Is the first girl in the Wu family. When I was a child, Wu Jianxiong was very charming because of her delicate appearance. Like many other children, Wu Jianxiong started with reciting poems, knowing Chinese characters and calculating. In the process of learning, Wu Jianxiong showed quite unusual intelligence.
1923 1 1 year-old Wu Jianxiong went to study in Suzhou, 50 miles away from home. Suzhou No.2 Women's Normal School in Wu Jianxiong was a very famous school at that time. The headmaster, Ms. Yang, is an educator with great vision and often invites famous scholars to give lectures in our school. Among these scholars, Mr. Hu Shi impressed Wu Jianxiong the most. In fact, before Hu Shi came to school to give a speech, Wu Jianxiong, who loved reading, had read Hu Shi's articles in magazines such as New Youth and admired him very much. Before Hu Shi came to the school to give a speech, President Yang knew that the article was well written and admired Hu Shi very much. He said, "Xiong Jian, you have always liked Mr. Hu's thoughts. This time, it's up to you to write the speech record." Wu Jianxiong still remembers that the topic of Hu Shi's speech was modern women, and it was about how women should get out of the old tradition ideologically.
1929, Wu Jianxiong graduated with honors from Suzhou Women's Teachers College and was sent to Central University (now Nanjing University). Wu Jianxiong studied as a teacher. Before continuing his education, he was required to teach and serve for one year. However, because the regulations were not so strict at that time, Wu Jianxiong did not go to teach this year, but went to the Chinese Academy in Shanghai to study for another year, so he also had the opportunity to become Hu Shi's favorite pupil. Wu Jianxiong once said that the two people who had the greatest influence on her were her father and Mr. Hu Shi.
At first, Hu Shi didn't know Wu Jianxiong, although he knew that there was an excellent student named Wu Jianxiong in China College. Once, Wu Jianxiong sat in the first row in an exam. The exam lasted three hours, and Wu Jianxiong was the first to hand in the paper within two hours. Hu Shi quickly finished the examination paper and sent it to the academic affairs office. It happened that Yang Honglie and Ma, two famous teachers of Chinese College, were also there. Hu Shi said that he had never seen a student understand the 300-year history of the Qing Dynasty so thoroughly, so he gave her a hundred points. Yang Honglie and Ma also said that there was a girl in the class who always got 100 points. So the three people wrote down the names of the students and took them out. As a result, all three people wrote Wu Jianxiong.
The mentoring experience of Wu Jianxiong and Hu Shi not only had a profound influence on her in Wu Jianxiong's view, but Hu Shi also said in public that it was the proudest thing in his life.
In the early 1930s, when Wu Jianxiong began his career of seeking knowledge in universities, physics was undergoing revolutionary changes in the West. 18 Wu Jianxiong didn't fully understand the dazzling progress of physics, but she read a biography of Madame Curie when she was a teenager. Madame Curie was an idol worshipped by Wu Jianxiong. However, she did not expect that in less than 20 years, she would be called "Madame Curie of China" because of her outstanding contribution to nuclear physics.
Study in the United States
From 65438 to 0934, Wu Jianxiong graduated from Central University and worked as a teaching assistant in Zhejiang University for more than one year. 1936, Wu Jianxiong got the financial support from his uncle and prepared to study in the United States. When Wu Jianxiong arrived in San Francisco, the University of California at Berkeley had already started school. At that time, a China student named Yang was the president of China Student Union. He told Wu Jianxiong that a China student came here two weeks ago to study physics, and he could show Wu Jianxiong around the physics department. The China student was Yuan Jialiu, the grandson of Yuan Shikai, but Wu Jianxiong didn't know his relationship with Yuan Shikai at that time.
Although Berkeley was not as long as Harvard, Yale, Columbia and other famous schools, it attracted a group of young and top physicists, such as Lawrence, who invented and built the cyclotron. He was only 35 years old. Oppenheimer, later known as the "father of the atomic bomb" in the United States, was only 28 years old. Wu Jianxiong soon discovered the irresistible attraction of the physics department in Berkeley, which was her dream of exploring scientific knowledge, so she decided to stay in Berkeley.
1938, when Wu Jianxiong officially started to do nuclear physics experiments, it was still a brand-new field. From 65438 to 0939, the Wu Jianxiong experiment directed by Segrega was the product of studying the nuclear fission of uranium atoms, and one of its achievements made an important contribution to the Manhattan project of making atomic bombs in the United States. 1940, Wu Jianxiong received her doctorate, and her paper was published in the most authoritative Physical Review.
Because of his outstanding contributions to nuclear fission and radioisotopes, Wu Jianxiong became an "authoritative expert" in the minds of many great scientists such as Oppenheimer. At this time, Wu Jianxiong has become a legend of Berkeley, and local newspapers have also featured her. In China, people began to call her "Madame Curie China".
