 This Chinese female physicist was crucial to the development of the nuclear bomb but of course she was left out of the movie Oppenheimer but today she's kind of going viral and she's getting a lot of recognition so let's talk about her. Yeah we're talking about Chen Xiong Wu Andrew she got left out of the movie a lot of people are debating it was because you know she was a woman it's because she's Chinese there was another debate about a Chinese person contributing to the development of the Manhattan Project which ultimately resulted in nuclear bombs getting dropped on Japan so you know a lot of discussions to go a lot of different places. All right everybody so please hit that like button check out other episodes of the hot pop boys especially if you guys like our commentary uh who was Miss Wu I mean let's let's talk about her she was born in Jiangsu she got educated in Suzhou she studied at Nanjing National University then went on to San Francisco and studied at the University of Berkeley but but she originally got recruited to University of Michigan right but she turned it down reportedly because they were too sexist and of course Berkeley at the time it was a lot more liberal and it still is so in March of 1944 and this is what she did for the Manhattan Project uh Wu was recruited uh to Columbia University where she helped develop the process for separating uranium which is obviously part of the bomb exploding. You're talking about the yellow cake. Yeah yeah. So the yellow person helped separate the yellow cake. She helped bake the yellow cake I know that's uh this whole situation is not super funny but I mean let's just laugh at it now um she helped solve a problem involving an isotopes chain reaction that stumped the other scientists uh she was referred to as Miss Wu and like if other scientists had questions people were like go ask Miss Wu. Miss Wu is one of the most talented physicists I've ever met that's what other and apparently yeah she was able to call Oppenheimer himself Oppie and Oppenheimer called her Jia Jia which means older sister and Mandarin but how come they didn't put that in the movie it'd be too crazy right Andrew in the middle of the Oppenheimer movie he's just like hey hey Jia Jia uh yeah I don't know you know uh I'm sure there's some creative liberties that Christopher Nolan took and I'm sure there was other types of scientists that were actually involved you know as we know guys whether you're a woman you're Asian you're a minority black uh you're oftentimes you know history in America it doesn't always tell your full story well it's told by the victors right and the victors are what some tall white guys yeah it's always or it's told by the perspective of tall white guys whether your guys are on the same team right right I'm sure that the people would have like not denied it the people who wrote the script of Oppenheimer but they were probably would have been like ah you know we just didn't have room to fit that storyline who would we have casted do we have to cast Michelle yo again but anyways let's get into the comment section because of course David there's uh there's a lot of uh different comments yeah so make sure you like subscribe turn on your notifications let's get into it somebody said Woopenheimer because obviously uh Barbenheimer is like a trending meme right now which is really funny anything Andrew historical because they're uh you know I think the Oppenheimer stuff you know it's 1940s Barbie was 1960s all of it's going viral right now because because the movies are big right yeah it's interesting that the movie as something as crazy as a Hollywood movie could re-spark some serious interest in like yeah this Chinese-American woman from Suzhou's contributions to American projects yeah and I want to be honest even though she's left out of the movie because the movie is so popular right now it is true that's probably the reason why we're talking about her it's not that other Asian-Americans didn't know who she was if you are into Asian scientist history you did know her but I'm not gonna lie I did not really know about her right right so I think it's cool that it's brought forth and now we're talking about do you think they left out Wu Jian showing at all because you know even though back in the 1940s America and China were on the same side actually against Japan things nowadays in 2023 it's sort of like America and China being rivals you know it's kind of like creative liberties and I'm not exactly sure why she's left out maybe they figure yo we're only gonna write in the top four scientists and she was number five so you know she just didn't make the cut and it might be weird to just have a Chinese lady in the back I don't know if she's in the background anybody who watched the movie let me know but as far as I know she's not featured somebody says uh Lize Meitner discovered nuclear fission dude stole her work she was a race from history like so many female scientists justin's for Lize Meitner and all of the women that we forgot about somebody said Chinese madame curry bro they couldn't just call her Wu Jian but you know I mean it's a hard name to pronounce but yeah it's interesting that there's a Chinese madame curry Andrew but nobody knows about her right um somebody's saying there's no discovery or invention credited to um white men that wasn't heavily investigated or influenced by research done by a woman or POC and then somebody said she would have been best friends with Rosalind