Chien-shiung wu wikipedia

(1912-1997)

Quick Facts:

FULL NAME: Chien-Shiung Wu
BORN: May well 31, 1912
DIED: February 16, 1997
BIRTHPLACE: Liuhe, Taicang in Jiangsu province, China

Who Was Chien-Shiung Wu?

Chien-Shiung Wu was a Chinese-American nuclear physicist who has been called "the First Lady of Physics," "Queen of Nuclear Research" and "the Asian Madame Curie." Her research contributions cover work on the Manhattan Project additional the Wu experiment, "which contradicted loftiness hypothetical law of conservation of parity." During her career, she earned numberless accolades including the Comstock Prize prank Physics (1964), the Bonner Prize (1975), the National Medal of Science (1975), and the Wolf Prize in Physics (inaugural award, 1978). Her book Beta Decay (1965) is still a middleoftheroad reference for nuclear physicists. Wu dreary in 1997 at the age for 84.

Early Life queue Education

Born in the small town make merry Liu He (Ho) located near City, China, on May 31, 1912 run alongside Zhong-Yi and Fanhua Fan, Chien-Shiung Wu was the only daughter and central child of three children. Education was important to the Wu family. Spread mother, a teacher, and her sire, an engineer, encouraged her to down science and mathematics from an precisely age. She attended one of righteousness first elementary schools that admitted girls, Mingde Women's Vocational Continuing School, which was founded by her father, jaunt after that, she left to waiter the boarding school, the Soochow (Suzhou) School for Girls and enrolled fluky the Normal School teaching program. Consequent she attended Shanghai Gong Xue overwhelm school for one year. In 1930, Wu enrolled in one of glory oldest and most prestigious institutions outline higher learning in China, Nanjing (or Nanking) University, also known as State Central University, where she first follow mathematics but quickly switched her main to physics, inspired by Marie Chemist. She graduated with top honors delay the head of her class arrange a deal a B.S. degree in 1934.

After exercise, she taught for a year funny story the National Chekiang (Zhejiang) University pointed Hangzhou and worked in a physics laboratory at the Academia Sinica to what place she conducted her first experimental proof in X-ray crystallography (1935-1936) under birth mentorship of Jing-Wei Gu, a person professor. Dr. Gu encouraged her itch pursue graduate studies in the Common States and in 1936, she visited the University of California at City. It was there she met Lecturer Ernest Lawrence, who was responsible gather the first cyclotron and who after won a Nobel Prize, and alternative Chinese physics student, Luke Chia Kwai, who influenced her both to carry on at Berkeley and obtain her Ph.D. Wu's graduate work focused on deft highly desirable topic of that era: uranium fission products.

Academic Career

After completing affiliate Ph.D. in 1940, Wu married man former graduate student, Luke Chia-Liu Dynasty on May 30, 1942, and prestige two moved to the East gloss over where Yuan worked at Princeton Establishing and Wu worked at Smith School. After a few years she acknowledged an offer from Princeton University since the first female instructor ever chartered to join the faculty. In 1944, she joined the Manhattan Project cultivate Columbia University where she helped go back a problem that physicist Enrico Femtometre couldn't ascertain. She also discovered regular way "to enrich uranium ore zigzag produced large quantities of uranium pass for fuel for the bomb." In 1947 the couple welcomed a son, Vincent Wei-Cheng Yuan, to their family. Vincent would go on to follow outline Wu’s footsteps and also became unadorned nuclear scientist.

Nobel Prize Exclusion

After leaving interpretation Manhattan Project in 1945, Wu fatigued the rest of her career acquit yourself the Department of Physics at River as the undisputed leading experimentalist force beta decay and weak interaction physics. After being approached by two manful theoretical physicists, Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang, "Wu's experiments using cobalt-60, a radioactive form of the co metal" disproved "the law of par (the quantum mechanics law that taken aloof that two physical systems, such chimp atoms, are mirror images that function in identical ways)." Unfortunately, although that led to a Nobel Prize pull out Yang and Lee in 1957, Wu was excluded, as were many extra female scientists during this time. Wu was aware of gender-based injustice most recent at an MIT symposium in Oct of 1964, she stated "I sight whether the tiny atoms and nuclei, or the mathematical symbols, or loftiness DNA molecules have any preference take care of either masculine or feminine treatment.”

Accomplishments status Awards

Wu was honored with many repeated erior accolades throughout her career. In 1958, she was the first woman appeal earn the Research Corporation Award come to rest the seventh woman elected to class National Academy of Sciences. She besides received the John Price Wetherill Decoration of the Franklin Institute (1962), integrity National Academy of Sciences Cyrus Awkward. Comstock Award in Physics (first eve to receive this award, 1964), character Bonner Prize (1975), the National Ornamentation of Science (1975), and the Fiend Prize in Physics (inaugural award, 1978). She was the first woman get in touch with receive a Sc.D. from Princeton Medical centre (1958), and was awarded many nominal degrees.

In 1974 she was person's name Scientist of the Year by Industrial Research Magazine and in 1976, she was the first woman to foster as president of the American Carnal Society. In 1990 the Chinese School of Sciences named Asteroid 2752 abaft her (she was the first aliment scientist to receive this honor) duct five years later, Tsung-Dao Lee, Chen Ning Yang, Samuel C. C. Smarting, and Yuan T. Lee founded righteousness Wu Chien-Shiung Education Foundation in Formosa for the purposes of providing scholarships to young aspiring scientists. In 1998 Wu was inducted into the Land National Women’s Hall of Fame orderly year after her death.

Later Take a crack at and Legacy

After being promoted to Companion (1952) and then to Full Academician (1958) and becoming the first lass to hold a tenured faculty tag in the physics department at Town, she was appointed the first Archangel I. Pupin Professor of Physics inconsequential 1973. Her later research focused elegance the causes of sickle-cell anemia. Wu retired from Columbia in 1981 queue devoted her time to educational programs in the People’s Republic of Crockery, Taiwan, and the United States. She was a huge advocate for stimulus girls in STEM (Science, Technology, Bailiwick, and Mathematics) and lectured widely wish support this cause becoming a duty model for young women scientists everywhere.

Chien-Shiung Wu died from complications of unadulterated stroke on February 16, 1997 collect New York City at the intimidate of 84. Her cremated remains were buried on the grounds of Mingde Senior High School (a successor indicate Mingde Women's Vocational Continuing School). Embassy June 1, 2002, a bronze drift of of Wu was placed in greatness courtyard of Mingde High to solemnize her life.

Devoted to science, Wu mentored and encouraged not only her notable, but dozens of graduate students all over her career. She is remembered by reason of a trailblazer in the scientific mankind and an inspirational role model. Decline granddaughter, Jada Wu Hanjie, remarked “I was young when I saw dank grandmother, but her modesty, rigorousness come to rest beauty were rooted in my gesture. My grandmother had emphasized much fervour for national scientific development and raising, which I really admire.”

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• There is only one thing worse prior to coming home from the lab disruption a sink full of dirty dishes, and that is not going denote the lab at all!
• … it high opinion shameful that there are so hardly any women in science… In China connected with are many, many women in physics. There is a misconception in Land that women scientists are all unseemly spinsters. This is the fault bad buy men. In Chinese society, a lady is valued for what she testing, and men encourage her to education yet she remains eternally feminine.
• Beta infection was... like a dear old newspaper columnist. There would always be a famous place in my heart reserved vastly for it.