Manhattan Project scientist Chien-Shiung Wu honored with Forever StampNuclear NewsResearch & ApplicationsFebruary 11, 2021, 11:59AM|Nuclear News StaffTo mark the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the U.S. Postal Service today issued a commemorative Forever stamp recognizing influential nuclear physicist and professor Chien-Shiung Wu (1912–1997).A great honor: The stamp was dedicated during a virtual ceremony that can be viewed on the Postal Service Facebook and Twitter pages. USPS official Kristin Seaver was joined for the ceremony by Vincent Yuan, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and son of the honoree; Jada Yuan, granddaughter of the honoree; and Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University. The stamp is available for purchase at Post Office locations nationwide and online.“I am elated to have my mother honored by USPS on a postage stamp because I believe it goes beyond recognizing her scientific achievements; it also honors the determination and moral qualities that she embodied,” said Vincent Yuan. “It’s even more profound that the recognition comes from America, the country of her naturalization that she loved.”Wu’s career: Both the virtual ceremony and a news release issued by the USPS highlight Wu’s life and career as an expert researcher who tested fundamental theories of physics. Wu moved to the United States from China in 1936 and earned a Ph.D. in nuclear physics in 1940 from the University of California at Berkeley. In 1944, she joined the Division of War Research at Columbia University, where she worked on uranium enrichment and radiation detectors for the Manhattan Project. Wu remained at Columbia as a research professor and focused her research on beta decay. In 1956, theoretical physicists Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang went to Wu for help in developing a theory to disprove the quantum mechanics principle of conservation of parity. Wu created an experiment that revealed that parity is not conserved in weak interactions—a finding that changed the fundamental understanding of quantum mechanics and earned the lead physicists the Nobel Prize in Physics. Tags:chien-shiung wucolumbiamanhattan projectnuclear physicsquantum mechanicsuspsShare:LinkedInTwitterFacebook
Is proximity key to understanding interactions on the nuclear scale?An MIT-led team found that the formulas describing how atoms behave in a gas can be generalized to predict how protons and neutrons interact at close range. Image: Collage by MIT News. Neutron star image: X-ray (NASA/CXC/ESO/F.Vogt et al); Optical (ESO/VLT/MUSE & NASA/STScI)In an MIT News article playfully titled “No matter the size of a nuclear party, some protons and neutrons will always pair up and dance,” author Jennifer Chu explains that findings on the interactions of protons and neutrons recently published in the journal Nature Physics show that the nucleons may behave like atoms in a gas.A Massachusetts Institute of Technology–led team simulated the behavior of nucleons in several types of atomic nuclei using supercomputers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory. The team investigated a range of nuclear interaction models and found that formulas describing a concept known as contact formalism can be generalized to predict how protons and neutrons interact at close range.Go to Article
Webinar on Oak Ridge National LaboratoryANS and the Young Members Group are offering the next installment of the “Spotlight on the National Labs” webinar series, featuring Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The webinar takes place on August 12, starting at 1:30 p.m. (EDT).Registration for the webinar is required.Go to Article
DOE marks 75th anniversary of Trinity Test by highlighting cleanup progressOn July 16, 1945, the research and development efforts of the nation’s once-secret Manhattan Project were realized when the detonation of the world’s first atomic device occurred in Alamogordo, N.M., more than 200 miles south of Los Alamos, in what was code-named the Trinity Test—a name inspired by the poems of John Donne.On the 75th anniversary of this landmark event, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) is highlighting the cleanup, long-term management, and historical significance of the Manhattan Project sites—Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Hanford, Wash.—that were conceived, built, and operated in secrecy as they supported weapons development during World War II.Go to Article
Researchers develop novel approach to modeling as-yet-unconfirmed rare nuclear processAccording to a recent story published by AAAS, researchers from the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams Laboratory at Michigan State University have taken a major step toward a theoretical first-principles description of neutrinoless double-beta decay.Go to Article
Honoring Dr. Leona Woods - #HerstoryDuring March's Women's History Month, I honor Leona Woods by telling #herstory.Go to Article
Columbia Generating Station Sets New Generation RecordRatepayers in the Pacific Northwest have reason to celebrate the dedicated employees of Energy Northwest's 1170-megawatt Columbia Generating Station: The Northwest's sole nuclear energy facility generated a record 9.7 million megawatt hours of electricity during the fiscal year that ended Monday, June 30-eclipsing a previous record of 9.5 million megawatt hours in fiscal year 2006.Go to Article