(Special Author of the History of Vientiane: Looking Back)
【September 23, 1902】 Su Buqing's biography: Married to a Japanese daughter-in-law, the king of Chinese mathematics who lived past the age of 100
On September 23, 1902, Su Buqing was born in a mountain village in Pingyang County, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, to a poor family. In July 1919 (at the age of 17), Su Buqing went to Japan to study under the sponsorship of the principal of the middle school. After a month of Japanese tuition, in February 1920, Su Buqing participated in the Tokyo Higher Technical School Recruitment Examination, and with excellent results, was admitted to the school's Electrical Engineering Department.
(Former residence of Su Buqing with Hua Guofeng inscription)
On September 1, 1923, a major earthquake struck Tokyo, and Su Buqing escaped from the disaster, but he burned all his clothes, books, notes, etc. In March of the following year, after Su Buqing graduated, he was admitted to Tohoku Imperial University, a prestigious university in Japan. With full marks in both courses, he ranked first among 90 candidates and entered the Department of Mathematics in the Faculty of Science. In 1927, Su Buqing graduated and then continued to pursue his doctorate.
In 1928, he married the teacher's daughter, Yonako Matsumoto.
(Su Buqing and his Japanese wife Yonako Matsumoto)
In the year of the new marriage, Su Buqing discovered a four-time (third-order) algebraic cone in the study of general surfaces. After the paper was published, it had a great response in the Japanese and international mathematical circles, and was called "Su Cone Surface". Su Buqing's fame soared, and since then, in the aspect of affine differential geometry, he has published 41 papers in mathematical journals such as Japan, the United States, and Italy, and some people call him "a brilliant mathematical star rising above the Eastern country".
In 1931, Dr. Su Buqing graduated. The Matsumoto family wanted him to stay, and the Northeast Imperial University also issued him a letter of appointment, and Su Buqing agreed with his brother Chen Jiangong (a mathematician of function theory) to return to China after completing his studies. At a time when Su Buqing was in a dilemma, Matsumoto Yonako resolutely returned to China with him and entered the department of mathematics at Zhejiang University, one of the top universities in China. Two years later, he became head of the department.
In 1937, the All-Out War of Resistance broke out. The husband and wife refused the invitation of the Japanese and resolutely moved west with the school to Guizhou. Because Matsumoto Wasako was Japanese, she was troubled on the way, and it was later impossible to pass through thanks to the headmaster Zhu Kezhen who obtained a special pass from the war zone chief.
(Group photo of Su Buqing's family)
In November 1942, Joseph Needham, a professor at Cambridge University, visited the Department of Mathematics of Zhejiang University and praised Su Buqinglian: "You are here in the East Cambridge!" ”
In the difficult years, whether in teaching or research, Su Buqing did not slacken off at all. In particular, in the field of projective differential geometry, the achievements are outstanding. In 1945, he published "Introduction to Projective Curves" and "Introduction to Projective Surfaces". One of these achievements is internationally named "Su Chain".
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the school moved back to Hangzhou. In 1948, he was elected as an academician of the 1st (Mathematical Science Group) of the Academia Sinica of the Republic of China. After liberation, Su Buqing chose to stay on the mainland.
In 1952, the national colleges and universities were adjusted, and Su Buqing was transferred to Fudan University as the provost. In 1953, Yonako Matsumoto became a Chinese citizen and changed her name to Su Matsumoto, making her one of the first Japanese to become a Chinese citizen. The two have a total of 8 children.
(Group photo of Su Buqing's family)
In July 1955, he was elected as a member (academician) of the Faculty of Mathematical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 1956, he was awarded his research achievements in the "Differential Geometry of K-Exhibition Space" and won the First National Natural Science Award issued by New China.
After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, Su Buqing's family suffered a lot of impact. In 1968, at the Twelfth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong instructed to protect a group of professors, and Su Buqing was listed among them and protected.
In 1978, Su Buqing served as the president of Fudan University and served as a deputy to the Fifth National People's Congress, doing a lot of work in teaching and scientific research. On December 6, 1979, he and several university presidents jointly published an article in the People's Daily entitled "Give Colleges and Universities a Little Autonomy", and the reform of China's higher education system was gradually launched throughout the country.
Su Buqing served as a deputy to the National People's Congress for three consecutive years, and in 1992 he became vice chairman of the Eighth National Political Consultative Conference.
(In 1992, Deng Xiaoping met with the famous mathematician Su Buqing)
Su Buqing devoted his life to the cause of mathematics, and successively made outstanding contributions in affine differential geometry, projective differential geometry, general spatial differential geometry and projective conjugate network theory, and founded the internationally recognized Chinese school of differential geometry. In his 70s, he also created and began a new research direction in computational geometry.
He has trained a batch of mathematical talents, and there are 25 directors and deputy department directors in famous domestic universities, including three academicians of the Academy of Sciences trained after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Li Daqian, Gu Chaohao, Hu Hesheng.
For this reason, he is known as the "king of mathematics".
(Su Buqing with student Gu Chaohao)
On March 17, 2003, Su Buqing died in Shanghai at the age of 101. His Japanese wife, Su Matsumoto, who had followed him all his life, had died 18 years earlier, in 1985.
(The 118th work of the Vientiane History and Biography Writing Camp, and the 18th work of the camper "Looking Back")