In memory of Madame Wu and to honor her outstanding scientific achievements, an international conference was held from August 16th-18th, 1997 in Nanjing where she spent her undergraduate years.
We are gratified that the conference was enthusiastically supported and attended by many colleagues from the international scientific arena. Its success is indeed a testimony of Madame Wu's lifelong devotion to science and to her profession. The following are some of the typical responses:
| "It is an excellent idea to organize a world class conference in honor of Madame C.S. Wu, truly one of the giants of physics in the 20th century." |
| - Bruce R. Barrett |
| "I have had the opportunity to meet Madame Wu often and had the greatest respect for her" |
| - Georges Charpak |
| "I am very honored to be considered to speak at the conference in honor of C.S. Wu." |
| - James W. Cronin |
| "Best wishes for a successful conference honoring a very great scientist and human being." |
| - Sidney Drell |
| "It is a great honor for me to be a member of the International Advisory Committee for the memorial conference dedicated to Madame Wu. I had pleasure of meeting Madame Wu just once, when both of us received a price of American Institute of Physics in 1976. I admire Wu's contributions to physics and scientific community." |
| - Ludwig Faddeev |
| "I am a great admirer of Professor Wu." |
| - Herman Feshbach |
| "Passing of the latter 20th century Madame physics. I deeply feel the loss and I am certain that your conference will be a fitting tribute." |
| - Hans Frauenfelder |
| "I am very sorry to miss this conference which will honor a great physicist for whom I have the greatest respect." |
| - Jerome I. Friedman |
| "It is a great pleasure to give a talk in your conference in memory of Madame Wu, one of the pillars of modern science and weak interactions" |
| - Moshe Gai |
| "Please accept my profound hope that the conference will be a successful and fitting tribute to a great and beloved Chinese-American physicist." |
| - Sheldon Lee Glashow |
| "I am happy to help with the conference. I had a great deal of admiration of Chien-shiung Wu and also liked her as a person. It was an honor for me to be her friend." |
| - Ernest Henley |
| "I know GG since she came to Berkeley in the early thirties. I talked a lot to GG about her measurements of beta ray spectral end regions. If this work had gone better, she might have received a Nobel price for the discovery of parity non-conservation. Then Yang and Lee might have received prizes for some of their other fine researches." |
| - Willis E. Lamb, Jr. |
| "I am very pleased that Nanjing University has decided to conduct an International Conference in memory of Madame C.S. Wu. She was a wonderful person and her contributions to physics will never be forgotten." |
| - Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky |
| "I knew Professor Wu for many years and admired her both as a scientist and as a person." |
| - Burton Richter |
| "It is my pleasure to be a member of the International Advisory Committee of the world class scientific conference in honor of Madame Wu. I will probably participate in the conference in Madame Wu's memory." |
| - Carlo Rubbia |
| "The idea to organize a meeting in honor of C.S. Wu is excellent. She has been such a great personality that such an event seems to be most appropriate." |
| - Herwig Schopper |
| "I admire Madame Wu and her work a great deal and I am very glad that you engage yourself in this event to honor her memory. Wu was an outstanding physicist of my time, dedicated to her work, extremely competent, indefatiguable, and with many great accomplishments to her credit. Of course the discovery of parity violation is of greatest importance, but the demonstration of the validity of the Fermi spectrum early in her carreer, as well as the demonstration of the conservation of the vector current, both did a great deal to clarify the nature of the weak interaction, in addition to the all important parity violation." |
| - Jack Steinberger |
| "I knew C.S. Wu well and have a tremendously high regard for her and her work." |
| - Charles H. Townes |
| "On behalf of the International Institute of Theoretical and Applied Physics, I send our condolences on the passing of our esteemed colleague Prof. C.S. Wu and encourage, with enthusiasm, this fitting tribute. Prof. Wu has left a great legacy on physics and in the promotion of international cooperation in science." |
| - James P. Vary |
| "I am very pleased to hear that you are planning a celebration of Madame Wu's life. She was indeed a fighter and you should be very proud to have her as a graduate of your university. I was never very close to her but admired her work enormously. I shall do everything I can to help make your symposium successful." |
| - Erich Vogt |
| "I knew and admired Prof. C.S. Wu and will be honored to serve on the International Advisory Committee of the conference in her memory." |
| - Steven Weinberg |
| "I am sure this will be a wonderful conference and it is fitting that it should be held in memory of such a great physicist." |
| - Carl Wieman |
We also received strong support from all levels of the Government. For example, the State Science and Technology Commission, National Natural Science Fundation of China and Government of Jiangsu Province all approved a record-breaking financial support. Furthermore, Jiangsu Association of Science and Technology, Elite Industrial Holdings and Mandarin Garden Hotel also provided financial assistance.
