On the afternoon of June 17, 2021, Zizhou Tang, renowned mathematician and professor at the Chern Institute of Mathematics, delivered a Zhide Lecture titled "Isoparametric polynomials and sum of squares" at CIM, which is also one of the important academic events held for the 110th anniversary of the birth of Shiing-Shen Chern.

Prof. Zizhou Tang started the lecture by reviewing the background from the algebraic aspect—Hilbert's 17th problem which asks whether every nonnegative polynomial can be written as a sum of squares of polynomials or, at least, a sum of rational functions. The problem had been solved in the work through the late 19th century and early 20th century by Hilbert, Minkowski and Artin with abstract algebraic solutions, while it remained an open question to find explicit examples. Then, starting with the isoparametric hypersurfaces in Riemannian geometry, Prof. Tang briefly introduced a series of classic results about isoparametric hypersurfaces, including the work by E. Cartan who was supervisor of Prof. Shiing-Shen Chern; and especially the results by mathematicians from all around the world on the classification of isoparametric hypersurfaces in differential geometry and classification of isoparametric polynomials in algebra as the two are in close connection. This led to the main part of the lecture—the introduction of Prof. Tang's own work, which finds a class of nonnegative isoperimetric polynomials that can be written as a sum of squares of polynomials or rational functions in a nice form. At the end, Prof. Tang gave detailed answers to the questions from the audience.

In 2016, Dr. Haibing Zhou and Ms. Ying Hou donated 100 million RMB to their alma mater Nankai University, a part of which was used to establish Zhide Foundation to support the development of several schools and colleges in Nankai University. Lectures delivered by the recipients of the "Zhide Outstanding Contribution Award", "Zhide Outstanding Achievement Award" and "Zhide Excellent Achievement Award", which are all set and supported by Zhide Foundation, are named as Zhide Lecture. Prof. Zizhou Tang was invited to deliver the lecture as recipient of "Zhide Outstanding Achievement Award".