Science · Physics

Chien-Shiung Wu

1912–1997 · Chinese-American

Experimental nuclear physics

Chien-Shiung Wu was a Chinese-born American experimental physicist at Columbia University, renowned for the precision of her work on beta decay. In 1956–57 her experiment with cobalt-60 showed that parity is not conserved in weak interactions, confirming the proposal of Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang, who won the 1957 Nobel Prize while she was passed over. She became the first woman president of the American Physical Society and the first winner of the Wolf Prize in Physics.

How to spot them

▸The Wu experiment: cobalt-60 nuclei and the overthrow of parity conservation (1956–57)
▸Nicknames 'First Lady of Physics' and 'the Chinese Madame Curie'
▸Overlooked when Lee and Yang won the 1957 Nobel Prize
▸Worked on uranium enrichment for the Manhattan Project at Columbia

Key discoveries & works

Experiment disproving conservation of parity in weak interactions (1956–57)

Cooled cobalt-60 in a magnetic field at the National Bureau of Standards; electrons were emitted preferentially in one direction

Confirmation of the conserved vector current hypothesis (1963)

Supported the Feynman–Gell-Mann theory of beta decay

Beta Decay (with Steven Moszkowski) (1966)

Standard reference work on the subject

Gaseous diffusion work for the Manhattan Project (1944)

Helped develop methods to enrich uranium at Columbia University

Key ideas

The weak interaction distinguishes left from right: nature is not mirror-symmetric

Quick-fire facts

•Born in Liuhe, Jiangsu province, China, in 1912; died in New York City in 1997
•Took her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1940
•Lee and Yang won the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics for proposing parity violation; Wu, who proved it, was not included
•First recipient of the Wolf Prize in Physics (1978)
•In 1975 became the first woman president of the American Physical Society, and received the National Medal of Science
•An asteroid, 2752 Wu Chien-Shiung, is named after her
•Featured on a US postage stamp issued in 2021

Drill it — 6 cards

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Sources

Atomic Heritage Foundation / National Museum of Nuclear Science & History — Chien-Shiung Wu
Sharon Bertsch McGrayne — Nobel Prize Women in Science