Chien-Shiung Wu

Chien-Shiung Wu, a Chinese-American particle and experimental physicist, made major contributions to nuclear and particle physics. She worked on the Manhattan Project, developing a method to separate uranium-235 from uranium-238 using gaseous diffusion. Her most famous achievement was the Wu experiment, which demonstrated that parity is not conserved. This discovery led to her colleagues Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang winning the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics; Wu herself received the inaugural Wolf Prize in Physics in 1978. Her experimental skill drew comparisons to Marie Curie, and she was called the "First Lady of Physics," the "Chinese Marie Curie," and the "Queen of Nuclear Research."

Wu was born on May 31, 1912, in Liuhe, Taicang, Jiangsu province, China, the second of three children of Wu Zhong-Yi and Fan Fu-Hua. Her generation name was Chien, followed by characters from the phrase "Ying-Shiung-Hao-Jie," meaning "heroes and outstanding figures." Her older brother was Chien-Ying, and her younger brother was Chien-Hao. Her father, an engineer and social progressive, encouraged her interest in science by surrounding her with books, magazines, and newspapers. He had participated in the 1913 Second Revolution in Shanghai, then moved to Liuhe, where he led a militia against bandits and founded the Ming De School for girls, serving as its principal. Her mother, a teacher, valued education for both sexes.

Wu attended primary school at Ming De. She was a modest, inquisitive child in a well-to-do family. Instead of playing outside, she listened to the newly invented radio for pleasure and knowledge, and enjoyed poetry, Chinese classics like the Analects, and Western literature on democracy promoted by her father. He recited scientific journal paragraphs to her until she learned to read. In 1923, at age 11, she left home for the Suzhou Women's Normal School No. 2, a boarding school offering teacher training and regular high school classes. Science became a growing passion. Admission to teacher training was more competitive because it was free and guaranteed a job; Wu chose this option and ranked ninth among about 10,000 applicants.

In 1929, Wu graduated at the top of her class and entered National Central University in Nanjing. Government rules required teacher-training graduates to teach for a year before university, but this was only nominally enforced for her. She taught at a Shanghai public school whose president was the philosopher Hu Shih, who became a second father to her and later visited her in the United States. Hu had been impressed when Wu, sitting in the front seat to get his attention, finished and perfected a three-hour exam in under two hours. From 1930 to 1934, Wu studied at National Central University, starting in mathematics before switching to physics. She became involved in student politics amid rising China-Japan tensions. Students urged a stronger line against Japan, and Wu was elected a student leader because her top academic standing might shield her from consequences. She led protests, including a sit-in at the Presidential Palace in Nanjing where students met Chiang Kai-shek.

After graduation, she did graduate-level physics study and worked as an assistant at Zhejiang University for two years, then became a researcher at the Institute of Physics of the Academia Sinica. Her supervisor, Gu Jing-Wei, a female professor with a PhD from the University of Michigan, encouraged Wu to pursue a PhD abroad and served as a role model, helping Wu develop confidence and a blunt honesty with close friends. Wu was accepted by the University of Michigan, and her uncle Wu Zhou-Zhi provided funds. In August 1936, she sailed for the United States with a female friend and chemist from Taicang, Dong Ruo-Fen. Her parents and uncle saw her off at the Huangpu Bund. Though her family survived World War II, she would not visit the remaining members until trips to China in the 1970s.

Upon arriving in San Francisco, Wu visited the University of California, Berkeley, and changed her plans for graduate study. There she met physicist Luke Chia-Liu Yuan, a middle-class grandson of Yuan Shikai, the self-proclaimed president of China.