Franklin who is another famous uh UK female scientist who people say was overlooked and then someone said if she was white she would have been famous and someone said no it was more of a woman thing and this turned into a whole argument Andrew about do you think that the accomplishments of uh both women and minorities are overlooked or is one more than the other or is this even a relevant discussion uh it's hard to say which one is more overlooked but they're definitely both overlooked and yeah even if she was a white woman on the team I actually don't think she's gonna be that famous either to be honest right because you're saying in the 1940s in the 1950s people minimize the accomplishments of women on the team they're viewed as uh supports that yeah I would say she'd be more famous but no not that famous and honestly it was just unfortunately that's the way it is but I think it's cool now that with history now we can all look back and see all the minorities and all the women and all the even other men who maybe got their credit taken away too you know you start talking about like Nikola Tesla or something like that yeah you know like Tesla exactly what what the whole Tesla brand that's why people are talking about Nikola Tesla and even arguing oh he was actually better than uh Edison yeah so this said all social issues are interconnected when you invalidate one by saying others are more important you've invalidated all of them there's no metric to measure importance um you can't divorce all these issues from each other because they're all sort of connected on the same train and then someone said look up intersectionality do you think that's true because yeah I mean this kind of goes back to the discussion of what she ignored because she was a woman or because she was a poc I mean I think you could go back and forth about it but I think the key is you recognize her now and you have this debate and talk about her let's just talk about her like this is what we're doing we're celebrating her now whether you like the fact that she helped develop the nuclear bomb whether you agree with the droppings of the bomb you know or you agree the morality of the development of the technology whether or not you think Oppenheimer is even a good movie or not regardless we are praising a Asian female who was in STEM who at at a time highly highly highly accomplished at a time when there was like barely any women and she actually fought a lot against sexism in her later career as well yeah um do you think somebody said all scientists steal each other's work and build on it this is nothing new it has nothing to do with her race or her gender this is just something that happens in the sciences so some of the argument was like oh Oppenheimer used her work and didn't give her credit um because she's like an Asian woman you know and uh it is true that in the scientific field though obviously science builds on science so it's like you know but I guess I do think probably more credit could have been given yeah I mean it's difficult to say Andrew this is sort of a little bit of an aside but you know in handles in the MBA everybody's always like yo he took that guy's crossover and then he added like another hezzie to it and that became way more famous than the original crossover he based it on and I'm just like yeah it's tough to say because the development of an art form everybody's going to be influenced by what came before it yeah exactly somebody said fun facts Madame Wu married into the infamous Yuan family this is at UC Berkeley her husband Luke that she met Andrew her husband was uh the grandson of Yuan Shikai the second president of the Republic of China and the would-be Hongxian Emperor of the Empire of China so basically Andrew had Sun Yat Sen's vision like kept intact she would marry the grandson of the person who would have inherited the whole thing interesting somebody said Oppenheimer is a trash movie that continues to reinforce the ishi American propaganda used to justify the uses of the atomic bomb against Japan and then someone said yay Asians helped develop the bomb that would wipe out fellow Asians and then somebody said oh you mean dropping a nuke on the country that slaughtered 20 million Asians in the area locally so this is turning and like I said guys do not be offended by this debate I'm just pulling the comments but these are real heated debates that people have yeah because not all Asians in America are agreement of whether the bombs were justified or not because there's a lot of different facts that go back and forth oh was Japan on the verge of surrendering do we know that they were going to and if they were about to surrender then why did they drop the bombs they didn't need to drop the bombs especially on civilians at things like that or well hey uh Japan's army was tearing through the rest of Asia and killing a bunch of civilians this is kind of payback for what they were doing not just to Pearl Harbor and Americans but also civilians in Asia yeah I think the Asians care a lot more about what was happening in Asia at that time interestingly enough Andrew uh Wu Jianxion actually graduated from Nanjing and only left like a few years before the Japanese imperial army came through and obviously ripped apart yeah and you know I don't know what was in her heart at the time I'm sure at the time every scientist is just doing their job as a scientist right you're you're trying to make breakthroughs that's what you're trying to do now