I was never tired of lamenting Rosalind Franklin and Lise
Meitner being snubbed by Nobel Prize Committees. Rarely did I mention the Chinese American
physicist, Professor Chien-Shiung Wu (吳健雄) whose case is even
stronger against the gender discrimination of the Nobel Prize.
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| Prof. Wu Chien-Shiung |
Mary Ann Evans used a male pen name, George Eliot, to
publish novels to make sure her work would be taken seriously. The fact that Dr. Wu (吳)
Chien (健)-Shiung (雄) even has a ‘male’
name didn’t help. Chien in Chinese (健) means healthy and vigorous
whereas Shiung (雄)
means male.
We all know that physicists Lee Tsung-Dao (李政道) and Yang Chen Ning
(楊振寧)
shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for overturning the physical law of parity in
1957. Professor Wu played a very crucial
role and did a very ingenious and difficult experiment to back up the
theory. Nobel Prize allows three to
share the prize, and in this case it would be perfectly legitimate for the three
Chinese Americans to share.
In the New York Times
obituary of Professor Wu Chien-Shiung (2/18/1997), in which I read,
 |
| Lee Tsung-Dao |
“playwright Clare Boothe
Luce [wife of Henry Luce, the founder-publisher of Time, Life and Fortune, an extraordinary lady]said at the time, ‘When Dr. Wu knocked out
that principle of parity, she established the principle of parity between men
and women.'' Dr. Lee said yesterday, '’C.
S. Wu was one of the giants of physics.’ ”
The physical law of parity must be a hot topic in 1950s, at a
scientific conference in April, 1956, physicist Richard Feynman (my ‘American
idol’) tossed the idea to his colleagues: What if the parity rule were wrong?
Lee approached Wu, who was an expert in beta decay, took up
the challenge and “dropped everything for six months — including
sleep, meals, and a long-planned trip to China with her husband — to pursue the
parity experiment.”
 |
| Yang Chen-Ning |
Dr. Wu used radioactive cobalt, beta decay (breaking down)
of which will give off electrons. She
used a device that counted the number of electrons shooting out. [Dr. Wu is known to make major improvements to
the Geiger counter]. If the law of conservation of parity were true, equal
number of electrons will be giving off in each direction. But Dr. Wu found out far more electrons flew
off in the direction opposite the spin of the nuclei: “Parity Not Conserved”.
The moment was 2 am January 9, 1957, Wu said, “These are moments of exaltation and ecstasy.
A glimpse of this wonder can be the reward of a lifetime” There was an
article in New York Times next day, “Shattering
of a fundamental concept of nuclear physics”.
This is an earth-moving (驚天動地)
discovery, an experiment was not even participated by Lee and Yang, and yet
neglected by the Nobel, which at times is not so ‘noble’ as an article in Scientific American implies. Dr. Wu's name is also mentioned in this article.
 |
| Prof. Wu Chien-Shiung |
The discover was so stunning that Dr. Isador Rabi [my
another ‘American Idol’], a Nobel laureate in physics at Columbia University,
said at the time, “In a certain sense,
a rather complete theoretical structure has been shattered at the base, and we
are not sure how the pieces will be put together.”
During WWII Wu was recruited to work in the Manhattan
Project based at Columbia University; her work dealt with the enrichment of
uranium. After the war Columbia U.
allowed her to stay, but it took nearly ten years before she could join the
faculty.
Wu’s husband, Luke Chia-Liu Yuan, also a noted physicist, is
a grandson of Yuan Shi-Kai (袁世凱), the first President of the Republic of
China, who once self-proclaimed Emperor of China. If Yuan’s dream of
being an Emperor materialized, in a sense Dr. Wu may even become an empress
consort. But Dr. Wu for sure is indeed a
Queen of the Science in modern nuclear physics.
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