Chien-Shiung Wu

Chinese-American experimental physicist who conducted the famous experiment that disproved the law of parity conservation in weak interactions. This discovery changed the understanding of fundamental symmetry in nature.

Biography

Born in 1912 in Shanghai, China. She studied at National Central University, then in the USA, where she received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 1940. She worked at Columbia University, later at Princeton and Columbia. In 1956, at the suggestion of Tsung-Dao Lee and Yang, she conducted an experiment with beta decay of cobalt-60, which showed parity violation. Although the Nobel Prize was awarded only to Lee and Yang, Wu received numerous awards, including the Comstock Prize and the National Medal of Science.

Key discoveries

Experimental proof of parity violation in weak interactions (1956–1957)
which confirmed the theory of Lee and Yang
precise measurements of beta decay
which helped develop Fermi's theory
contributed to the Manhattan Project
by developing a process for uranium isotope separation.

💡 Chien-Shiung Wu was called the 'First Lady of Physics' and the 'Queen of Atomic Decay'. Her experiment was so elegant that one colleague said: 'She turned a question about the Universe into a tiny piece of cobalt and cooled it almost to absolute zero to get the answer.' Throughout her life, she fought against gender prejudice in science.

Quote: "There is nothing more exciting than the moment when your hypothesis is confirmed by an experiment, but even more amazing is when the experiment disproves what everyone believed."

Biography

Key discoveries

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