Wed, Aug 16, 2000 page2

• First lady of Chinese physics honored

  FAMOUS NAMESAKE A science camp named after the renowned Chinese physicist Wu Chien-shiung hopes to provide inspiration for the children who will attend

  • By Lin Mei-chun / STAFF REPORTER
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  Scholars and journalists lauded the achievements made by the distinguished Chinese physicist Wu Chien-shiung (吳健雄) at the opening ceremony of the week-long Wu Chien-shiung Science Camp which began yesterday, in an attempt to encourage students to further their scientific studies.

  "It is regrettable that she did not win a Nobel Prize in recognition of her work. Nonetheless, physicists the world over have agreed that her contribution to the scientific realm more than qualified for the honor. As a Chinese woman, how Wu was recognized in the western world for her accomplishments in physics was unprecedented ? Her success did not come easily. She was renowned for her persistence and devotion to her work," said Chiang Tsai-chien (江才健), science editorial writer of the China Times.

  Chiang was invited to deliver the speech about the life of Wu, as the author of Wu's biography, at the opening ceremony of the camp. The camp is taking place at Shitou (溪頭), Nantou County, until Saturday.

  Wu, dubbed the "first lady of physics" in Chiang's book, was born in 1912 in Shanghai and grew up in Liuhe (瀏河), a small town north of the city. Her interest in physics was kindled by her father at a very early age.

  "When I graduated from high school, my father gave me a college physics textbook. I finished it during the summer and developed a keen interest in physics," Wu was quoted as saying during an interview.

  "Wu's achievement had to be attributed to her father in part, because he was an exceptional man for his day, with very progressive ideas. He could not bear the outdated perception that women had to stay home to be wives or mothers. Rather, he encouraged Wu to pursue her studies and to fulfill her dream overseas. Her father was one of the most influential figures for Wu," said Chiang, while playing a tape-recording of an interview with Wu in the early 1990s.

  Wu received her Bachelor of Science from National Central University in Nanjing in 1934 and then went to the US in 1936. She studied with E.O. Lawrence, Nobel Prize winner and inventor of the cyclotron, at UC Berkeley, where she received her doctorate in physics in 1940. She then joined the research staff at Columbia University in 1944 as a senior scientist and began work on the Manhattan Project -- the laboratory that produced the first atom bomb. She became a professor of physics at Columbia in 1957 and retired in 1980.

  For more than 50 years, she and her husband, Luke Yuan (袁家騮), also an experimental scientist, lived in New York City. She died of a stroke on Feb. 16, 1997.

  Being a pioneering physicist, Wu established her name after a 1956 experiment that debunked the "law of conservation of parity," which described the behavior of interracting subatomic particles, and proved that the laws of nature are not always symmetrical with respect to right and left.

  The theory helped two theoretical Chinese physicists, Lee Tsung-dao (李政道) and Yang Chen-ning (楊振寧), win the Nobel Prize for Physics the following year.

  Wu's remarkable career was characterized by a string of firsts. She was the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate of science from Princeton University in 1958. In 1964, Wu became the first woman to receive the prestigious Research Corporation Award and the Comstock Prize from the National Academy of Sciences.

  She was elected to be the first female president of the American Physical Society in 1975, and in 1978 she received the first Wolf Prize from the State of Israel. In 1990, she was the first living scientist to have an asteroid named after her. She was elected in 1958 as the first female member of the Academia Sinica, Taiwan's top research institute.

  The Science Camp is considered the best learning occasion for high school and college students who are gifted in science-related subjects -- chemistry, physics and biology. A total of 121 students are at the camp this year to participate in the five-day event, including numerous overseas Chinese from Hong Kong, Malaysia and the US.

  The activity is run by the Wu Chiang-shiung Educational Foundation (吳健雄學術基金會) under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Education and National Science Council (國科會).

  "The foundation aims to provide the best learning environment for students by offering them opportunities to talk with accomplished scientists so students can be guided by them directly," said Lin Ming-jui(林明瑞), physics professor at National Taiwan Normal University.

  The guest speakers this year include Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠), chemistry professor of the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, Steven Chu (朱棣文), 1997 winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics; Ovid Tzeng (曾志朗), Minister of Education and Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲), president of the Academia Sinica and winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1986.
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