of course you are trying to develop this weapon and I think a lot of them years after seeing how much destruction it did and not only that but seeing how every country after that developed their own nuclear oh because they were like oh no no we need one of those in case you use it on me I need to be able to threaten you too you could make an argument that that that the whole Manhattan project really kind of made every other country make their own nuclear bombs which now turns into this whole nuclear arms race that we're at a nuclear arms race but I don't know somebody said uh Andrew this is a pro male comment from uh this Italian guy I believe he's from Italy he said what's next you're gonna claim that Einstein's formula was stolen to and Newton and basically all the western men have to like share their accomplishments with like women and pocs now um what do you think of this oh man it's so tough because whether it's it's k-pop giving credit to uh music from black artists right or it's right up like all these scientists that have built on theories on top of other people really everything basketball moves are based off of prior basketball players like I think it's but but but I think that it is true to to even though what you're saying is right Andrew it does seem like one group which would be like western European males got the bulk of the credit for yes yes and I'll tell you this if those scientists or those people are still alive like I would love for them to show credit to the whole team that helped them out but then you said if Oppenheimer was still around yeah like you should give a shout out to everybody you know that was on the team that helped make him such a legendary person but of course the leader of the group gets the first big title in history it's true and I think right now we could debate about whether they got screwed or didn't get screwed we could look at their university salaries if they were like all lower than all the white guys you know all the poc and women I'm sure I'm sure they were but right now I think all we can do as consumers and people just living in 2023 is it's looking to the stories and show credit yeah I don't know if like white dudes stole everything they did kind of steal the land from Native Americans that's for sure uh but yeah like I don't know I don't know it's hard to say right it's tough to parse it out right I mean dude how many white dudes probably were underneath Thomas Edison that probably didn't get all the credit that they deserve to right we only know Edison too we only know in that field so it's very very difficult to say um somebody just says I always wish there would be a movie about her yeah you know what it is somebody should yo somebody should make definitely a documentary and at least like a movie about her or at least like a a docu series but and this is just a hypothetical man I'm thinking creatively from a movie standpoint it would be insane if miss Wu was actually a Japanese-American working on the Manhattan project oh that would be a crazy story I'm not saying we should not change her to a Japanese-American that would be changing history but that would be actually a crazy storyline oh that would be crazy anyway let's get into the takeaways and uh I think the cool thing what that I realized was um I think this is like the stories that my my parents and their peers almost like looked up to you know and they were just like man you know to be a great scientist to contribute to a thing I don't know if they would just because you know whatever the aftermath and all the horrible things that resulted because of the building of the nuclear bombs but like it was cool to know that even in 1940s I was like oh man there was like Chinese people that were part of American history because nowadays everything is so adversarial you're like oh man there was a time where I mean obviously Chinese and Americans were working together and you know what it is it is uh and I think everybody always talks about Chinese building the railroads you know coming over here as like migrant workers essentially or like you know working for little to no wages yeah dentured supertude yeah essentially and I think this is on a different end because you know this is uh she's part of the the history of the development of the the greatest weapon ever made you know and America in a way is so proud of it as well in a way it's also like a dark kind of shameful aspect but they're very proud of it so for her to be part of this project in particular this like very destructively American project it is interesting it's different than like recognizing even all railroad workers who built the railroads which we should too that's cool too but also like yeah this is like this is one of those projects that kind of like uh it kind of shocked the world yeah I mean what do you think this is do you think it's like it takes movies to make something cool because I think without Oppenheimer getting released nobody's looking into definitely like the average Asian Americans not maybe people who are into STEM who are also if we were also physicists ourselves for sure I'm sure we'd know her uh but yeah obviously not being in the deep in the STEM field no yeah I mean let us know what you guys think in the comments section below do you think it was more of because she was a woman that she got left out or or more because she was a person of color or Chinese all right let us know in the comments down below and until next time we out peace