What is Chien-Shiung Wu?
[[File:Chien-shiung Wu (1912-1997) (3).jpg|thumb|Wu in 1958 at Columbia University]] '''Chien-Shiung Wu''' ({{lang-zh|t=吳健雄}}; May 31, 1912&nbsp;– February 16, 1997) was a Chinese-American [[particle physics|particle]] and [[experimental physicist]]. == Early life == Wu was born in May 1912 in Liuhe, a small town near [[Shanghai]]. Wu Zhongyi, her father, participated in the 1911 revolution against the [[Chinese Manchu dynasty]]. He was the founder of an all girls’ school in China. Educating girls wasn’t seen as important at that time. Wu went to that school until she was nine. After that, she went to the Soochow Girls’ School. She graduated in 1930. She was the best student in her class. == Studies == Wu went to college at [[Nanjing University]]. She studied [[physics]] there. She graduated in 1934. She spent one year teaching in a university. A year later, she went to study [[X-ray crystallography]], which is the study of crystals. She did so at the National Academy of Sciences in Shanghai. A woman scientist who she worked with told her to go to study in the United States. She said this because China didn’t have a very good physics program. With the help of her rich uncle, she sailed to America in 1936. == Work == Wu started working on [[nuclear physics]] with a particle physicist named Ernest Livermore. She helped Emilio Segre. He won a [[Nobel Prize]] years later. During the same time, [[Japan]] invaded [[China]]. She didn’t hear from her family for years. She kept working. Wu also studied the electromagnetic energy a particle gives off when it slows down. She also studied what happens when a uranium nucleus splits. For her work, she got a PhD in 1940. She became known as an expert on fission, which is the splitting of atoms. She studied theories about atoms developed by [[Enrico Fermi]]. She ended up confirming one of his theories. Wu continued with her work in physics in her later career. She faced a difficult hypothesis involving [[beta decay]] in 1963. Beta Decay was discovered by [[Richard Feynman|