Girl's feeling
When he was young, Wu Jianxiong was taciturn to outsiders, but actually he had a warm heart. She has high expectations for life, the future and love. When he was young, Wu Jianxiong was admired by a young, knowledgeable and famous scholar, Mr. Hu Shi.
Wu Jianxiong's admiration for Hu Shi and later Hu Shi's appreciation and care for Wu Jianxiong did not exceed their friendship between teachers and students.
Wu Jianxiong's love story began when she came to San Francisco on 1936 and decided to stay in Berkeley to study. The prince charming in her mind is Yuan Jialiu. Although Yuan Jialiu is the grandson of Yuan Shikai, he doesn't look like a full-time driver. On the contrary, he worked hard since he was a child and developed the habit of thrift. During their stay in Berkeley, Wu Jianxiong and Yuan Jialiu were in the same class and had close contacts. Because of his outstanding talent and appearance, Wu Jianxiong was admired by many graduate students, one of whom was Wilson, who later became famous in American high-energy physics and founded Fermi National Laboratory. In Wilson's memory, Wu Jianxiong at that time was outstanding and charming. She has been wearing a Chinese high-necked cheongsam, which is very formal. Wilson said that almost everyone in their dormitory for international students was attracted by her charm.
However, among many suitors, Wu Jianxiong only has a soft spot for Yuan Jialiu. 1942 On May 30th, Wu Jianxiong and Yuan Jialiu got married in the home of Yuan Jialiu coach milliken.
manhattan project
The manufacture of American atomic bombs comes from a scientific project called Manhattan. This plan, which changed the course of human history, brought together many first-class scientific elites at that time, and Wu Jianxiong was one of them.
Wu Jianxiong is the only female scientist involved in the Manhattan Project, and her work is the core of the project. On the one hand, Wu Jianxiong has made great achievements in nuclear physics research; on the other hand, Oppenheimer especially appreciates Wu Jianxiong. Because of this, Wu Jianxiong can participate in such a confidential national defense science program as a foreigner who has just arrived in the United States and has no American nationality.
Willing to make a ladder
1956 12.24, the airport was forced to close due to heavy snow in Washington. Many commuters from Washington to new york flocked to Union Station in Washington and took the train back to new york. On this Christmas Eve, a petite oriental middle-aged woman, Wu Jianxiong, a famous physicist at that time, was also crowded in the crowd and bought a ticket for the last train to new york that night. The purpose of her trip is to bring her experimental results back to new york, which just verified the theory of "parity non-conservation" of two Chinese physicists, Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao, and helped the two scientists win the Nobel Prize. This is the first time that a scientist from China has stood on the podium of the Nobel Prize.
As early as the spring of 1956, Wu Jianxiong and Yuan Jialiu planned to attend a conference on high-energy physics in Geneva, and then make a lecture tour in East Asia. At this time, Yang Zhenning of the State University of New York at Stony Brook and Li Zhengdao of Columbia University proposed to Wu Jianxiong that Yuan Jialiu should go alone and Wu Jianxiong should go to Washington to do experiments to verify their theory of "parity non-conservation".
In this way, at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, Wu Jianxiong and four other scientists began their experimental work.
1957 65438+1October 15 After hard work, Wu Jianxiong's experiments repeatedly confirmed the ideas of Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao. She organized the experimental report into a paper and sent it to Physical Review. On the same day, Columbia University held an unprecedented press conference for this new discovery. The next day, The New York Times reported Wu Jianxiong's experimental results on the front page. After the news came out, scientists from all over the world flocked to the laboratory in Wu Jianxiong. Wu Jianxiong was also invited by many universities and experimental institutions to talk about her experimental results.
On June 5438+ 10 of this year, when Wu Jianxiong was giving a lecture at a university in upstate New York, he suddenly received a call from Oppenheimer. From Oppenheimer's phone, Wu Jianxiong learned that Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao won the Nobel Prize that year because they put forward the theory of parity non-conservation. Oppenheimer, then president of Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, hosted a dinner for this purpose, inviting Wu Jianxiong, Yang Zhenning, Li Zhengdao and others to attend. It is said that there are three people who have made the greatest contribution to the law of parity non-conservation, except Yang and Li, and his special contribution can not be ignored. Then at the dinner party, Oppenheimer specially arranged for Wu Jianxiong to sit next to him to show his appreciation and concern for her.
Many people appreciate Wu Jianxiong's spirit of being a ladder, and many people are indignant at her, including 1988 Nobel Prize winner in physics and Steinberg, Wu Jianxiong's long-term colleague at Columbia University. In his view, without the experimental results, Yang and Li's theory can only be an idea. Wu Jianxiong's experimental results changed all this, and Wu Jianxiong should share the Nobel Prize with them.
