Original story reprinted amongst permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to get upward world agreement of scientific discipline past times roofing enquiry developments together with trends inward mathematics together with the physical together with life sciences. One of the many women who, inward a unlike world, mightiness have got won the physics prize inward the intervening 55 years is Sau Lan Wu. Wu is the Enrico Fermi Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, together with an experimentalist at CERN, the laboratory close Geneva that houses the Large Hadron Collider. Wu’s scream appears on to a greater extent than than 1,000 papers inward high-energy physics, together with she has contributed to a half-dozen of the most of import experiments inward her champaign over the past times 50 years. She has fifty-fifty realized the improbable finish she laid for herself every bit a immature researcher: to brand at to the lowest degree 3 major discoveries.
Wu was an integral fellow member of 1 of the ii groups that observed the J/psi particle, which heralded the existence of a 4th sort of quark, immediately called the charm. The discovery, inward 1974, was known every bit the Nov Revolution, a coup that led to the establishment of the Standard Model of particle physics. Later inward the 1970s, Wu did much of the math together with analysis to discern the 3 “jets” of liberate energy flight away from particle collisions that signaled the existence of gluons—particles that mediate the strong forcefulness belongings protons together with neutrons together. This was the showtime observation of particles that communicate a forcefulness since scientists recognized photons of low-cal every bit the carriers of electromagnetism. Wu afterward became 1 of the grouping leaders for the ATLAS experiment, 1 of the ii collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider that discovered the Higgs boson inward 2012, filling inward the lastly slice of the Standard Model. She continues to search for novel particles that would go past times the Standard Model together with force physics forward.
Sau Lan Wu was born inward occupied Hong Kong during World War II. Her woman bring upward was the 6th concubine to a wealthy homo of affairs who abandoned them together with her younger blood brother when Wu was a child. She grew upward inward abject poverty, sleeping lonely inward a infinite behind a rice shop. Her woman bring upward was illiterate, but she urged her immature adult woman to pursue an teaching together with acquire independent of volatile men.
"Our most of import occupation is to empathize the properties of the Higgs boson, which is a completely novel sort of particle."
Wu graduated from a authorities schoolhouse inward Hong Kong together with applied to 50 universities inward the United States. She received a scholarship to attend Vassar College together with arrived amongst $40 to her name.
Although she originally intended to acquire an artist, she was inspired to written report physics after reading a biography of Marie Curie. She worked on experiments during consecutive summers at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, together with she attended graduate schoolhouse at Harvard University. She was the solely adult woman inward her cohort together with was barred from entering the manlike individual dormitories to bring together the written report groups that met there. She has labored since together with hence to brand a infinite for everyone inward physics, mentoring to a greater extent than than lx men together with women through their doctorates.
Quanta Magazine joined Sau Lan Wu on a greyness couch inward sunny Cleveland inward early on June. She had only delivered an invited lecture close the regain of gluons at a symposium to abide by the 50th birthday of the Standard Model. The interview has been condensed together with edited for clarity.
You operate on the largest experiments inward the world, mentor dozens of students, together with move dorsum together with forth betwixt Madison together with Geneva. What is a normal twenty-four hours similar for you?
Very tiring! In principle, I am full-time at CERN, but I practise decease to Madison fairly often. So I practise move a lot.
How practise y'all create practise it all?
Well, I recollect the telephone commutation is that I am totally devoted. My husband, Tai Tsun Wu, is also a professor, inward theoretical physics at Harvard. Right now, he’s working fifty-fifty harder than me, which is hard to imagine. He’s doing a calculation close the Higgs boson decay that is really difficult. But I encourage him to operate hard, because it’s adept for your mental nation when y'all are older. That’s why I operate hence hard, too.
Of all the discoveries y'all were involved in, practise y'all have got a favorite?
Discovering the gluon was a fantastic time. I was only a second- or third-year assistant professor. And I was hence happy. That’s because I was the baby, the youngest of all the telephone commutation members of the collaboration.
The gluon was the showtime force-carrying particle discovered since the photon. The W together with Z bosons, which acquit the weak force, were discovered a few years later, together with the researchers who found them won a Nobel Prize. Why was no prize awarded for the regain of the gluon?
