Two Presidents of the American Physical Society, Sylvester James Gates and Young-Kee Kim will speak at the Event Organized by the Nanjing University Alumni Association United States (NUAAUS) to honor Madame Chien Shiung Wu
美国物理学会两位主席西尔维斯特·詹姆斯·盖茨和金英基将在由南京大学美国校友会 (NUAAUS) 组织的纪念吴健雄女士的活动上发表讲话。
Professor Gates and Professor Kim
On September 17 at 9:30 am Eastern Standard Time, NUAAUS will sponsor an event to honor Madame Chien Shiung Wu. Madame Wu is often regarded as one of the two distinguished women scientists of the 20th century, the other being Madame Maria Curie.
It is with greatest honor and pleasure for NUAAUS to announce to the world that two presidents of the American Physical Society (APS) will be the distinguished speakers at this event. They are Professor Sylvester James Gates of Brown University (https://sites.brown.edu/sjgates/bio/) and Professor Young-Kee Kim of the University of Chicago (https://provost.uchicago.edu/directory/young-kee-kim-0). Gates and Kim are APS presidents in 2021 and 2024, respectively.
It is also worth underscoring that in 1975, Madame Wu was also the president of APS!
Madame Wu was an undergraduate student of the National Central University in Nanjing in the 30’s. After 1949, the name of this university was morphed into Nanjing University (NU). This year, 2022, is the 120 years of the founding of NU. It is also the 110th year of the birth of Madame Wu.
In the United States, there are some 20,000 NU alumni dotting every corner of the country. Together, these alumni have formed a very active not-for-profit organization known as Nanjing University Alumni Association United States (NUAAUS). These 20,000 alumni felt strongly that it has the solemn responsibility to honor one of their, if not the most distinguished alumni. Hence this event.
Professor Sylvester James Gates and Professor Young-Kee Kim are world-renowned scientists. Currently, they are faculty members in the respective physics departments of Brown University (https://sites.brown.edu/sjgates/bio/) and the University of Chicago (https://provost.uchicago.edu/directory/young-kee-kim-0).
It is worth underlining that in 1957, two theoretical physicists, Professor Tsung-Dao Lee of Columbia University and Professor Cheng-Ning Yang of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton proposed a theory which could alter one of our basic understandings of nature, which is that parity need not be conserved. Madame Wu and her team then took on the arduous technical challenge to experimentally demonstrate that in the weak-force of nature, that was indeed the case. With Madame Wu et al experimental verification, Lee and Yang received the highest scientific accolade, the Nobel prize in physics.
About the C.S. Wu Global Forum
In order to commemorate Madame Chien Shiung Wu's 110 Anniversaries, Nanjing University Alumni Association United States (USAAUS) will host the first C.S. Wu Global Online Symposium, on September 24th, 2022. It welcomes scientists, teachers and students all over the world to join this open event.
The son of Madame C.S. Wu, Dr. Vincent Yuan, expressed his great pleasure in approving the NUAAUS to organize this commemorative event.
The U.S. Postal Service wrote to NUAAUS and authorized the use of Chien-shung Wu commemorative stamp to honor her as "one of the most influential nuclear physicists of the 20th century".