Shiing-shen Chern 陳省身

he gave you a feeling of weight he was there and you had to notice him I think that's what I'm what I remember him by and I think something else that I don't know if other people notice his head was somewhat bigger than normal I think a guy who was pretty tall for his shining is with a big head reasonably tall but large head I think the u.s. is a very normal person with a gift he exuded a strange kind of majesty of them sort of you knew you were in the scent of things like if you knew him I think he was a very happy man he said he was a Mandarin so he wasn't trained to do anything he said it was really a good thing that he found mathematics otherwise he he doesn't know what he would have done when to miss prentace gradually and automatically no decision professor Chern was difference of geometry he brought up the whole field for about 20-30 years he'd studied with Ella Curtin who was arguably the leading geometry of certainly the first half of the 20th century Sharon was the translator for many of us to this obscure way of veiling Carta of doing things Sherman was one of those people who really did see down to the foundations and really understood what was important I was born in a small town and that was inserted near about the situation so I left as a small baby to the countryside professor Chen was born in 1911 that was the year that modern China was born we overthrew the mid shoot honesty in 1911 his family's I moved in to change into this city and when he was quite young and then he joined the full-on middle school after I finished the middle school he got into the Nong Khai University and the God is the passion degree here and then he went to graduate school at Xinhua and then lashka came to Ching hua to give a talk then he recognized that there was all of this world of mathematics outside of China which he wanted to explore when he got a fellowship to study outside of China in 1934 he went to Hamburg where Blaschka was and studied web geometry and geometry modulation with Pascal was were closed incidentally when I first saw him he started by giving me a bunch of his latest reference mostly our web geometry I study them I discovered gap in one of his approves so he was very clear a new student from China was able to detect something essential and wash consider that's very interesting like if you can correct that mistake then that's your thesis and he wrote a beautiful dissertation it has these amazing diagrams they're very geometric and they show this wonderful early insight that turn had that married these ability to do very complicated calculations with just being able to see what was true after brush key saying she went several miles to Polly told Ellicott don't turn guided me into reading papers that carton had written they were very difficult to understand and turn explained it in very simple terms it was very elegant notation can play a very important role and in differential geometry there were notation Wars for many years and then in the 1920s keraton invented a new notation called moving frames and when Cherne studied with Garten he became an expert then in 1937 it was ready to come back to China that was the first year of the sino-japanese war for safety they had moved the Beijing University to convene in southwest China so Chern went to convene to help get the university going it was there that he met Jeanine and married her my mother became pregnant so she went back to Shanghai and had my brother in Shanghai 1940 and then kun Ming was in danger so the American army got him out over the Burma Road and he made his way to the United States here to the Institute the main person of contact at the Institute at that time was Herman vowel Herman vowel had tried to understand cotton at one point and he gave up but Chern could explain it Chern did two very important pieces of work during his period at the Institute for Advanced Study the first one was his proof of the Gausman a theorem which relates the bending or curvature of a surface to its global topological properties how many holes it has it and if you think of a surface as being like a doughnut with many holes that led to turn classes the fundamental characteristic classes in geometry anthropology and algebraic geometry it's impossible to conceive of differential geometry without without churn classes so I would think that that would be regarded as his most important contribution it was such an important idea it was so original and foundational that people studied it so much that it became part of the way we think from Princeton I went back in 1946 and that was immediate after the end of the of the war he was entrusted with the creation of the mathematics Institute in academia sinica China at that point did not have enough good mathematicians he was the Institute founder and director he was its only professor and he taught them to party from morning till dusk but then the Communist revolution took over and and he left the country churn came to the United States first to the Institute for Advanced Study where he had been during the war 1949 he began teaching in University of Chicago Chicago was very intense Chicago is the center of science in the world when he was there his notes from that course became the basis of present-day differential geometry throughout the world my life was life is good but Chicago is very cold and very windy in the winter we came to California I guess in March of 59 he came to Berkeley as a new star in the very short period of time he had a great department and differential challenger he was a teacher he didn't try to explain everything so that there was nothing for you to do but he taught you to see the importance and beauty of things he always seemed to have infinite patience and he always seemed to have infinite time for me he listened very well he made few guiding remarks and lots of encouragement not many woman in mathematics so I fired first mattang I feel very comfortable he didn't make me if he didn't treat me differently as if I'm a woman he sort of tried to give me confidence say it's okay just work German was in a sense Berkeley's most distinguished professor whenever we had to go to the Chancellor's to make some special requests we always took turned along and it always worked somehow he had a presence a gravitas there was something about him that people just listen to him and usually did things his way we had put in for a new methods food out there and Cal and I convinced churn and he should be the director I told turn that he didn't have to do anything all he had to do is be there I seen his all indirect to somehow see I I never want to do anything yeah his persona the way he looked the things the way he dealt with the world was very much tied to his basic Chinese culture Andre V whose collaboration with churn had gone way back decided to use this Tang Dynasty sculpture of a horse as the frontispiece for his book churn did a calligraphy to accompany but this says the old horse knows the way his interaction with China resumed after the Cultural Revolution was over churn went to China talked to people there and also convinced the Chinese government that it was in their interest to finance the studies of Chinese mathematicians abroad at that time we didn't have many establish a mathematician to come to carry lectures so if there was a lecture by famous mathematician of course we all went even though we didn't understand what he was talking about professor chain said have a bridge between mathematicians of China and America and Europe professor child has the vision to really set up a Institute inside in the mind of China so that more young people can get educated in to achieve aneema well Toby topically Chu Chu chairman teach in Nigeria Nagaraju Chilean tonight relative polarity and easily Taha happy one Josue you're paying us all to the soy to solution in the process of establishment of the nan Chi Institute of mathematics now is called a 10 issue of mathematics professor chain and professor who get much help from the high rented officers in Chinese government including mr. dong mr. Jung and also some other ministers after his retirement he was suddenly between China and Berkeley for about 20 years and then in 1999 he decided to move back to China permanently he was the one that had the idea of having the International Congress in Beijing in 2002 enjoying two men committed to having the opening ceremony in the Great Hall of the People turn had the stature to mobilize the Chinese government to do this term was certainly well recognized in his career he was a member of the National Academy he got the National Medal of Science here obviously a member of the Chinese National Academy a member of several foreign academies around the world and my father received the Shah prize in September of 2004 and it was the first time the official prizes were awarded the Shah price is a million dollars us of that million it was all it was all donated Chern said to me once if you do one thing that's really good that's all you can really expect in a lifetime we marvel that churns ability to continue to produce interesting and deep mathematics throughout his career and when I asked him about this he replied that the trick is to have enough good ideas when you're young to last a lifetime a few days before his days change fees about proving some important conjecture more than 15 years old we here in this custom idea of proving this year I saw the work up to my taste according to chance and wife I usually call him ordinary great men because usually people like to say that extraordinary unusual people I consider him it's very usual person but quick he encouraged you to do things which may not be the norm but he was looking out into the distant future his sight was further than most other people there's a quotation from Lao Tzu an ancient Chinese philosopher that could have been written about churn the master does his job and then stops he understands that the universe is forever out of control and that trying to dominate events goes against the current of Dao because he believes in himself he doesn't try to convince others because he is content with himself he doesn't need others approval because he accepts himself the whole world accepts him

Channel: Po Choi

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Id: fm704sCfdA4

Length: 16min 11sec (971 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 28 2017