Sau Lan Wu facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sau Lan Wu
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| 吳秀蘭 | |
Sau Lan Wu, October 2012
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| Born | May 11, 1940 |
| Other names | 吴秀兰 |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Particle physics |
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| Thesis | Proton Compton scattering at high energies near the forward direction (1970) |
Sau Lan Wu (Chinese: 吳秀蘭; born May 11, 1940) is a Chinese-American particle physicist. This means she is a scientist who studies the tiniest particles that make up everything in the universe. She is a special professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Sau Lan Wu helped discover important particles. These include the J/psi particle, which proved that a particle called the charm quark exists. She also helped find the gluon, a particle that "glues" other particles together. More recently, her team at CERN (a big science lab in Europe) helped discover a particle that matches the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson is a key part of the Standard Model of physics, which explains how particles and forces work.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Sau Lan Wu was born in Hong Kong in the early 1940s, when it was occupied by Japan. In 1960, she went to Vassar College in the United States with a full scholarship. At first, she wanted to be a painter. However, she was inspired by the famous scientist Marie Curie to study physics instead. During a summer at Brookhaven National Laboratory, she became very interested in particle physics.
During her first year at college, she met Jacqueline Kennedy at the White House. She also experienced unfair treatment because of her race when she visited the Supreme Court. There, she saw separate restrooms for "black" and "white" people.
Academic Journey
Sau Lan Wu earned her first degree in physics from Vassar College in 1963. She then went to Harvard University, where she received her master's degree in 1964 and her PhD in physics in 1970. After her studies, she worked at several important research centers. These included the MIT, DESY in Germany, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is now a distinguished professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Since 1986, she has also been a visiting scientist at CERN. There, she conducts research using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) as part of the ATLAS team.
Major Discoveries
Finding the J/psi Particle
In 1974, Sau Lan Wu was part of a team at MIT led by Samuel C.C. Ting. This team discovered the J/psi particle. For this discovery, Samuel C.C. Ting shared the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physics.
The MIT team used a particle accelerator called the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron. They shot high-energy proton beams at a target. This created showers of new particles that were then detected. They found a strong signal of a new, stable particle. This particle decayed into electron-positron pairs at a specific energy. Another scientist, Burton Richter, found the same particle at a different lab. This discovery helped prove the existence of the charm quark.
Discovering the Gluon
Sau Lan Wu played a key role in discovering the gluon. The gluon is a particle that "glues" or binds smaller particles called quarks together. Quarks are the building blocks of protons and neutrons. For their work, Sau Lan Wu and her team received the 1995 European Physical Society High Energy and Particle Physics Prize.
The main evidence for the gluon came from "three jet events." These events happen when electrons and positrons collide. They create a quark and an antiquark, and sometimes an extra gluon is released. This gluon then creates a third "jet" of particles. In the late 1970s, Wu joined the TASSO Collaboration at the PETRA accelerator at DESY. In 1979, she published a paper about how to analyze these three-jet events. This method was used in a later publication by the TASSO Collaboration, which was the first evidence of the gluon.
The Hunt for the Higgs Boson
Sau Lan Wu's team from Wisconsin was the first American group to join the ATLAS Collaboration at CERN in 1993. However, her search for the Higgs boson began even earlier. She looked for it at the Large Electron–Positron (LEP) Collider, also at CERN.
Together with other scientists at LEP, they saw some signs of the Higgs boson. But the evidence was not strong enough to be a definite discovery. They could only say that if the Higgs boson existed, its mass had to be above a certain level. In 2000, CERN closed the LEP collider to build the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in its place.
On July 4, 2012, after huge efforts by the ATLAS and CMS teams, CERN announced a major discovery. They found a new particle that matched the predictions for the Higgs boson. Its mass was about 125 GeV. This discovery was very significant, meaning it was highly unlikely to have happened by chance. This finding helped complete the Standard Model of particle physics, which explains most of what we see in the Universe. Sau Lan Wu and her Wisconsin group made important contributions to this discovery. They focused on how the Higgs boson decays into two gamma-rays or into four leptons.
Mentoring Future Scientists
Sau Lan Wu has guided 65 PhD students during their studies. Many of these students have gone on to become successful scientists and professors themselves.
Awards and Recognition
- Outstanding Junior Investigator Award of U.S. Department of Energy, 1980
- Romnes Faculty Award, University of Wisconsin, Madison 1981
- Hilldale Professorship, University of Wisconsin, Madison 1991
- Fellow, American Physical Society 1992
- High Energy and Particle Physics Prize of the European Physical Society 1995, for the discovery of the gluon.
- Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1996
- Vilas Professorship, University of Wisconsin, Madison 1998
- Sau Lan Wu has been featured in several books as an inspiring scientist. These books include "Women in Science – 50 fearless pioneers who changed the world," "This Little Scientist : A Discovery Primer," "Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Immigrant Women Who Changed the World," "How to Be Extraordinary," "Scientists Alphabet Book by Christi Sperber," "Bold Women in Science: 15 Women in History You Should Know" by Danni Washington, and “50 Women in Technology” by Georgina Ferry, Bridget Greenwood and Ines Almeida.
- A small planet, 177770 SaulanWu, was named in her honor in 2022. It was discovered in 2005.