Madame Wu had deep roots in China and the United States. Although born in China, her scientific development occured in both countries. Now, she is eternally resting in her hometown of Liuhe in the Province of Jiangsu of China. This intricate bi-national relations for Madame Wu is best illustrated by the fact that the two respective physical societies: Chinese and American, jointly co-sponsored this conference.
Chien Shiung Wu graduated from the Central University (the predecessor of Nanjing University and Southeast University) in 1934. She was deeply nurtured with the Chinese culture. In 1936, she travelled across the Pacific Ocean to the United States and began her new and brilliant career of scientific exploration. Her life could best be portrayed by an ancient Chinese poem:
| "Long long a way have I travelled through, I do determined to continue my exploration of the truth soaring upward and diving downward." | |
| - Qu Yuan (340
B. C.(?)-278 B. C. (?)) - translated by the editor | |
Indeed, within sixty years of distinguished work in experimental physics, Madame Chien Shiung Wu made indelible contributions in many fields, especially weak interactions. Her name will forever be affiliated with the verification of the Fermi's theory of four-fermion weak interaction, the V-A theory, conserved vector current, charge conjugation, time invariance, double beta decay, just to name a few. Demonstrating that parity need not be conserved in weak interaction by her pivotal polarized Cobalt-60 beta-decay experiment in 1957 is a landmark of the twentieth century science. It was indeed a watershed for experimental science to probe nature's fundamental symmetries and the associated fundamental principles. It is no wonder that forty years later, even though her mind is eternally resting, her distinguished characters of thoughtfulness and extreme carefulness continue to be the shining example for scientists worldwide. Indeed, her name will forever stand next to scientific giants in this millennium, names such as Cavendish, Eötvös, Coulomb, Faraday. There is another Chinese poetry which describes her perfectly:
| "Geniuses appear throughout the generations in the world, each dominates the excellence for centuries." | |
| - Zhao Yi (1712
A. D.-1814 A. D.) - translated by the editor | |
This conference is named Physics since Parity Symmetry Breaking to match the contributions of Madame C.S. Wu. On behalf of the organizing committee, I wish to thank all the members of the advisory committee, especially Dr. Luke C.L. Yuan, for their valuable advice both on the scientific selection of topics and speakers. 1 also want to thank the participants who presented outstanding talks at the conference, either on major advances in fundamental symmetry, nuclear, particle, and general physics since paritysymmetry breaking or the prospects for these fields in the new century.
I am certain that Professor Wu would be absolutely delighted to see that this conference was not just a scientific gathering to mourn her loss, or one to commemorate her lifetime contributions, but an exciting gathering to stimulate new directions inspired by her lifetime dedication to physics.
I also want to thank all the contributors of this proceedings, without whose contributions there would not be such an outstanding and comprehensive proceedings.
In addition, I am especially grateful to the contributors who for one reason or another could not attend the conference but were willing to contribute reminiscences of their personal interactions with this giant of physics or recognitions of Madame Wu as an integral part of the golden age of physics in the 50's and 60's.
These previously unrecorded accounts will be of interest not only to the scientists, but to the historians of science as well. I must apologize that due to the necessity to publish the proceedings in a timely fashion, a number of late contributions cannot be included.
The success of a conference is never the work of an individual. In fact, it was a wonderful and close collaboration among the organizing committee members and the editorial board members. I am especially grateful to Professor Da Hsuan Feng - without his energy and global connection, this conference could not have been held with such a short lead time. I am also most grateful to my colleagues, Professors Tan Lu, Ting-Yang Chen, and Zhen-Shun Sha for their tremendous and critical efforts in getting the conference organized and the proceedings published on-time.
The financial support from all of the sponsors are acknowledged. Last but not least, I am indebted to my two students, Mr. XiangSong Chen and Di Qing, without for their tireless assistance. Their ubiquitous presence in all phases of the conference, before and after, was the reason why I appeared competent in carrying out the arduous duties of an executive secretary for the conference and the editor-in-chief for the proceedings.
The aim of this proceedings is to pay tribute to a great scientist, Madame Chien Shiung Wu. I believe that collectively we have achieved this goal.
| Fan Wang | |
| Nanjing University | |
| February 16,1998 |
