Tsinghua commemorates the 110th anniversary of Chen Shengsheng's birth, and Yau Chengtong encourages future generations to continue to explore mathematics

The Paper's reporter Cheng Ting

The scene of the opening ceremony. Courtesy of Tsinghua University

On October 10th, the 110th anniversary of the birth of the famous mathematician Mr. Chen Shengshen opened at Tsinghua University. The Paper learned from Tsinghua University that in the next four days, top scholars from major universities in China, mathematical research institutes and the international mathematical community will gather at Tsinghua University to discuss the development of various branches of geometry since the 19th century and the far-reaching impact of the overall differential geometry pioneered by Mr. Chen Shengshen.

At the opening ceremony, Qiu Yong, president of Tsinghua University, introduced that Mr. Chen Shengshen was a world-class mathematical master who graduated from the Department of Mathematics of the Institute of Science of Tsinghua University in 1934 and was the first mathematics graduate student trained in China. He has long been committed to the research of differential geometry, and through unremitting efforts, he has achieved groundbreaking and world-renowned outstanding results. Mr. Chen Shengshen has always been concerned about the development of the motherland, committed to improving the status of Chinese mathematics in the international mathematical community, he has trained a group of world-class scientists and famous scholars such as Mr. Qiu Chengtong with profound academic attainments and superb education level, which has promoted the development of China's mathematical cause and inspired generations of young scientific talents to pursue excellence and climb the peak.

Qiu Yong stressed that basic research is the source of the entire scientific system. It is the unshirkable mission of the university to give full play to the role of the main force of basic research and to lay a solid foundation and contribute to the realization of scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance in the country. He said that Tsinghua University will comprehensively improve the level of running schools with greater determination and boldness, cultivate more outstanding talents who shoulder the mission and pursue excellence, and strive for self-improvement and innovation, and live up to its mission.

Yau Chengtong, an international mathematician and director of the Yau Chengtong Center for Mathematical Sciences of Tsinghua University, pointed out that Mr. Chen Shengshen has worked tirelessly and diligently over the years, closely combined the overall topology and spatial curvature, created a new era of modern geometry, left a permanent and eye-catching monument in the history of world mathematics, and his academic influence has also penetrated into many disciplines such as physics. Mr. Chen founded 3 research institutes in his lifetime, with nearly 1400 academic descendants, and is a successful mathematics educator. As a student of Mr. Chen Shengshen, Yau Chengtong encouraged the younger generations to continue to follow in the footsteps of Mr. Chen Shengshen and continue to carry out more profound explorations at the forefront of mathematical science.

Attached: Profile of Mr. Chen Shengshen

Mr. Chen Was born on October 28, 1911 in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province. He graduated from Nankai University in 1930. In that year, he was admitted to Tsinghua University as one of the first batch of graduate students and the first graduate student of the Department of Arithmetic. In 1934, he was sent to study abroad and went to germany to study for a doctorate at the University of Hamburg, Germany, and later went to France to study with the mathematician Cartan. In 1937, he returned to China and taught at Tsinghua University and Southwest Union University for 6 years. After that, he visited the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and successively served as a professor at the Institute of Mathematics of the Academia Sinica in China, the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley, and then founded the National Institute of Mathematics in 1981 and served as the director, and founded the Nankai Institute of Mathematics in 1985 and served as the director. In 2000, Tsinghua University awarded Mr. Chen Shengshen as an honorary professor. His seminal contributions to differential geometry and topology, especially in the study of integral differential geometry, have had a great impact on the development of disciplines such as mathematics and even physics. He is recognized as one of the greatest geometrists of the twentieth century and is known as the "father of integral differential geometry".

Chen's implicit proof of the Gauss-Bonnet formula and the elaborate work of proposing the Chern Class ushered in a new era of differential geometry. He developed fiber bundle theory, whose influence spread throughout all areas of mathematics. Founded the theory of value distribution on complex manifolds, including the Bott-Chern theorem, which has implications for algebraic number theory. He laid the foundation for generalized integral geometry and obtained basic kinematic formulas. His introduction of The Chen indicative classes and the Chern-Simons differential formula has penetrated beyond mathematics and become an important tool for theoretical physics. He has published 158 mathematical papers, 4 volumes of Chen Shengshen Papers, and Selected Writings of Chen Shengshen.

Mr. Chen is an academician of the American Academy of Sciences, a foreign academician and member of the Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society of China, France, Italy, Russia, the United Kingdom and other countries, a founding member of the Third World Academy of Sciences, and a former member of the first academician of academia Sinica. He has won many honors such as the National Medal of Science, the American Mathematical Society Award, the Wolf Prize in Israel, the China International Science and Technology Cooperation Award, and the first Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences. In 2002, he was elected Honorary President of the International Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing.

Since the reform and opening up, Mr. Chen Shengshen is very concerned about the revival of China's mathematical cause, personally participated in organizing and guiding China's mathematical circles to carry out academic exchanges and academic activities, trained a large number of outstanding young mathematicians, and played an important role in the rapid rise of China's mathematical cause after the reform and opening up. In 1988, at the "Academic Symposium on the Prospect of Chinese Mathematics in the 21st Century" held at Nankai University, he proposed that China would become a mathematical power in the 21st century. In 2000, he and his wife returned to Nankai to settle down, personally recruited talents, lectured for undergraduates, guided graduate students, and made significant contributions to the development of mathematics disciplines and the cultivation of mathematical talents in China.

On December 3, 2004, Mr. Chen Shengshen passed away due to illness.

Editor-in-Charge: Jiang Ziwen

Proofreader: Liu Wei