chinese-american mathematician zhang yitang met the son of his idol chen jingrun for the first time at nankai university
2024-09-22
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zhang yitang was a guest speaker at the academic conference on the 105th anniversary of nankai university. all the pictures in this article are from nankai university’s wechat official account
according to the official wechat account of nankai university, this year marks the 105th anniversary of the founding of nankai university and the 120th anniversary of the founding of the nankai schools. on september 18, zhang yitang, a famous chinese mathematician, professor at the university of california, santa barbara, and honorary director of the min sihe center for number theory research at peking university, gave a lecture entitled "my love for mathematics" at the 105th anniversary academic conference of nankai university and the chern institute of mathematics' highest-level lecture, the "chen shiing-shen lecture".
nankai university president chen yulu met with zhang yitang in the xingshen building.
before the lecture, nankai university president chen yulu met with zhang yitang in the shiing-shen building. the two sides exchanged views on the development of nankai's mathematics discipline and how to use nankai university's scientific and educational resources to promote tianjin's economic development. nankai university vice president bai chengming, chinese academy of sciences academician and chern institute of mathematics professor zhang weiping, and the heads of the chern institute of mathematics and the school of mathematical sciences and faculty representatives attended the meeting.
the news mentioned that chen youwei, the son of chen jingrun, also attended the meeting. the latter came from beijing to visit professor zhang yitang. this was also the first meeting between professor zhang yitang and mr. chen youwei.
the venue was packed with people. an hour before the lecture began, the lecture hall in the shengshen building was already crowded with people, and the aisles were full of students who wanted to listen to the lecture. three classrooms were even temporarily opened for live broadcast. zhang yitang took his love for mathematics as the theme and told the teachers and students of nankai university about his years of companionship with mathematics.
nankai university introduced that zhang yitang is one of the "legendary scholars" in the contemporary mathematics community, and has become one of the top mathematicians for his milestone contribution to the famous twin prime conjecture. he was a special speaker at the 2014 international congress of mathematicians and has won many awards, including the rolf schock award-mathematics award, the cole number theory award, the macarthur genius award, the qiushi outstanding scientist award, and the asian american scientist lifetime achievement award.
zhang yitang has long focused on big problems. in 2013, he made a stunning breakthrough by proving the weak form of the twin prime conjecture: there are countless pairs of prime numbers whose difference is less than or equal to 70 million. this discovery quickly attracted widespread attention in the academic community and inspired a subsequent wave of research. many mathematicians, including fields medal winner terence tao, have devoted themselves to this field and are committed to optimizing related constants. in this process, a new fields medal winner, maynard, was born. since then, zhang yitang has not stopped, but has turned his attention to another more important mathematical problem - the landau-siegel zero problem, which is closely related to the riemann hypothesis, and continued to explore freely in the field of mathematics.
earlier, the official wechat public account of the guangzhou panyu district private education association published an article introducing that on the afternoon of september 8, 2024, more than 100 teachers, students and parents from the association’s vice-chairman unit, guangzhou south university panyu affiliated middle school, met professor zhang yitang at yuanzhi business school and encountered this ultimate romance of mathematics.
professor zhang yitang shared how he started out from his curiosity about science and wrote a chapter of his life in the world of mathematics. in his teenage years, his strong interest in popular science books such as "100,000 whys" planted the seeds of curiosity for his future mathematical exploration. chen jingrun's research on the goldbach conjecture inspired his dream of mathematics and became his inexhaustible motivation for pursuing academic research. while studying mathematics at peking university, his mentor professor pan chengbiao inspired him to be deeply fascinated by the mysteries of number theory.
the reporter of the paper also noticed that zhang yitang has repeatedly supported the significance of chen jingrun's research in lectures and live broadcasts in recent years. he once wrote in his personal zhihu account: "chen jingrun is a person i admire very much in my life. it should be said that although chen jingrun is well-known to the public, the impression of the chinese public on chen jingrun is mainly his personality, and even some quirks, and they do not pay enough attention to the content of his research. i pay attention to chen jingrun because of his important contributions to mathematics. the international mathematics community highly respects chen jingrun's work. two years ago, some international number theory masters, such as goldfeld of columbia university, iwaniec of rutgers university, and wiles of oxford university, told me one thing: before chen jingrun died in 1996, he was already critically ill in the hospital. at that time, these mathematics masters held an academic conference in beijing and made a special trip to the hospital to see chen jingrun. chen jingrun's contribution cannot be denied, and his status in mathematics is very high."
the paper reporter yue huairang
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