On April 20, Tsinghua University announced that Qiu Chengtong, the first Chinese winner of the Fields Medal, known as the “Emperor of Mathematics” by The New York Times, had retired from Harvard University and was hired as a chair professor at Tsinghua University. This means Qiu Chengtong will teach full-time at Tsinghua University. In April 2019, Tsinghua University established the seat of “Chair Professor” to recognize professors and experts who have made breakthrough achievements in this research field and have international influence.
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At the beginning of April, Qiu Chengtong celebrated his 73rd birthday in Tsinghua Garden and expressed his wish: “The person we want to compete with is the greatest scientist in the world, and we will come out on our own way, and I will share with you in Tsinghua in the future. advance and retreat.”
Choose “good seedlings” and search for “good gardeners”
Instructor Chen Xingshen once gave a book to Qiu Chengtong, and the title page said, “The rest of my life is sixty, and there are people who will pass on it. I would like to encourage them together.”
In the generation of my mentor, China realized its desire to become a world math power. And Qiu Chengtong’s biggest wish is to make China a powerful country in mathematics, and hope that China will be on an equal footing with the world powers in mathematics within 10 years. Only in this way can we lay an important and solid foundation for the development of basic science in China.”
In Qiu Chengtong’s view, China already has the possibility of building a powerful country in mathematics, and he hopes to “push it again”.
In 2021, Tsinghua University launched the “Qiu Chengtong Mathematical Science Leading Talent Training Program” for students with mathematical talent from the third year of junior high to the third year of senior high school.
Qiu Chengtong said, “Children do not have some preconceived and rigid concepts, and they will be more courageous to explore real problems. Compared with other subjects, mathematics is a ‘premature’ subject, and ‘no scruples’ is also a very important student. Quality.”
Qiu Chengtong hopes that through this plan, within 10 years, a group of world-class scholars who do not need to go abroad to learn scriptures and grow up entirely in China will be cultivated.
He designed an eight-year “generalist” training program for these carefully selected “good seedlings”, searched for “good gardeners” and invited top scholars to give lectures. Among them are the winners of the Fields Medal and the Wolf Medal, as well as master scholars such as the academicians of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States and the European Academy of Sciences.
So far, Qiu Chengtong has introduced 2008 Fields Medal winner Caucher Birkar, US National Academy of Sciences member Donald Rubin, Dutch Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences member Eduard Looijenga, American Mathematical Society member Zheng Shaoyuan, top mathematical physicist Nicolai Reshetikhin, etc. Top international scholars work full-time in China.
Many of Yau Chengtong’s Chinese students are active on the academic stage at home and abroad. Among them are academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences such as Li Jun, as well as famous mathematicians such as Cao Huaidong, Liu Kefeng and Li Si. His first student, Richard Schoen, won the Wolf Prize and was one of his important collaborators.
become a great mathematician
Qiu Chengtong once said, “I have only two wishes in my life, one is to become a great mathematician, and the other is to improve the mathematics of the motherland and make it lead the world in mathematics.”
Obviously, he has fulfilled a wish.
“Mr. Qiu Chengtong is a mathematical genius and an internationally influential mathematician,” said Yang Le, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a researcher at the Institute of Mathematics and Systems Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
There are a lot of testimonials about him being a “genius”. At the age of 20, Qiu Chengtong completed all the required courses in the Mathematics Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong ahead of schedule, and was admitted as a graduate student by the University of California, Berkeley, under the tutelage of mathematics master Professor Chen Xingshen. Qiu Chengtong obtained his doctorate at the age of 22 and was hired as a professor at Stanford University at the age of 25.
In 1976, 27-year-old Yau Chengtong proved the Calabi conjecture, which had plagued the mathematics community for 22 years, and promoted the arrival of a new era of differential geometry. In 1979, he worked with student Richard Schoen to solve the positive mass conjecture in Einstein’s general theory of relativity. At the age of 33, Qiu Chengtong won the Fields Medal, the highest award in mathematics, and was the first Chinese to receive this honor.
