Nobel Prize Chinese Americans Winners 

By Wubing Zong

	Alfred Bernhard Nobel, born in Stockholm, Sweden, on October 21, 1833, was an industrialist, inventor of dynamite and the founder of the prize named after him.  He died in San Remo, Italy, on December 10, 1896.   Nobel Prizes have been awarded annually to great achievers in physics, chemistry, literature, medicine and peace since 1901, and in economic science since 1969.   There were no Nobel Prize winners of Chinese ancestry before 1957 when Drs. C. N. Yang and T. D. Lee, representing China, received their Nobel Prizes in physics.  Since then, there have been three more Chinese American winners in physics and chemistry.   Also, Dr. Chien-shiung Wu, who provided experimental verification to Yang and Lee's theory of parity non-conservation, is described here.  This article is dedicated to these famous Chinese Americans for demonstrating what can be accomplished, given a chance to do so.

Chien-shiung Wu

Date of Birth:	May 31, 1912
Place of Birth:	Shanghai, China
Came to U.S.:	1936
Received Ph.D.:	1940
U.S. Citizenship: 1954
Achievement:	Her experiments verified Yang-Lee's Nobel Prize winning theory in 1957.
Died:	February 16, 1997.

	Dr. Chien-shiung Wu was a  world-renowned physicist, a "Chinese Madam
Curie".  She led a team of scientists that provided the experimental verification to Yang and Lee's Nobel Prize winning theory on the non-conservation of parity law of elemental particles.    In another experiment, she and her team confirmed general features of nuclear beta decay as predicted by Fermi's theory.   However, experimental proof for Fermi's detailed predications took twenty years.   In 1958, she helped performing experiments that confirmed a theory advanced by Physicists Richard Feyman and Murry Gell Mann, resulting in significant advancement in nuclear theory.  

	Honors: First female winner of the Research Corporation Award, 1958;
First women awarded an honorary doctorate by Princeton University, 1958;
Winner of honorary degrees from Smith College, Yale University, and Harvard University;  Honorary professor in Nanking University, Science and Technology University , Beijing University, Tsin Hua University, and Nan Kai University, in China, and Padua University in Italy; First women elected as the President of the American Physical Society, 1975; Member of National Academy of Science, 1958;  Honorary Fellow, American Physical Society, 1938;  Achievement Award, American Association of University Women, 1960;  Comstock Award, National Academy of Sciences, 1964; Chi-Tsin Achievement Award, Chi-Tsin Cultural Foundation, Taiwan, China, 1965;  The scientist of Year Award, Industrial Research Magazine, 1974;  Tom Bonner Prize, American Physical Society, 1975; and Wolf Prize in Physics, Israel, 1978.   Named in her honor  for an astroid discovered by Nanking Zijingshan Observatory in 1990. 

	Chien-shiung Wu was born in Shanghai, China.  Her father, Zhong-yi Wu? opened the first school for girls in China.  He advised his daughter when she embarked on her scientific career: "Ignore the obstacles... just put your head down and keep walking forward."   In 1934, she graduated from the National Central University in Nanking with a Bachelor's degree in physics.   She recalled later:  "Choosing atomic physics as a major has something to do with the fact that I attended National Central University.  That university emphasized  science education.  10 percent of women students were interested in scientific studies."   In 1936, she came to the United States to study under the Nobel Prize winner Earnest Orlando Lawrence at the University of California at Berkeley, California, and completed her Ph.D. degree in physics in 1940.   She taught nuclear physics at Princeton University for a time, then went to Columbia University, working for the Manhattan Project during World War II.    She was an associate Professor (1952-1957) and a professor (1958-1997) at Columbia University.

	Dr. Wu believed women should make same contribution as men.  She said: "God gives men and women the same wisdom, women should have the same rights and responsibilities as men....Women should not fear mathematics
and physics because they are difficult, moreover, women should not retrieve from work because of family."   She was known for her hard work.  Before her retirement, she never took a day off.  She said: "There is only one thing worse than coming home from the laboratory to a sink full of dirty dishes, and that is not going to laboratory at all."