Chapter 1 As a girl in the 1920s Chien Shiung had to work hard to get the same education as boys her age A SCIENTIFIC START Ihien Shiung Wu was born on May 29 1912 in the small town of Liuhe China Chien Shiung's parents encouraged her and her two brothers to read and ask questions about everything In the evenings her father Zong Yi read news about the latest scientific discoveries to the whole
At that time there were not many schools for girls in China Most girls were taught only how to become good wives and mothers But Chien Shiung's father founded the Ming De School This was the first girls school in the region Chien Shiung's mother Fuhua Fan helped Zong Yi convince other parents to send their daughters to the school When she was old enough Chien Shiung attended Ming De But the school had only four grades Chien Shiung graduated when she was nine She wanted to continue her education but there were no other schools for girls in the area AWAY FROM HOME Chien Shiung applied to the Soochow Girls School in the city of Suzhou This school was 50 miles 80 kilometers from her home For the next seven years she saw her family only during school breaks The Soochow Girls School had two programs One was a regular school and the other was a teacher training school The teacher training school was free Students were promised a job after graduation Chien Shiung's family had enough money to pay for the regular school But she wanted the challenge of the more difficult teacher training
Chien Shiung soon found that her friends in the regular school were learning more science than she was She borrowed their textbooks Sometimes she stayed up late at night She taught herself math physics and chemistry Soon N Suzhou is located in eastern China near
Marie Curie won two Nobel prizes for her groundbreaking work in physics and chemistry Chien Shiung had a subject At the time clear favorite physics physicists were making exciting discoveries about atoms Chien Shiung especially admired Marie Curie a Polish French physicist famous for discovering radioactive elements HEAD OF THE CLASS In 1930 Chien Shiung graduated from Soochow at the top of her class She was chosen to attend the National Central