For many years, Wu Jianxiong never complained that he didn't win the Nobel Prize, and never expressed his views publicly. It was not until 1989 and 1 that Steinberg praised Wu Jianxiong's achievements in Science magazine. Wu Jianxiong wrote in his letter of thanks to Steinberg: "As a great critic of modern physics like you, giving me such a rare compliment is more valuable than any science prize I expected or valued. I have devoted my life to the study of weak interaction and enjoyed it. Although I have never done research work to win the prize, it still hurts me deeply when my work is ignored for some reason. "
Obviously, Wu Jianxiong has always felt a kind of pain for failing to win the Nobel Prize, but this has not stopped her from exploring physics, and people have always admired her great contribution to science. 1997 after Wu Jianxiong's death in the United States, both Chinese and American media devoted a lot of space to reporting. Wu Jianxiong once expressed deep condolences to his alma mater, Nanjing University (formerly Central University), and the students who shared the Wu Jianxiong Scholarship for the death of this outstanding alumnus.
Huang Daopo, Li Qingzhao and Wang were famous female scientists in Qing Dynasty.
In the Qing dynasty, there appeared a talented woman who was rare in the world. She is not limited to ordinary talented women singing red and green, playing the piano and singing fu, nor is she satisfied with the heroic riding bow. Instead, she has conducted extensive research on astronomy, mathematics, geography, physics and medicine and achieved fruitful results. She is the famous female scientist Wang in Qing Dynasty, who is known as "contemporary Ban Zhao".
Wang (1768 ~ 1797), Han nationality, whose real name is Deqing, is a female history in Jiangning. Originally from Tianchang County, Anhui Province, she moved to Jiangning (now Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province) and was a famous female scientist in Qing Dynasty.
First, despise feudal ethics and dare to be the first in the world.
Wang was born in a doctor's family in Jiangning in the thirty-third year of Qing Qianlong. His grandfather is a king's assistant, and his word is Xing Zhai. He used to be the magistrate of Fengcheng and Xuanhua. He was proficient in calendar calculation and wrote a lot. In particular, his family has a rich collection of books, which is said to have 75 cabinets. These books have a great influence on Wang's growth.
At the age of eleven, Wang went to Jilin with her grandmother to mourn her grandfather and lived in Jilin for five years, which gave her the opportunity to read her grandfather's rich books and increased her knowledge and talent. Later, she accompanied her grandmother and father to Beijing, Shaanxi, Hubei, Guangdong and Anhui, visited places of interest, learned a lot and got in touch with many social realities.
Wang was smart and ambitious since he was a child. When she was a teenager, she showed an indomitable and strong character different from that of ordinary women, and broke through the bondage of "a woman without talent is virtue" in feudal society. When she was a teenager, she learned riding and shooting from the wife of a Mongolian general. History books say that she is "flying a horse across the river" and has reached the level of "being sure to hit the target". To this end, Wang also proudly wrote a poem: "I also learned archery and parade riding, and I covered my face with powder." She believes that "if we are all human beings, we are all human beings". It is emphasized that learning is not specially designed for men, that women's wisdom is not worse than men's, and that learning is beneficial to society as well. She also wrote a long poem with Mulan, Da Xiaoqiao and others, entitled "Photo of a doctor in a girls' middle school". Taking this as the theme, she expressed her idea that "Wan Li often intends to be a husband when he writes about thousands of books". It was her envy of men and desire for knowledge that made her a famous female astronomer, mathematician and doctor of medicine in Qing Dynasty.
Compared with other scientists, it is more difficult to walk on the road of science. If she wants to engage in scientific research, she must oppose feudal superstition and feudal morality. When she first started studying astronomy and painting poetry, a group of feudal guards laughed at her. But the king did not give in. She argued and insisted on opening the way for science. She wrote in a poem: "Who said that children believe that women are not heroes like men and women?" She stubbornly resisted the pressure of feudal ethics and persevered in scientific research. Wang turned a deaf ear to the discrimination and oppression of women in feudal society, and shouted loudly for women's lack of education rights and opportunities to learn science and culture in feudal society, fully demonstrating the lofty spirit of a strong woman who demanded self-esteem, self-improvement, self-love, self-reliance and equality.
Second, outstanding scientific achievements.
Historically, solar and lunar eclipses have been shrouded in mystery and even used to predict good or bad luck. In order to reveal this secret, Wang Jing often drinks dew in her cloak, sits alone outdoors and carefully observes the movement and changes of the stars. She uses lanterns as the sun, round tables as the earth and mirrors as the moon. After repeated simulation experiments at home, she finally figured out the principle of solar eclipse and wrote the famous article "On Eclipse". This paper points out that only when the sun shines on the moon can the moon have light. People standing on the earth can only see the full moon on the fifteenth day and the new moon on the first day. At the new moon, as long as the sun and the moon are close to the intersection of the Yellow and White Roads and the sun is covered by the moon, an eclipse will occur. Because the sun is high and the moon is low, and they are far apart, the degree of solar eclipse varies with the position of the observer. At sunrise, as long as the moon enters the shadow of the earth, an eclipse will occur. Her theory on the causes of solar eclipse is completely consistent with the principle of solar eclipse recognized by modern astronomy.
