Three Major Physics Discoveries and Counting
July 24, 2018 6:26 AM   Subscribe

Meet the Woman Who Rocked Particle Physics—Three Times (Quanta) - "Sau Lan Wu spent decades working to establish the Standard Model of particle physics. Now she’s searching for what lies beyond it." (via)
posted by kliuless (6 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
Wow, what an incredible woman.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:56 AM on July 24, 2018


Damn she's a badass. I admire anyone so driven. Also I love the humor in this quote, "Although I married a theorist, I never really paid attention to what the theorists told me to do."
posted by Nelson at 7:58 AM on July 24, 2018 [3 favorites]


From the article, this is pretty striking and unsurprising:

I know this is an unfair question, because no one ever asks men, even though we should, but how can society inspire more women to study physics or consider it as a career?

Well, I can only say something about my field, experimental high-energy physics. I think my field is very hard for women. I think partially it’s the problem of family.

My husband and I did not live together for 10 years, except during the summers. And I gave up having children. When I was considering having children, it was around the time when I was up for tenure and a grant. I feared I would lose both if I got pregnant. I was less worried about actually having children than I was about walking into my department or a meeting while pregnant. So it’s very, very hard for families.

posted by emjaybee at 8:40 AM on July 24, 2018 [6 favorites]


I thought this post was about Chien-Shiung Wu, who was unfairly deprived of a Nobel Prize in Physics.
posted by vacapinta at 9:15 AM on July 24, 2018 [4 favorites]


Great interview, thanks for posting!
posted by lilies.lilies at 10:53 AM on July 24, 2018


Yeah, thanks kliuless -- I'm upset not to have heard of Dr. Wu before.
posted by Zed at 9:16 AM on July 26, 2018


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