Guide
This year marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of the famous mathematician Mr. Chen Shengshen. October 10th also coincided with the birthday of Mr. Chen Shengshen's lunar calendar. On this day, the 110th anniversary of Mr. Chen Shengshen's birth was held at Tsinghua University.
At the meeting, Yau Chengtong, winner of the Fields Medal and director of the Yau Chengtong Center for Mathematical Sciences of Tsinghua University, as a disciple of Mr. Chen Shengshen, recalled the interaction with the teacher, which included the teacher-student relationship of the two mathematicians.
The following is the full text of Yau Chengtong's speech.
Speech by Chengtong Qiu (Courtesy of Tsinghua University)
As a student of Chen Province, I am very proud. Today is the 110th anniversary of his lunar calendar, and we are gathered here to solemnly commemorate this great mathematician and discuss his academic achievements.
91 years ago, Mr. Chen was a graduate student at Tsinghua University. He grew up here and became a first-class scientist. Today, Tsinghua Mathematics is maturing and is about to become a world-class mathematics school. There are many researchers, undergraduates, young and experienced teachers. We all follow the example of Mr. Chen, the greatest mathematician in Chinese history, who has left a permanent and important milestone in the history of mathematics. Tsinghua students should be proud to have such a great alumni.
Mr. Chen spent four years on the beautiful Tsinghua campus and wrote his first paper. After that, he went to Germany for further study. In 1937, after graduating from the University of Hamburg and conducting research in Paris, Mr. Chen brought back to China the new theories established by Wilhelm Blaschke and Lie Cartan, bringing modern Chinese geometry into a new era. Although the country was in the midst of a war-torn period of the war of aggression against China, the discipline of mathematics had begun to develop.
In 1943, Mr. Chen visited the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. During his two years there, he developed modern mathematics and modern geometry into a whole new era. He worked with the great mathematicians of the 20th century, obtained the implicit proof of the Gauss-Bonet formula, and developed the "chenxie class".
Based on Mr. Chen's work, modern geometry has undergone a great transformation, and the overall topology and spatial curvature are closely integrated into this discipline. In addition, normative theory was born, and the "Chen class" was widely used in various scientific fields. The indicative class has become the key to unlocking the mysteries behind modern geometry, topology, high-energy physics, and condensed matter physics.
Mr. Chen's influence on modern science is profound, including Chen class, Chen-Simmons theory, and many important invariants invented by Mr. Chen. Whenever I open a mathematical journal, I can see Mr. Chen's name everywhere. I think it's hard to compare any other scientist with Mr. Chen.
Here, allow me to mention some personal contacts with Mr. Chen.
In 2000, I wrote this couplet to celebrate Mr. Chen's achievements. Mr. Chen was very happy and insisted that I write calligraphy with a brush and hang it on the wall of the Chen Provincial Institute of Mathematics in Nankai. But because my brush writing was so poor, I never dared to write, so I asked a famous calligrapher to write this couplet hanging in Nankai. Now, 20 years later, I still feel guilty about it because I didn't meet Mr. Chen's expectations.
Just before this meeting, I finally decided to give it a try, hoping that the kings would feel that they were still passable.
I had the privilege of being his student. The more I learned from this mathematical master, the more I admired the teacher's work and the harmony and beauty of nature revealed by the "Chen Class".
The upper link of this couplet is to say that through the Gauss-Bonnet formula and the "Chen class", topologists began to understand the meaning of curvature. It was only after Mr. Chen that geometry became a macroscopic discipline, interacting with topology, physics, and many different fields.
He talks about his influence on students and friends. He has successfully established three extremely important mathematical institutes in the world, trained 42 doctoral students, and has nearly 1400 academic descendants, and he is undoubtedly one of the most successful educators in the world.
Among his students, Zheng Shaoyuan and I are working at Tsinghua, which can show his influence on Tsinghua. Li Jun of Fudan University was his apprentice grandson. I would like to say that Mr. Chen has had a profound impact on mathematics in China through these students who are active in various fields.
We will witness the transformation of Chinese mathematics through his education and his mathematical achievements. I hope we can follow in his footsteps, inherit his spirit, innovate and expand geometry. The next 10 years are very important for us. (Chengtong Yau)
Source: Science Network WeChat public account