This year marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of Professor Shiing-Shen Chern, a great master of mathematics. As one of the commemorative activities, the math play Geometry Life II - the Great Master Shiing-Shen Chern, which is created and performed by the math drama troupe of East China Normal University (ECNU), was brought on stage at Nankai University.

The first performance was set on September 19. In spite of the rain, a lot of people, including many young students, came to watch out of strong interest in mathematics. Qingshan Yang, Secretary of the CPC Nankai University Committee, Mo-Lin Ge, member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and professor at Chern Institute of Mathematics, and Zixin Hou, former president of Nankai University were present at the performance.

Professor Shiing-Shen Chern was one of the greatest geometers of the twentieth century and is known as "the father of global differential geometry". He received his bachelor degree from Nankai University in 1930, years later he went to teach in USA. After returning back to China, he founded the Nankai Institute of Mathematics (currently the 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 returning back and continuous effort for making China a leading math nation.

Pan Liu, the scriptwriter and adviser of the play, said that Geometry Life II - the Great Master Shiing-Shen Chern was created for paying homage to Professor Chern and speading the culture of mathematics by "planting seeds of mathematical culture to next generations", in hope of that we can soon witness China becoming a leading math nation.

Geometry Life II - the Great Master Shiing-Shen Chern was first performed in 2018, and has been staged in Beijing, Shanghai and Jiangsu. The second performance taking place at Nankai University was on the night of September 20.

(Reported and photographed by Jici Nie, translated by Lingyu Meng)