Because he solved a series of recognized problems in mathematics and physics, and created a very important branch of mathematics “geometric analysis”, Yau Chengtong won the MacArthur Award, Crafford Award, Wolf Award, Marcel Gross The world‘s top scientific awards such as the Man Award.
More importantly, the Calabi-Yau theorem not only influenced the development of differential geometry for decades, but also provided the theoretical basis for superstring theory in physics. There are at least 5 mathematicians who have made outstanding achievements in the direction pioneered by Yau Chengtong, and they have all won the Fields Medal, the highest award in mathematics.
In Yang Le’s view, although Qiu Chengtong is a mathematical genius, his development to today’s level is closely related to his long-term unremitting diligence and hard work.
“Effort has a price, and it will also bring good rewards.” In Qiu Chengtong’s own words, “It is very painful until the knowledge is completed, and the whole proof process is very slow. After verification and verification, there are problems nine times out of ten. Yes, when you succeed, you also worry about making mistakes.”
Li Jun, a student of Qiu Chengtong and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, once met him in Qiu Chengtong’s dormitory. “There are a lot of articles and his diligence, it is really difficult for us as students to keep up.”
Determined to promote the development of mathematics in China
In 1979, at the invitation of Hua Luogeng, then vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qiu Chengtong returned to China for the first time for an academic visit. Every year since then, Chengtong Yau will visit domestic universities and scientific research institutions for several months, focusing on the development of mathematics in China.
“For China to become a math powerhouse, talent training is very important.” Qiu Chengtong emphasized many times.
Over the past 40 years, he has established mathematics research centers in 7 universities including Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, and Southeast University, and prepared to establish the Beijing Yanqi Lake Institute of Applied Mathematics to cultivate young talents.
In 1996, Qiu Chengtong promoted the establishment of the Morningside Mathematics Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which followed the model of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and formed a top algebraic arithmetic geometry research team.
In 1998, he initiated and organized the International Conference of Chinese Mathematicians to select the “Morning Renaissance Mathematics Award” known as the Chinese Fields Medal, and invited internationally renowned mathematicians to serve as judges to discover new stars in mathematics.
In addition, in order to stimulate the enthusiasm of young scholars for mathematics, he organized the “ICCM Graduation Thesis Award” (formerly the New World Mathematics Award) for outstanding students; for college students, the content of the “Yu Chengtong College Students Mathematics Competition”, which is closer to the graduate mathematics qualification examination of famous American universities, is organized. ; “Yu Chengtong Middle School Mathematics Competition”, which cultivates middle school students’ interest in mathematics and guides them to embark on the road of research.
In doing this, he hopes that young people in China will “do influential work” and “do knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Even the Nobel Prize or the Fields Medal should not be the ultimate goal of scholars.”
Qiu Chengtong travels between Beijing and the United States all the year round. In the past, because there was no direct flight, it took more than 20 hours to fly. He often got off the plane at 11:00 the night before to the hotel, got up early the next day to arrange academic activities normally, and did not return to rest until late at night.
In the eyes of students and friends, “not only did he not show fatigue, but he was always full of energy.”
Qiu Chengtong’s patriotism dissolves in his blood and thoughts.
Born in Shantou, Guangdong, he moved south to Hong Kong with his family during the war, and was ruled by the colonists. Father always wanted to do something for the motherland, and he was deeply influenced.
When he was 14 years old, his father died suddenly, and when his mother and children were struggling to survive, he received the help of many village neighbors and friends from his father’s generation. He is always grateful.
“Lian Po is old, and I would like to ask Changying to help us fight hard.” Qiu Chengtong said, “The 19th century was the century of mathematics in Europe, and the 20th century was the century of mathematics in the United States. In recent years, Chinese mathematics has made great progress, and the 21st century must be In China’s mathematics century, Beijing will be the center of Chinese mathematics.”
Typesetting | Li Yan