Tsung-Dao Lee, Chien-Shiung Wu, Chen Qibao, Hu Shih, Lan Rujuan (Chen Qibao's wife) and Paul Kwang Tsien Sih.
Gallery of Chien-Shiung Wu
1958
New York, NY 10027, United States
Chien-Shiung Wu (left) with Wallace Brode (right) at Columbia University in 1958.
Gallery of Chien-Shiung Wu
1963
New York, NY 10027, United States
The experiments of Columbia University physicists (left to right) Wu, Y.K. Lee, and L.W. Mo confirmed the theory of conservation of vector current. In the experiments, which took several months to complete, proton beams from Columbia's Van de Graaff accelerator were transmitted through pipes to strike a 2 mm boron target at the entrance to a spectrometer chamber.
Gallery of Chien-Shiung Wu
1963
New York, NY 10027, United States
Chien-Shiung Wu in 1963 at Columbia University.
Gallery of Chien-Shiung Wu
1963
New York, NY 10027, United States
Chien-Shiung Wu in 1963 at Columbia University.
Achievements
Membership
National Academy of Sciences
Chien-Shiung Wu was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Chien-Shiung Wu was a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
American Physical Society
Chien-Shiung Wu was a member of the American Physical Society.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Chien-Shiung Wu was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Chien-Shiung Wu was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Academia Sinica
Chien-Shiung Wu was a member of the Academia Sinica.
Royal Society of Edinburgh
Chien-Shiung Wu was a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Committee of 100
Chien-Shiung Wu was a member of the Committee of 100.
Awards
National Medal of Science
1976
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, United States
Chien-Shiung Wu receiving her National Medal of Science from President Gerald R. Ford.
The experiments of Columbia University physicists (left to right) Wu, Y.K. Lee, and L.W. Mo confirmed the theory of conservation of vector current. In the experiments, which took several months to complete, proton beams from Columbia's Van de Graaff accelerator were transmitted through pipes to strike a 2 mm boron target at the entrance to a spectrometer chamber.
Chien-Shiung Wu was a Chinese-born American physicist. She provided the first experimental proof that the principle of parity conservation does not hold in weak subatomic interactions.
Background
Chien-Shiung Wu was born on May 31, 1912, in Liuhe, Taicang in Jiangsu, Republic of China to the family of Wu Zhong-Yi and Fan Fu-Hua. She had two brothers and was the middle child. Wu and her father were extremely close and he was very supportive of her interests end encouraged her to read and receive an education.
Education
Although relatively uncommon for girls to attend school, Chien-Shiung Wu went to Ming De School. It was founded by her father, who believed that girls should receive an education. Since the age of 11 in 1923, Wu studied at Suzhou Women's Normal School No. 2 graduating at the top of her class in 1929.
In 1930 Wu entered National Central University in Nanjing, China (now known as Nanjing University). First, she studied mathematics but then switched to physics. In 1934, Wu graduated at the top of her class with a degree in physics. After graduation, she worked in a physics lab in China. Her mentor, Dr. Jing-Wei Gu, another woman working in the field of physics, encouraged Chien-Shiung to continue her education in the United States.
With financial support from her uncle, Wu took a ship to San Francisco. She was likely processed for immigration to the United States at the Angel Island Immigration Station located in San Francisco Bay. She enrolled at the University of California Berkeley in 1936. Her academic advisor was Ernest Lawrence. In 1939, while Chien-Shiung was still his student, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the cyclotron particle accelerator. In 1940, Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu graduated with her Doctor of Philosophy in physics.
After receiving a doctorate in 1940, Wu taught at Smith College and at Princeton University. In 1944 she undertook work on radiation detection in the Division of War Research at Columbia University. Remaining on the university staff at Columbia after the war, she became Dupin professor of physics there in 1957.
In 1956 Tsung-Dao Lee of Columbia and Chen Ning Yang of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, proposed that parity is not conserved for weak nuclear interactions. With a group of scientists from the National Bureau of Standards, Washington, D.C., Wu that year tested the proposal by observing the beta particles given off by cobalt-60. Wu observed that there is a preferred direction of emission and that, therefore, parity is not conserved for this weak interaction. She announced her results in 1957. The success of this and similar additional experiments brought worldwide acclaim not only to Wu but also to Lee and Yang, who won the 1957 Nobel Prize for Physics for their work. In 1958 Richard P. Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann proposed the conservation of vector current in nuclear beta decay. This theory was experimentally confirmed in 1963 by Wu in collaboration with two other Columbia University research physicists. She later investigated the structure of hemoglobin.
Wu, who received the National Medal of Science in 1975 and served as president of the American Physical Society that year as well, was considered one of the premier experimental physicists in the world. She retired from her professorship at Columbia in 1981.
Wu was formally a Buddhist though it is not known whether she was practicing or not.
Politics
As a student, Chien-Shiung Wu became involved in student politics. When the relationship between China and Japan became tenser and the students wanted a stronger line from Chinese authorities towards Japan. Wu was elected as one of the student leaders by her fellows because being one of the top students at the university they considered that she would be forgiven for her involvement, or at least overlooked, by the authorities. Thus Wu was one of the leaders of the protest actions that included a sit-in at the Presidential Palace in Nanjing, where the students were met by Chiang Kai-shek.
Views
Wu was involved in the women's rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1964, Wu presented at a historic Massachusetts Institute of Technology symposium on "American Women in Science," alongside then 86-year-old industrial engineer Lillian Gilbreth. Seven years later, she participated in the first meeting of women in physics at the annual American Physical Society conference. After her retirement, she focused on the cause of recruiting and retaining women in physics. Wu called out the stereotypes that made women feel science wasn't for them, and that discouraged their male peers from perceiving their worth. In a sense, Wu's later-life feminism was a return to her roots. Her father was an engineer who believed in equal rights for women. He delivered on that belief by founding the first school for girls in the region, then becoming its principal.
Membership
Chien-Shiung Wu was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the American Physical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Academia Sinica, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Committee of 100, and the World Academy of Sciences.
National Academy of Sciences
,
United States
Chinese Academy of Sciences
,
China
American Physical Society
,
United States
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
,
United States
American Association for the Advancement of Science
,
United States
Academia Sinica
,
Taiwan
Royal Society of Edinburgh
,
United Kingdom
Committee of 100
,
United States
World Academy of Sciences
Personality
Wu was nicknamed Dragon Lady by her students at Columbia University for her uncompromising standards.
Interests
calligraphy
Connections
In 1942, Chien-Shiung Wu married Luke Chia-Liu Yuan, who she had met during her studies at Berkeley. Neither of their families was able to attend the wedding because of World War II fighting in the Pacific. They were married at the home of Robert Millikan, Yuan's academic supervisor, and the President of Caltech. They had a son Vincent Yuan.