Science & Technology
A legendary life
Chien-Shiung Wu
May 31, 1912 – February 16, 1997
Chinese American experimental physicist whose landmark experiment demonstrated that parity is not conserved in weak interactions.
Her story
A life that changed history
Chien-Shiung Wu contributed to radiation-detection and uranium-enrichment research during the Manhattan Project before becoming a leading experimental physicist at Columbia University. Her cobalt-60 experiment provided decisive evidence that parity conservation fails in weak nuclear interactions.
“Whether the tiny atoms and nuclei, or the mathematical symbols, or the DNA molecules have any preference for either masculine or feminine treatment.”
MIT symposium remarks, 1964, quoted by the National Park Service