Chien-Shiung Wu in Science Discoveries

Dr. Wu's most famous and significant discovery was the investigation of beta decay. Lee, who was a famous Chinese physicist and another Chinese theoretical physicist Chen Ning Yang, had indicated a hypothetical law in elementary particle physics, the "Law of Conservation of Parity".

Dr. Wu immediately led her team to conduct an experiment after Lee and Yang's discovery. The experiment involved taking a sample of radioactive cobalt 60 and cooling to cryogenic temperatures with liquid gasses. The extremely low temperature 0.01K was needed to decrease the amount of thermal vibration of the cobalt atoms to practically nil. Dr. Wu then observed the emission direction of electrons emitted from β-decay of cobalt-60 nuclei. She found that most of the electron emission direction and the cobalt-60 nuclei spin in the opposite direction instead of being symmetrical and balance. Therefore, this experimental result confirmed the "Law of Conservation of Parity".

As a result, Dr. Wu had a huge impact in physics field by this important discovery.

http://www.biography.com/people/chien-shiung-wu-053116