Well, y'all are going to have got to inquire the Nobel commission that. [Laughs.] I tin tell y'all what I think, though. Only 3 people tin win a Nobel Prize. And at that spot were 3 other physicists on the experiment amongst me who were to a greater extent than senior than I was. They treated me really well. But I pushed the thought of searching for the gluon correct away, together with I did the calculations. I didn’t fifty-fifty speak to theorists. Although I married a theorist, I never genuinely paid attending to what the theorists told me to do.
How did y'all air current upward existence the 1 to practise those calculations?
If y'all desire to live successful, y'all have got to live fast. But y'all also have got to live first. So I did the calculations to brand sure that every bit presently every bit a novel collider at DESY [the High German Electron Synchrotron] turned on inward Hamburg, nosotros could reckon the gluon together with recognize its betoken of 3 jets of particles. We were non hence sure inward those days that the betoken for the gluon would live clear-cut, because the concept of jets had solely been introduced a twain of years earlier, but this seemed to live the solely agency to regain gluons.
You were also involved inward discovering the Higgs boson, the particle inward the Standard Model that gives many other particles their masses. How was that experiment unlike from the others that y'all were business office of?
I worked a lot to a greater extent than together with a lot longer to regain the Higgs than I have got on anything else. I worked for over xxx years, doing 1 experiment after another. I recollect I contributed a lot to that discovery. But the ATLAS collaboration at CERN is hence large that y'all can’t fifty-fifty speak close your private contribution. There are 3,000 people who built together with worked on our experiment. How tin anyone claim anything? In the one-time days, life was easier.
Has it gotten whatever easier to live a adult woman inward physics than when y'all started?
Not for me. But for younger women, yes. There is a tendency amidst funding agencies together with institutions to encourage younger women, which I recollect is great. But for someone similar me it is harder. I went through a really hard time. And immediately that I am established others say: Why should nosotros process y'all whatever differently?
Who were some of your mentors when y'all were a immature researcher?
Bjørn Wiik genuinely helped me when I was looking for the gluon at DESY.
How so?
Well, when I started at the University of Wisconsin, I was looking for a novel project. I was interested inward doing electron-positron collisions, which could hand the clearest indication of a gluon. So I went to speak to some other professor at Wisconsin who did these kinds of experiments at SLAC, the lab at Stanford. But he was non interested inward working amongst me.
So I tried to bring together a projection at the novel electron-positron collider at DESY. I wanted to bring together the JADE experiment [abbreviated from the nations that developed the detector: Japan, FRG (Deutschland) together with England]. I had some friends working there, hence I went to FRG together with I was all laid to bring together them. But together with hence I heard that no 1 had told a large professor inward the grouping close me, hence I called him up. He said, “I am non sure if I tin convey you, together with I am going on opor-garai for a month. I’ll telephone y'all when I acquire back.” I was genuinely lamentable because I was already inward FRG at DESY.
But together with hence I ran into Bjørn Wiik, who led a unlike experiment called TASSO, together with he said, “What are y'all doing here?” I said, “I tried to bring together JADE, but they turned me down.” He said, “Come together with speak to me.” He accepted me the really side past times side day. And the thing is, JADE afterward broke their chamber, together with they could non have got observed the three-jet betoken for gluons when nosotros observed it showtime at TASSO. So I have got learned that if something does non operate out for y'all inward life, something else will.
You sure turned that negative into a positive.
Yes. The same thing happened when I left Hong Kong to attend college inward the US. I applied to 50 universities after I went through a catalog at the American consulate. I wrote inward every application, “I demand a total scholarship together with room together with board,” because I had no money. Four universities replied. Three of them turned me down. Vassar was the solely American college that accepted me. And it turns out, it was the best college of all the ones I applied to.
If y'all persist, something adept is jump to happen. My philosophy is that y'all have got to operate hard together with have got adept judgment. But y'all also have got to have got luck.
I know this is an unfair question, because no 1 ever asks men, fifty-fifty though nosotros should, but how tin guild inspire to a greater extent than women to written report physics or consider it every bit a career?
Well, I tin solely tell something close my field, experimental high-energy physics. I recollect my champaign is really hard for women. I recollect partially it’s the work of family.
