Left: Mme. Wu and the Violation of Parity
This is my linocut portrait of Chien-Shiung Wu, her reflection (as in a mirror) and a schematic of her famous 1956 experiment which showed that unlike anything else, the weak force isn't the same if you reflect the set-up in the mirror (it isn't spatially invariant, it violates parity). She place radioative Cobalt-60 in a strong magnetic field and showed that the emitted beta decay electrons went preferentially in one direction (shown as down towards the North pole of the electromagnet in the box on the left). When the mirror reflection of the experiment was performed, the emitted electrons go preferentially in the OPOSITE direction (up towards the North pole of the electromagnet in the right side schematic).
The print is 12.3 by 12.5 inches, printed in an edition of 10 on ivory Japanese kozo paper. Wu in purple, and her reflection, are based on a photo of her in her lab. The Cobalt-60 is shown with the cobalt blue sphere in the schematics.
Left: Mme. Wu and the Violation of Parity
This is my linocut portrait of Chien-Shiung Wu, her reflection (as in a mirror) and a schematic of her famous 1956 experiment which showed that unlike anything else, the weak force isn't the same if you reflect the set-up in the mirror (it isn't spatially invariant, it violates parity). She place radioative Cobalt-60 in a strong magnetic field and showed that the emitted beta decay electrons went preferentially in one direction (shown as down towards the North pole of the electromagnet in the box on the left). When the mirror reflection of the experiment was performed, the emitted electrons go preferentially in the OPOSITE direction (up towards the North pole of the electromagnet in the right side schematic).
The print is 12.3 by 12.5 inches, printed in an edition of 10 on ivory Japanese kozo paper. Wu in purple, and her reflection, are based on a photo of her in her lab. The Cobalt-60 is shown with the cobalt blue sphere in the schematics.