APS March Meeting 2014
Volume 59, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 3–7, 2014;
Denver, Colorado
Session W38: Invited Session: 20th Century Chinese Physicists and Physics
2:30 PM–5:30 PM,
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Room: 709/711
Sponsoring
Units:
FHP FIP
Chair: Danian Hu, City College of New York, CUNY
Abstract ID: BAPS.2014.MAR.W38.1
Abstract: W38.00001 : Chien-Shiung Wu: An Icon of Physicist and Woman Scientist in China
2:30 PM–3:06 PM
Preview Abstract
Abstract
Author:
Yuelin Zhu
(Gutman Library, Harvard University)
Chien-Shiung Wu, the first female president of APS, is a
well-known figure in China, a figure who serves as an inspiration for
youths, especially young women, to study science and particularly physics.
In this presentation, a historical perspective will be used to show how such
an icon was formed. Born in 1912, the year of the Republic Revolution, Wu
was in the first generation of physicists in China and her college mentor
was a student of Marie Curie. When Wu came to the U.S. for graduate studies
in the 1930s, it was a ``golden age'' for nuclear physics, and the invention
of the cyclotron by E. O. Lawrence put UC Berkeley at the frontier. Wu was
trained there, with Lawrence as her advisor, and later became an expert in
Beta-decay. In 1956, Wu conceived and initiated the experiment of Cobalt-60,
which, together with other two experiments, eventually proved the asymmetry
of parity in weak-interactions, a hypothesis proposed by T. D. Lee and C. N.
Yang. The importance of the experiment gained Wu an enormous reputation
which spread even to China, when this was a period of hostility in
Sino-American relations, and near total isolation due to the Cold-War. Wu
was the daughter of a revolutionary, and an activist in college in patriotic
student movements, and she combined this background with her scientific
career as the way of ``Saving China with Science,'' a common belief
reflecting the Zeitgeist of her time. Although she spent most of her life in
the U.S., Wu never wavered in her love for or loyalty to her motherland. Her
patriotism, as well as her scientific achievement, made Wu a legend in
China, being called ``the Chinese Madam Curie.'' Even during the Cultural
Revolution, a novel supposedly taking Wu as the original model was very
popular in underground circles, widely spread by hand-written-copies. From
1979-1988, the CUSPEA program enrolled hundreds of China's best graduate
students into physics departments in American universities. Although Wu
herself was not the initiator of it, many participates of the program were
inspired by her. From this perspective, Wu's story may also help to
understand the cultural characteristics of the Chinese born American
physicists which have been a phenomenon in the American physics community
since the 1940s till today.
To cite this abstract, use the following reference: http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2014.MAR.W38.1