When it comes to world-renowned physicists, many people may think of Mr. Yang Zhenning for the first time. In 1956, Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for proposing the theory of cosmological non-conservation.
But at the same time, there are some different voices in the physics community, the award is one less winner, she is the one who really put this theoretical idea into practice to verify, her name is - Wu Jianxiong.
So, who is Wu Jianxiong? What exactly has she done to win so many scientists to fight for her? This time we will tell a story about her.
Young and young, he left home and immersed himself in studying
At first glance, many people will mistakenly think that this is a man, but on the contrary, this name really belongs to a gentle Jiangnan woman.
On May 31, 1912, Wu Jianxiong was born in Liuhe, Taicang, Jiangsu Province, the family named in accordance with the traditional way, to Wu Jianxiong's generation, just the turn of the "Jian" generation, and because of the second rank, their father named their brothers and sisters in accordance with the order of "Hero Haojie", got the name Wu Jianxiong, but the family still often called her nickname "Wei Wei".
When she was young, Wu Jianxiong's family lived with her grandfather, and under the influence of feudal ideas, her grandfather preferred sons to daughters, so when Wu Jianxiong was young, despite the superior family environment, she was not spoiled by the elders in the family. As he grew older, Wu Jianxiong's talents in poetry recitation and arithmetic were revealed, which gradually gained the attention of the Wu family's grandfather.
Contrary to his grandfather, Wu Jianxiong's father, Wu Zhongyi, was a very insightful and courageous person, and his mind was also very open. Influenced by the new trend of thought, Wu Zhongyi has always believed that men and women are equal, so when he treats his daughter, he is very enlightened and sends her to the academy with the boys in the family.
When Wu Jianxiong was 11 years old, he stood out among 10,000 people with the ninth place in the examination and successfully entered the second women's normal study in Suzhou. This was also the first time she had begun to study away from home, and at this time she did not realize that for the rest of her life, she would continue to go on the road of science and truth until the end of her life.
In terms of learning, Wu Jianxiong has always been very demanding of himself. In the past few years in Suzhou Women's Normal School, Wu Jianxiong has focused on learning, and her excellent logical thinking ability and pragmatic attitude towards science have made many teachers pay great attention to her.
In 1929, Wu Jianxiong was sent directly to the Department of Mathematics of National Central University for his outstanding results. Before entering the university, Wu Jianxiong knew that if he wanted to study science in depth, his current knowledge reserves alone were not enough. Therefore, she took advantage of the summer vacation before entering the school to teach herself many books on mathematics, which also laid a good foundation for her to successfully study at Chuo University.
In the autumn of 1930, Wu Jianxiong officially entered the Central University. In the first year of college, Wu Jianxiong inadvertently found that he had a great interest in physics, in addition, the department of physics had many physicists who were very famous at the time to teach in it, which also deeply attracted Wu Jianxiong. So in the second year of entering the university, she resolutely transferred to the department of physics, and since then she has begun her brilliant life in the field of physics.
Painstaking research, dedication for life
When Wu Jianxiong was in the Physics Department, she was deeply loved by the teachers because of her serious research attitude, and she often slept with her predecessors because of the study of a problem, and later, she officially became a student of physicist Shi Shiyuan.
Shi Shiyuan is the Nobel Laureate Marie Curie trained the first doctor of physics for China, under the cultivation of Shi Shiyuan, Wu Jianxiong successfully completed his graduation thesis and obtained a bachelor's degree from National Central University.
It was a time of great turmoil in China, with patriotic students often marching on the streets to petition in the hope that the government would respond forcefully to the repression of foreign hostilities in all aspects of China, and Wu Jianxiong was no exception, often taking to the streets with her classmates and students from other colleges to march on banners, but the results were always unsatisfactory.
It is precisely because of this that Wu Jianxiong began to realize that if he wanted to get out of such a predicament, he could only strengthen his own strength to help the old China, which had decayed and fallen.
In July 1936, with the financial support of her uncle, Wu Jianxiong was preparing to study at the University of Michigan in the United States, and at this time, war had already begun in china, and she wanted to go to the outside world to see and find a way to truly stop the war and save China.
After arriving in the United States, Wu Jianxiong first visited her classmates in San Francisco, during which time she visited the Berkeley School in California. Because when she was in China, Wu Jianxiong had done some X-ray crystal diffraction spectroscopy experiments, so when she saw various advanced experimental equipment in the Berkeley Department of Physics, she decided to stay here.
