A Woman to Know: Chien-Shiung Wu
There is a misconception in America that women scientists are all dowdy spinsters. This is the fault of men. — Chien-Shieng Wu
(image via Wikimedia Commons)
"The Chinese Madame Curie." "The First Lady of Physics." "The Queen of Nuclear Physics."
And, even though her name be unfamiliar, she was an important member of the Manhattan Project. While her "Wu Experiment" broke barriers and male colleagues accepted awards for her work, Chien-Shiung was busy brainstorming potential uses for the radical new energy sources she was creating in lab. Her coworkers remembered her as tireless, dedicated and single-minded in her pursuit of answers.
As she told one writer, "There is only one thing worse than coming home from the lab to a sink full of dirty dishes -- and that is not going to the lab at all."
Add to your library list:
Madame Wu: The First Lady of Physics Research (Tsai-Chien Chiang)
Read more:
Chien-Shiung Wu: Courageous Hero of Physics (The Scientific American)
Top experimental physicist Chien-Shiung Wu dies at 84 (The New York Times)
Science: Careers for Women (The Atlantic)
Chien-Shiung Wu, Physicist on Team that Disproved "Law" (The Chicago Tribune)
Chien-Shiung Wu (The Atomic Heritage Foundation)
Famous Women in Physical Sciences and Engineering (Berkeley)
Famed physicist dies at 84 (Columbia Record)
Inside Story: C.S. Wu (CERN Courier)
Listen more:
Chien-Shiung Wu (Introductions Necessary)
** Correction/update/clarification/thing thing thing look here! Thank you to Kasey, who spotted this error in Tuesday's edition on Audrey Munson:
Audrey Munson was actually the one who said the quote at the end of your article. It is from a column Ms. Munson wrote in 1921 about artists' models, as noted in the NYT article, "The Girl Beneath the Gilding". Andrea Geyer, who you have quoted at the end of the article, is the German author who wrote the book Queen of the Artists' Studios about Munson, which was published in 2008 (I don't think she was alive in 1921! :] ).
Thanks for the spot, Kasey! **
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