Chien-Shiung Wu
Chien-Shiung Wu changed modern physics by proving that one of its most trusted assumptions was wrong.
Born in China in 1912, Wu moved to the United States for graduate school at a time when few women—and even fewer Chinese women—were welcomed into advanced scientific research. She became known for designing difficult experiments and getting results that other physicists could not.
Her most influential work came in 1956, when two theoretical physicists proposed that a fundamental law known as the conservation of parity might not hold true in subatomic interactions. Many scientists dismissed the idea.
Wu decided to test it.
Working under intense time pressure, she designed an experiment involving cobalt-60 atoms cooled to extremely low temperatures. The results showed that parity could, in fact, be violated, overturning a longstanding principle in physics.
The theorists received the Nobel Prize the following year. Wu, whose experiment proved the theory, was excluded.
Over time, that omission became one of the clearest examples of gender inequity in twentieth-century science. But Wu’s legacy extends far beyond the prize she didn’t receive. She reshaped physics by trusting evidence over assumption—and following the data wherever it led.
