Dr. Shin-Tson Wu (1)

A mixture of brilliance and humility

The youngest of eight children, Shin-Tson Wu grew up on a farm in Nantou County. He remembers his father encouraging all of his children to pursue their dreams. Early on Wu felt pulled toward science, so after high school, he majored in physics at National Taiwan University. As a junior, Wu was granted special permission to take a graduate class, atomic spectra, offered by a visiting professor. That class inspired him to dig deeper into lasers in graduate school.

In the late 70s, Wu became a doctoral student at USC Los Angeles. He received his Ph.D. in laser physics and married his college sweetheart, Choyan Hsieh, in the same year, 1981. Dr. Wu then applied for a research job at Hughes Research Labs. A believer in miracles, Wu experienced two at the sametime. Hughes had an opening for someone to work with infrared liquid crystal light valves. Wu had a background in infrared lasers but none in liquid crystals. He also had to have permanent residency to work there. He received both the same day!

Info Cloud
Teaching Topic: What Kind of a Doctor? 教學主題: Doctor一定是醫生嗎？
When you hear that somebody is a doctor, don’t immediately assume that the person is a medical doctor.

That’s right. A doctor can also be somebody who has earned a PhD or doctorate. That’s the highest degree that can be earned in any university.

PhD is actually the abbreviation for doctor of philosophy. Now this is misleading, because PhD holders are not necessarily philosophers unless they earned their degree in philosophy.

So why philosophy? Well the meaning of the word philosophy has changed over the centuries; during the renaissance this word had the broader meanings, since philosophy at that time encompassed a whole spectrum of science.

And the word doctor in the original Latin definition meant teacher. Historically it referred to a teacher or by extension a scholar. It did not specifically refer to a physician. This title was later adapted by the medical community due to the respect and prestige that it had.

And the adapted usage has become more popular than the original definition.

That’s right. Now a word about usage, we should never use both doctor and PhD together as doctor is a title and PhD is a degree. So let’s say Ken has earned a PhD, I might call him Doctor Lee, and on his business card he might put PhD after his name, but without the DR in front of it.

Language Lab
humility n.
the quality or state of not thinking you are better than other people
- The movie star's humility and kindness made him more and more popular.
- Jason's defeat in his first NBA game taught him the lesson of humility.

grant v.
to agree to do, give, or allow (something asked for or hoped for)
- The government granted the refugees temporary entry visas.
- Charlie was granted permission to use his dad's car on weekends.
grant n.
an amount of money that is given to someone by a government, a company, etc., to be used for a particular purpose (such as scientific research)
- Fred's application for a special grant was accepted.

infrared adj.
/ˌɪnfrəˈrɛd/
producing or using rays of light that cannot be seen and that are longer than rays that produce red light
- The soldiers used infrared detectors to find landmines.
- The infrared camera can take clear pictures in the dark.

residency n.
the state or fact of living in a place
- It took Patrick three years to get his British residency.
resident n.
someone who lives in a particular place
- Many residents in this apartment building are from Mexico.
residence n.
the place where someone lives
- the President's residence

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