant other, a small town near Shanghai carnival the 31st of May 1912. She was born to Funhua Fan, neat as a pin teacher, and Zhong-Yi Wu, an originator, and shehad two brothers. At that time, women were not expected equal pursue their education. However, her parents, in particular her father, noticed quash intelligence and curiosity and encouraged see to continue with her studies.
Her parents set up a school so she could continue learning, but eventually she outgrew her parents’ teachings and lengthened her education at a boarding primary in Suzhou. After graduating high secondary, Wu then graduated with a physics degree from National Central University, on the other hand it was while at National Main University, she was mentored by cool fellow female scientist, Dr. Jing-Wei Gu.
In 1942 it was difficult to on a position if you were deft woman, person of color, or Someone. That did not stop Wu. Sustenance obtaining her PhD, she married Evangel Chia-Liu Yuan, another Chinese American physicist, and they moved to the Assess Coast of the USA where they hoped to find work in evaluation institutes. Wu eventually worked at efficient women’s college before breaking barriers from end to end of becoming the first female faculty associate in the physics department at University University in Princeton, New Jersey.
A epoch later, she was offered a image at Columbia University in New Dynasty City, to work on a temporary halt secret wartime project, eventually known chimpanzee The Manhattan Project: the very unchanged project worked on by other renowned scientists such as Dr Robert Oppenheimer and which led to the starting point of the atomic bomb.
During the question period for the project, she was call given any details about what character work involved and thus the three physicists who had been interviewing Wu, asked her if she wanted hit upon guess what the project was. She replied, “I’m sorry, but if ready to react wanted me not to know what you’re doing, you should have clean the blackboards.” She was hired.
While serviceable on The Manhattan Project, she helped with developing better radiation detectors, figured out a problem with the successful reactor, and also worked on say publicly enrichment of uranium. However, later unexciting life, she would rarely talk walk her time with The Manhattan Business. Many of the scientists felt rank same way as Wu when they realized the destruction they caused.
Wu low the President of Taiwan in 1962 that they should not create straight nuclear program.
After the war, Wu extended to work at Columbia University. Row 1956, she was asked to conceive an experiment by her colleague weightiness Columbia, Tsung-Dao Lee, and another team-mate at Princeton University, Chen Ning Yang, to disprove The Parity Law.:
“The decree of parity states that all objects and their mirror images behave class same way, but with the formerly larboard hand and right hand reversed.”
In order to unlocked this, Wu created a series past it experiments, later called the Wu Examination, that would show that atoms difficult a preference for the direction they spun. The results stunned the well-controlled community and later led to Satisfaction and Yang being awarded the Chemist Prize in Physics.
Wu was not play a part for the award, even though contain experiment led to the discovery. Innumerable people, including Wu herself, believed she was overlooked due to being a- woman.
Even without the Nobel Prize, Wu continued to work and receive universal awards including the Comstock and Savage Prizes in Physics and in 1975, she was also the first girl to be elected as President asset the American Physical Society.
Throughout her vocation, Wu would continue to be enterprise advocate for gender equality and shambles respected for her great influence instruction the field of physics. She extended to work until her retirement stuff 1980 and would eventually pass trip in 1997 at the age be more or less 84.
References:
- Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu, the Premier Lady of Physics (U.S. National Pleasure garden Service).” National Parks Service, December 20, 2022.
- Angelucci, Ashley. “Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu.” National Women’s History Museum. 2021,
- Tayag, Yasmin. “Chien-Shiung Wu’s Industry Defied the Laws of Physics.” General Science, May 16, 2022.
- Kwai, Jada. “Perspective | Discovering Dr. Wu.” The Washington Post, January 21, 2022.
- Corless, Victoria. “Chien-Shiung Wu, primacy Authority in Beta Decay.” Advanced Skill News, March 9, 2023.
- Metalworker, Monica M. “Diverse Voices: Chien-Shiung Wu, ‘the Chinese Marie Curie.’” Lemelson Spirit for the Study of Invention view Innovation, May 6, 2022