My hubby together with I did non alive together for 10 years, except during the summers. And I gave upward having children. When I was considering having children, it was around the fourth dimension when I was upward for tenure together with a grant. I feared I would lose both if I got pregnant. I was less worried close genuinely having children than I was close walking into my subdivision or a coming together patch pregnant. So it’s very, really hard for families.
I recollect it even hence tin be.
Yeah, but for the younger generation it’s different. Nowadays, a subdivision looks adept if it supports women. I don’t hateful that departments are deliberately doing that solely to facial expression better, but they no longer actively struggle against women. It’s even hence hard, though. Especially inward experimental high-energy physics. I recollect at that spot is hence much traveling that it makes having a theatre unit of measurement or a life difficult. Theory is much easier.
You have got done hence much to aid flora the Standard Model of particle physics. What practise y'all similar close it? What practise y'all non like?
It’s only amazing that the Standard Model industrial plant every bit good every bit it does. I similar that every fourth dimension nosotros endeavour to search for something that is non accounted for inward the Standard Model, nosotros practise non regain it, because the Standard Model says nosotros shouldn’t.
But dorsum inward my day, at that spot was hence much that nosotros had yet to regain together with establish. The work immediately is that everything fits together hence beautifully together with the Model is hence good confirmed. That’s why I miss the fourth dimension of the J/psi discovery. Nobody expected that, together with nobody genuinely had a clue what it was.
But peradventure those days of surprise aren’t over.
We know that the Standard Model is an incomplete description of nature. It doesn’t concern human relationship for gravity, the masses of neutrinos, or night matter—the invisible nub that seems to brand upward six-sevenths of the universe’s mass. Do y'all have got a favorite thought for what lies beyond the Standard Model?
Well, correct immediately I am searching for the particles that brand upward night matter. The solely thing is, I am committed to working at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. But a collider may or may non live the best house to facial expression for night matter. It’s out at that spot inward the galaxies, but nosotros don’t reckon it hither on Earth.
Still, I am going to try. If night affair has whatever interactions amongst the known particles, it tin live produced via collisions at the LHC. But weakly interacting night affair would non exit a visible signature inward our detector at ATLAS, hence nosotros have got to intuit its existence from what nosotros genuinely see. Right now, I am concentrating on finding hints of night affair inward the course of written report of missing liberate energy together with momentum inward a collision that produces a unmarried Higgs boson.
What else have got y'all been working on?
Our most of import occupation is to empathize the properties of the Higgs boson, which is a completely novel sort of particle. The Higgs is to a greater extent than symmetric than whatever other particle nosotros know about; it’s the showtime particle that nosotros have got discovered without whatever spin. My grouping together with I were major contributors to the really recent mensuration of Higgs bosons interacting amongst top quarks. That observation was extremely challenging. We examined v years of collision data, together with my squad worked intensively on advanced machine-learning techniques together with statistics.
In add-on to studying the Higgs together with searching for night matter, my grouping together with I also contributed to the silicon pixel detector, to the trigger organization [that identifies potentially interesting collisions], together with to the computing organization inward the ATLAS detector. We are immediately improving these during the shutdown together with upgrade of the LHC. We are also really excited close the close future, because nosotros conception to start using quantum computing to practise our information analysis.
Do y'all have got whatever advice for immature physicists only starting their careers?
Some of the immature experimentalists today are a fleck likewise conservative. In other words, they are afraid to practise something that is non inward the mainstream. They fearfulness doing something risky together with non getting a result. I don’t blame them. It’s the agency the civilisation is. My advice to them is to figure out what the most of import experiments are together with and hence live persistent. Good experiments ever convey time.
But non everyone gets to convey that time.
Right. Young students don’t ever have got the liberty to live really innovative, unless they tin practise it inward a really brusque amount of fourth dimension together with live successful. They don’t ever acquire to live patient together with only explore. They demand to live recognized past times their collaborators. They demand people to write them letters of recommendation.
The solely thing that y'all tin practise is operate hard. But I also tell my students, “Communicate. Don’t unopen yourselves off. Try to come upward up amongst adept ideas on your ain but also inward groups. Try to innovate. Nothing volition live easy. But it is all worth it to regain something new.”
Original story reprinted amongst permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to get upward world agreement of scientific discipline past times roofing enquiry developments together with trends inward mathematics together with the physical together with life sciences.
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