Seventeen years have passed since Professor Shiing-Shen Chern, an internationally renowned master of mathematics, left us in 2004. We miss him.
Professor Shiing-Shen Chern was an prestigious differential geometer of the 20th century and is recognized as "the father of global differential geometry". For his lifelong dream of "making China a leading math nation", Professor Chern had devoted all his life to mathematics.
This year marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of Professor Shiing-Shen Chern. In order to remember Professor Chern's great contribution to Chinese mathematics, carry forward his lofty love for the country and science, stimulate young people's interest in mathematics learning, and to encourage mathematicians to continue to scale new heights in their research, Chern Institute of Mathematics (CIM) decided to commemorate this year as the "year of Shiing-Shen Chern" and organized the "Commemorative Activities for the 110th Anniversary of the Birth of Professor Shiing-Shen Chern".
The commemorative activities mainly include a series of academic lectures and conferences, and the Professor Shiing-Shen Chern's Handwriting Exhibition, the math play Geometry Life II - the Great Master Shiing-Shen Chern, the Chern Institute of Mathematics Photo Exhibition, the Shiing-Shen Chern Photo Exhibition, the commemorative column "A Leading Math Nation of the 21st Century - In Commemoration of the 110th Anniversary of the Birth of Professor Shiing-Shen Chern", and the conference named "To promote the spirit of the great master and support the development of mathematics discipline—the Conference of Commemorating the 110th Anniversary of the Birth of Professor Shiing-Shen Chern".
Ⅰ.
Since March 2021, Chern Institute of Mathematics has invited a number of academicians and experts to deliver lectures and share their academic achievements, life experience, as well as their devotion to scientific research with teachers and students of Nankai University.
On March 30, Mo-Lin Ge, member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and professor at Chern Institute of Mathematics, Nankai University, delivered a Zhide Lecture titled "Our Responsibility: Basic Research and Technological Progress". On April 11, Xiangyu Zhou, member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and professor at the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science of Chinese Academy of Sciences, delivered a Chern Lecture titled "Start with the Introduction of Complex Number". On May 19, Professor Jiangong You from Chern Institute of Mathematics, Nankai University delivered a Zhide Lecture titled "Several Mathematical Problems in the Context of Quantum Physics". On June 17, Professor Zizhou Tang from Chern Institute of Mathematics, Nankai University delivered a Zhide Lecture titled "Isoparametric polynomials and sum of squares". On August 7, Sir Roger Penrose, professor at the University of Oxford and 2020 Nobel Laureate in Physics, delivered an on-line Special Lecture for the 110th Anniversary of the Birth of Shiing-Shen Chern titled "Space-Time Singularities and Cyclic Geometry". On September 15, Academician Mo-Lin Ge delivered a Special Llecture titled "Professor Chen Ning Yang's Academic Achievements". On October 17, Zhiming Ma, member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Dean of the School of Statistics and Data Science of Nankai University, delivered a Special Lecture titled "Information communication and mathematics"; Gang Tian, member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, President of Chinese Mathematical Society and Chair Professor of Peking University, delivered a Special Lecture titled "Geometrical stability"; Song Jiang, member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Director of Department of Mathematical and Physical Sciences of National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and research fellow at the Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, delivered a Special Lecture titled "Asymptotic preserving schemes for radiative transfer systems". On December 3, Weiping Zhang, member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and professor at Chern Institute of Mathematics, Nankai University, delivered a Special Lecture titled "Professor Shiing-Shen Chern's Academic Achievements".
CIM also organized seven academic conferences including the Workshop on Dynamics and Nonlinear Analysis, the Nankai Forum for Young Scholars on Lie Theory, the Differential Geometry Youth Forum in Nankai 2021, the Nankai Symposium on Physics, Geometry and Number Theory, the 2021 Tianjin Joint Annual Academic Conference of Mathematics and Statistics, the Workshop on Rota-Baxter Algebras and Related Topics, and the Workshop on Higher Category Theory in Geometry and physics. These conferences brought together numerous experts and young scholars, offering great platforms for scientific cooperation and exchanges on the most recent research results, and also were held in commemoration of the 110th anniversary of the birth of Professor Shiing-Shen Chern.
Ⅱ.
On June 8, Professor Shiing-Shen Chern's Handwriting Exhibition was unveiled at CIM, Nankai University. The exhibition was divided into three themes, displaying Professor Chern's inscriptions for universities and research institutes and letters to relatives and friends, essays, etc., among which many were exhibited for the first time.
In 1985, Professor Chern inscribed the name for Nankai Institute of Mathematics (currently Chern Institute of Mathematics)
Professor Chern inscribed the guideline for Nankai Institute of Mathematics (currently Chern Institute of Mathematics)
Professor Shiing-Shen Chern was an outstanding representative of people of Nankai University who always show a high spirit of dedication and love to the country. He founded the Nankai Institute of Mathematics in 1985, and was the first foreign director of a Chinese research institute since the reform and opening-up. Under his auspices and advocacy, the Institute has been adhering to the guideline "based at Nankai, serving the country, and embracing the world" by inviting world-class mathematicians to give lectures and holding a series of international academic conferences. It has cultivated a group of outstanding mathematical talents, winning a high reputation for Nankai Mathematics in the country and in the whole world, making Nankai a banner of Chinese mathematics.
The Gauss–Bonnet formula
In July 2002, befroe the opening of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Professor Chern inscribed for the Chinese Teenagers Mathematics Forum
From Professor Chern's inscriptions and essays, we can see his hope for the prosperity of his motherland and hometown, his expectation of seeing China becoming a major math nation in the 21th century, his encouragement to young scholars, his concern for families and friends, and his strong love towards the country, science and the Chinese traditional culture.