Here, Wu Jianxiong met new life mentors, such as the famous scientists Lawrence and Oppenheimer. I have to say that perhaps some people are destined to assume a certain responsibility, on Wu Jianxiong's path of study, there are many predecessors helping her to continue to move forward, from shallow to deep, so that she gradually discovered the door of the new world of physics.
In this way, Wu Jianxiong began her path of nuclear physics research, on which she supported each other and slowly moved forward with like-minded people, and dedicated her life to it, the most important of which was the development of nuclear weapons.
Indifferent to fame and fortune, descendants of China
As we all know, the United States is the first country in the world to possess nuclear weapons, but Wu Jianxiong has played a very important role in the successful development of nuclear weapons in the United States.
In June 1942, U.S. Army forces began a program to develop an atomic bomb using nuclear fission reactions, also known as the Manhattan Project. The project brought together the best nuclear scientists in the West at the time, including Einstein and others, and Wu Jianxiong was invited to participate in the program.
In fact, at the very beginning, Wu Jianxiong was not invited to participate in this project, but because Wu Jianxiong did not change his country to American citizenship at that time, Western countries naturally would not agree to a Chinese to participate in their core plan.
Such things are not unique, the West has always had racial and sex discrimination, so in the years of studying in the United States, Wu Jianxiong has also been treated unequally many times.
Wu Jianxiong entered Columbia University in 1944, and although she excelled in all aspects, she was not promoted to associate professor until 1952 under the arguments of many colleagues, all because she was a Chinese and a woman.
But the development of things is always unexpected, just when the development of the atomic bomb is at a very important step, many scientists have encountered bottlenecks, and tried a variety of methods have not been able to crack. At that time, the Western physics community had already tacitly accepted Wu Jianxiong's position in the nuclear physics community, and some people began to suggest to the above that Wu Jianxiong be invited to participate in this project.
It was a very difficult decision, but after a while there was still no progress, and the person in charge of the project had to personally invite Wu Jianxiong. Wu Jianxiong thus became the only Chinese female physicist in the atomic bomb development project.
After Wu Jianzhong joined the plan, there was a new development soon, but the U.S. authorities did not think so, perhaps it can be said that they did not want to think so, admitting that a Chinese woman solved a problem that many of their scientists had not solved.
After the successful development of the atomic bomb, the United States erased most of Wu Jianxiong's credit, but in Wu Jianxiong's view, this was not important. At the beginning of her time in the United States, her purpose was to learn all advanced knowledge as much as possible, specialize in the study of physical science, and improve the level of Chinese physics.
In 1956, Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao put forward the great hypothesis that the universe was not balanced, but did not conduct relevant empirical research. Wu Jianxiong had raised questions about the conservation of the universe with many people before this, and after hearing the hypothesis of Yang and Li, he immediately stopped all the plans he had made and returned to the laboratory to conduct relevant research.
In fact, Wu Jianxiong herself is not a cryogenic physicist, but the experiment she designed needs to combine nuclear experimental technology and cryogenic physics technology, so she has to learn to supplement relevant knowledge through various ways, and look for experts in the field, fortunately, she finally succeeded in proving that the hypothesis of cosmology is not balanced.
As soon as the results of the 1957 Nobel Prize were announced, they caused a great sensation in the physics community, and in the eyes of many physicists, this honor Wu Jianxiong was worth having, but there was no her on the final list, and everyone thought that this was completely a kind of discrimination against Chinese women in the West.
Wu Jianxiong did not publish any public opinion on this matter, but from her later congratulatory letter to Steinberg, she wrote: "All my life, I have devoted myself to the study of weak interactions, and I have enjoyed it." Even though I've never done research to win an award, it hurts me deeply when my work is overlooked for some reason." It can be seen that this has still become a regret in her heart.
epilogue
In July 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, and Japan had to declare unconditional surrender, and the devastating damage after the nuclear explosion made it difficult for both places to return to normal, so many people have criticized the scientists who developed nuclear weapons.
But in terms of the course of history, without this action, Japanese fascism would have caused even greater harm to China and the Chinese people.
At the beginning of Wu Jianxiong's study abroad, he was looking for a way to save China, in a sense, this can be regarded as a curved way to save the country. Stopping the war by war may not be the only way to go, but it was already the most effective in the historical context of the time.
Wu Jianxiong spent almost the rest of her life in the United States, from the deliberate obstruction of the US government to the blockade of routes during the Cold War, and later the deterioration of Sino-US relations, all of which prevented her from embarking on plans to return to her homeland, but she never forgot that she was a Chinese.
After her death, she asked her husband to bury her in her hometown after her death, and on her tombstone, a powerful word was engraved: an eternal Chinese.