The earth is a big ball. Why don't people standing on the edge of the earth and in the lower hemisphere tilt and fall? This problem has become the common sense of modern people. But at that time, it was hard for people to understand. After careful study, the fledgling woman Wang gave a popular explanation to this problem. She said in "On the Circle of the Earth" that people on the ground are centered on their place of residence, so from a distance, other places are inclined. It seems that they should all be dumped, but they won't. This is because there are people everywhere, with the sky above their heads and the ground under their feet. The earth where people live is surrounded by the sky, and there is no strict distinction between up, down, side and right in space. This is a very valuable understanding.
Wang read widely and absorbed critically. For example, at that time, some almanac said that the difference between the sidereal year and the tropic year began when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty changed the calendar. Wang pointed out that this difference did not originate from the calendar, but only appeared after the discovery of precession in Jin Dynasty. The almanac also said that due to precession, the vernal equinox gradually moved eastward. Wang pointed out that the vernal equinox movement caused by precession is westward rather than eastward. As to when China's "Dingqi" came into being, some people think that "Dingqi" began in the calendar of the Tang Dynasty. Wang also criticized that this was wrong. "Ding Qi" began in the Northern Qi Dynasty, followed by Liu Ai in the Sui Dynasty, and it was not until the Tang Dynasty that Li and the monks and their party calculated it more accurately. These criticisms and opinions of Wang are basically in line with the reality of ancient astronomy in China. Her meticulous academic attitude still admires us today.
Since the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, various western astronomical theories have been introduced into China. Wang's western theory is not completely accepted, but selectively applied. She knows both Copernicus' Heliocentrism system and Tycho's compromise system (that is, the earth is the motionless center of the universe, the sun, the moon and the stars all revolve around the center of the earth, and the five planets revolve around the sun). She believes that "although the western calendar is close, it must be allowed" and "feasible is not feasible; If there is something, there is a problem. " It is very valuable for a woman who lives in the last days of 18 to have such insight.
Many of her astronomical works have been forgotten, and what we can see now is only the astronomical calendar experience of volumes 5, 6 and 7 of the Jinling series "Defengge". For example, in the fifth volume, there is a debate about precession, a debate about surplus and contraction, a debate about stars, and Huang Chi's second explanation. The sixth volume includes the theory of the circle of the earth, the theory that the earth is more important than nine days, the theory that the annual rings are set at the center of the earth, and the theory that the five stars of the sun, the moon and the sky turn left with the first, second and third days. Volume 7 includes Eclipse solution and Pythagorean triangle solution.
In mathematics, Wang is one of the main members of Anhui Mathematics School with Mei Jue as the backbone. In mathematical research, she pays attention to absorbing the strengths of Chinese and western algorithms, including Mei Wending's, improving her generalization ability, simplifying the complex and using it flexibly, and not being bound by old methods and ideas. She is also good at logical reasoning. When she put forward the six theories of "the earth is spherical" in "The Theory of the Circumference of the Earth", she did not have the experimental conditions of modern science, but simply deduced them from the existing astronomical knowledge and mathematical knowledge by logical methods. In mathematics, her main works include five volumes of Calendar Calculation and Simple Storage. The first branch in the planning, the proof and error in the revised planning, the addition and deletion in the western planning, etc.
Wang was also a famous doctor in Qing Dynasty. Since childhood, she has paid attention to learning medical theory from her father who is a doctor. She is not only proficient in medicine, but also able to take pulse prescriptions. In medicine, she put forward five strategies for the first time, and at the same time put forward eight essentials for treating diseases. Because Wang attaches importance to the combination of medicine and clinic, is good at thinking and diligent in observation, her medical theory is full of simple dialectical thoughts. According to historical records, because of her superb medical skills, she got the nickname "Hua Tuo, a female student" in her twenties.
She has also made achievements in poetry and literature. He is the author of the first episode of Defengge 14, the second episode of Defengge, 6 volumes, Three Comments on Poetry and Fu 10, Women's Reader 1 volume, Shen Tuo Talk 1 volume.
At the age of 25, Wang married Zhan Mei, a scholar in Xuancheng. Zhan Mei is Wang's good helper, following Wang Xuexi, helping her to sort out the manuscript and running for Wang's publication.
Wang is an outstanding representative of ancient women in China. She is gifted in natural science, poetry and medicine. However, her untimely death at the age of 29 is a great regret in the history of science.
Scholars in China have spoken highly of Wang. Qian Daxin, a famous historian in Qing Dynasty, praised her as "the only person after Ban Zhao."