From October to December, the Shiing-Shen Chern Photo Exhibition was on display at the Shiing-Shen Building of Nankai University. The exhibition was divided into eight parts chronologically, showing Professor Chern's extraordinary achievements, devotion to the country and his charming personality through vivid images.
Ⅲ.
Starting from April 2021, in partnership with Tianjin Daily, CIM launched the special column "A Leading Math Nation of the 21st Century - In Commemoration of the 110th Anniversary of the Birth of Professor Shiing-Shen Chern" with a collection of commemorative articles. So far a total of eleven articles written by many renowned experts and scholars, including Mo-Lin Ge, Zizhou Tang, Yiming Long, Jianyi Shi, Zixin Hou, Xiaohua Zhu, Jiping Zhang, Jiazu Zhou, Ngaiming Mok, Xingwei Zhou and Daoji Meng, have been published in Tianjin Daily, which are all full of the authors' reminiscences with touching stories of their interactions with Professor Chern and his families.
Ⅳ.
On September 19-20, the math play Geometry Life II - the Great Master Shiing-Shen Chern was brought to Nankai University by its creator - the math drama troupe of East China Normal University (ECNU).
Professor Shiing-Shen Chern graduated from Nankai University in 1930. After returning back from the United States, he founded the Nankai Institute of Mathematics (currently Chern Institute of Mathematics) and was its first director. "I spent my best years at Nankai." Professor Chern once said. The math play showed to the audience the honorable life experience of Professor Chern, including his school years at Nankai University, how he strove to explore the truth of mathematics, his world-wide reputation, and his continuous effort for making China a leading math nation.
Ⅴ.
The Shiing-Shen Chern Memorial Tombstone stands in front of the Shiing-Shen Building, on a grassy slope shaded by tall trees. The Tombstone looks like a blackboard, engraved with Prof. Chern's handwriting - the Gauss-Bonnet-Chern formula as the epitaph, which ushered in a new era of mathematics.
On October 28, which was the 110th anniversary of the birth of Professor Shiing-Shen Chern, many teachers and students of Nankai University came to the Memorial Tombstone. They laid flowers and bowed in homage in remembrance of this internationally renowned master who had devoted his whole life to mathematics.
On the same day, the conference named "To promote the spirit of the great master and support the development of mathematics discipline—the Conference of Commemorating the 110th Anniversary of the Birth of Professor Shiing-Shen Chern" was also held at CIM. Teachers and students of Nankai University gathered at the conference for reminiscing about the stories of Professor Chern's devotion to the country, his attitude towards scientific research and his concern for mathematics education, and commemorating the epoch-making achievements Professor Chern had made to the development of mathematics.
As a tradition, Ningyuan — the former residence of Shiing-Shen Chern was opened to the public on the day. Located in the east of Nankai University, the two-story building with outer walls painted in light green and geometric roofs arranged in different planes is a combination of both simplicity, elegance and creativity. Many teachers and students came to visit and follow in the footsteps of the great master.
In August 1988, at the Conference on Prospect of Chinese Mathematics in the 21st Century held at the Nankai Institute of Mathematics, Professor Chern put forward the aim of making China a major math nation in the 21st century. After it had been achieved, he proposed a new vision that China would further develop into a leading math nation in the future.
"Now the task of making China a leading math nation has been past to our generation. The best way of commemorating Professor Chern is to take on his unfinished work and carry forward his spirit." said the Dean of School of Mathematical Sciences Professor Longyun Ding.
Director of CIM Professor Chengming Bai introduced, "We are organizing these commemorative activities in hope of letting more people, especially the young, know more about Professor Shiing-Shen Chern, also the fun and the meaning of learning mathematics, and to stimulate people to pay more attention and effort on basic research, and to contribute more to making China a leading math nation."
About Shiing-Shen Chern
Shiing-Shen Chern was born in Xiushui County, Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, China. He received his Bachelor Degree from Nankai University in 1930.
Chern is one of the greatest geometers in the 20th century and is known as the "father of global differential geometry." He gave the intrinsic proof of the higher dimensional Gauss-Bonnet formula, which is commonly called Gauss-Bonnet-Chern formula; he proposed Chern class which became a classic masterpiece; he developed the theory of fiber bundles that has an impact on all fields of mathematics; he established the value distribution theory on higher dimensional complex manifolds, including the Bott-Chern theorem, which has an influence even on algebraic number theory; he laid the foundation for the generalized integral geometry and obtained the basic kinematic formula; Chern classes and Chern-Simons differential formulas that he introduced have penetrated into other fields besides mathematics and become an important tool in theoretical physics.
The outstanding contributions Professor Chern had made to global differential geometry has greatly influenced the development of mathematics. He is recognized as another milestone after Euclid, Gauss, Riemann and Cartan in the history of mathematics. He founded the Institute of Mathematics of "Academia Sinica", the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) and the Nankai Institute of Mathematics, and cultivated a large number of world-renowned mathematicians.
On December 3, 2004, at 7:14 p.m., Professor Shiing-Shen Chern passed away at age 93 in Tianjin. In 2018, he was selected as one of the "most influential foreign experts of the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening up".
(Reported by Jingqiu Hao, translated by Lingyu Meng)
To read the full report in Chinese, please visit:
http://news.nankai.edu.cn/ywsd/system/2021/12/03/030049274.shtml
