In this episode of pplpod, we explore the groundbreaking life and career of Chien-Shiung Wu, a pioneering experimental physicist known as the "Chinese Marie Curie" and the "Queen of Nuclear Research". From her early days as a student leader in China to her arrival in the United States on the SS President Hoover, we trace Wu’s journey to becoming one of the most important figures in 20th-century physics.
Tune in to learn about:
• The Manhattan Project: How Wu’s expertise in beta decay and the properties of Xenon-135 were crucial in solving the B Reactor's stalling problems and developing uranium enrichment processes for the atomic bomb.
• The Wu Experiment: A deep dive into her most famous work using supercooled Cobalt-60, which shattered the fundamental "law of conservation of parity" and proved that parity is not conserved in weak nuclear interactions.
• The Nobel Controversy: The story behind the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to her colleagues Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang for the theory of parity violation, while Wu’s critical experimental proof was excluded—a decision later called the "biggest mistake" of the Nobel committee.
• A Legacy of Firsts: Wu’s enduring impact as the first woman to receive the Comstock Prize, the first female president of the American Physical Society, and the inaugural winner of the Wolf Prize in Physics.
Join us as we honor a scientist whose rigorous standards earned her the nickname "The Dragon Lady" and whose discoveries changed our understanding of the universe.
