Editing History of science (section)

===Big science===
[[File:Trinity Test Fireball 25ms.jpg|thumb| left | The [[atomic bomb]] ushered in "[[Big Science]]" in physics.]]
In 1938 [[Otto Hahn]] and [[Fritz Strassmann]] [[discovery of nuclear fission|discovered nuclear fission]] with radiochemical methods, and in 1939 [[Lise Meitner]] and [[Otto Robert Frisch]] wrote the first theoretical interpretation of the fission process, which was later improved by [[Niels Bohr]] and [[John A. Wheeler]]. Further developments took place during World War II, which led to the practical application of [[radar]] and the development and use of the [[atomic bomb]]. Around this time, [[Chien-Shiung Wu]] was recruited by the [[Manhattan Project]] to help develop a process for separating uranium metal into U-235 and U-238 isotopes by [[Gaseous diffusion]].<ref>Ronald K. Smeltzer. "Chien-Shiung Wu." Atomic Heritage Foundation, https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/chien-shiung-wu {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190915015223/https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/chien-shiung-wu |date=15 September 2019 }}. Accessed 26 October 2017.</ref> She was an expert experimentalist in beta decay and weak interaction physics.<ref name="biography.com">Biography.com Editors. "Chien-Shiung Wu." Biography.com, 2 June 2016, https://www.biography.com/people/chien-shiung-wu-053116 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171026054240/https://www.biography.com/people/chien-shiung-wu-053116 |date=26 October 2017 }}.</ref><ref>{{cite journal | doi=10.1063/1.2806727 | title=Chien-Shiung Wu | year=1997 | last1=Garwin | first1=Richard L. | last2=Lee | first2=Tsung-Dao | journal=Physics Today | volume=50 | issue=10 | pages=120–122 | doi-access=free }}</ref> Wu designed an experiment (see [[Wu experiment]]) that enabled theoretical physicists [[Tsung-Dao Lee]] and [[Chen-Ning Yang]] to disprove the law of parity experimentally, winning them a Nobel Prize in 1957.<ref name="biography.com"/>

Though the process had begun with the invention of the [[cyclotron]] by [[Ernest O. Lawrence]] in the 1930s, physics in the postwar period entered into a phase of what historians have called "[[Big Science]]", requiring massive machines, budgets, and laboratories in order to test their theories and move into new frontiers. The primary patron of physics became state governments, who recognized that the support of "basic" research could often lead to technologies useful to both military and industrial applications.