Shiing-shen Chern 陳省身

Shiing-shen Chern 陳省身 Po Choi 83 subscribers Subscribe 346 Share Download Clip Save 17K views 6 years ago Full film can be found in http://takingthelongviewfilm.com/ Transcript 0:01 he gave you a feeling of weight he was 0:07 there and you had to notice him I think 0:10 that's what I'm what I remember him by 0:14 and I think something else that I don't 0:16 know if other people notice his head was 0:20 somewhat bigger than normal I think a 0:22 guy who was pretty tall for his shining 0:24 is with a big head reasonably tall but 0:29 large head 0:33 [Music] 0:47 I think the u.s. is a very normal person 0:49 with a gift he exuded a strange kind of 0:55 majesty of them sort of you knew you 1:00 were in the scent of things like if you 1:02 knew him I think he was a very happy man 1:05 he said he was a Mandarin so he wasn't 1:07 trained to do anything he said it was 1:09 really a good thing that he found 1:10 mathematics otherwise he he doesn't know 1:12 what he would have done when to miss 1:14 prentace gradually and automatically no 1:19 decision professor Chen was difference 1:22 of geometry he brought up the whole 1:25 field for about 20-30 years he'd studied 1:29 with Ella Curtin who was arguably the 1:34 leading geometry of certainly the first 1:37 half of the 20th century Sharon was the 1:41 translator for many of us to this 1:45 obscure way of veiling Carta of doing 1:49 things 1:49 Sherman was one of those people who 1:51 really did see down to the foundations 1:53 and really understood what was important 1:55 I was born in a small town and that was 2:01 inserted near about the situation so I 2:04 left as a small baby to the countryside 2:09 professor Chen was born in 1911 that was 2:12 the year that modern China was born we 2:14 overthrew the mid shoot honesty in 1911 2:17 his family's I moved in to change into 2:19 this city and when he was quite young 2:21 and then he joined the full-on middle 2:25 school after I finished the middle 2:28 school he got into the Nong Khai 2:30 University and the God is the passion 2:32 degree here and then he went to graduate 2:35 school at Xinhua and then lashka came to 2:38 Ching hua to give a talk 2:40 then he recognized that there was all of 2:42 this world of mathematics outside of 2:44 China which he wanted to explore when he 2:47 got a fellowship to study outside of 2:50 China in 1934 he went to Hamburg where 2:55 Blaschka was and studied web geometry 2:58 and 2:59 geometry modulation with Pascal was were 3:02 closed incidentally when I first saw him 3:06 he started by giving me a bunch of his 3:10 latest reference mostly our web geometry 3:14 I study them I discovered gap in one of 3:18 his approves so he was very clear 3:21 a new student from China was able to 3:24 detect something essential and wash 3:26 consider that's very interesting like if 3:29 you can correct that mistake then that's 3:31 your thesis and he wrote a beautiful 3:34 dissertation it has these amazing 3:36 diagrams they're very geometric and they 3:39 show this wonderful early insight that 3:42 turn had that married these ability to 3:44 do very complicated calculations with 3:47 just being able to see what was true 3:50 after brush key saying she went several 3:54 miles to Polly told Ellicott don't turn 4:00 guided me into reading papers that 4:03 carton had written 4:04 they were very difficult to understand 4:06 and turn explained it in very simple 4:09 terms it was very elegant notation can 4:13 play a very important role and in 4:16 differential geometry there were 4:19 notation Wars for many years and then in 4:23 the 1920s keraton invented a new 4:26 notation called moving frames and when 4:30 Cherne studied with Garten he became an 4:33 expert 4:35 [Music] 4:38 then in 1937 it was ready to come back 4:41 to China that was the first year of the 4:44 sino-japanese war for safety they had 4:46 moved the Beijing University to convene 4:49 in southwest China so Chern went to 4:52 convene to help get the university going 4:54 it was there that he met Jeanine and 4:58 married her my mother became pregnant so 5:01 she went back to Shanghai and had my 5:04 brother in Shanghai 1940 and then kun 5:07 Ming was in danger so the American army 5:11 got him out over the Burma Road and he 5:13 made his way to the United States here 5:15 to the Institute the main person of 5:18 contact at the Institute at that time 5:20 was Herman vowel Herman vowel had tried 5:23 to understand cotton at one point and he 5:26 gave up but Chern could explain it 5:30 [Music] 5:35 Chern did two very important pieces of 5:38 work during his period at the Institute 5:41 for Advanced Study the first one was his 5:44 proof of the Gausman a theorem which 5:46 relates the bending or curvature of a 5:48 surface to its global topological 5:51 properties how many holes it has it and 5:53 if you think of a surface as being like 5:55 a doughnut with many holes that led to 5:57 turn classes the fundamental 6:00 characteristic classes in geometry 6:03 anthropology and algebraic geometry it's 6:07 impossible to conceive of differential 6:09 geometry without without churn classes 6:12 so I would think that that would be 6:14 regarded as his most important 6:15 contribution it was such an important 6:17 idea it was so original and foundational 6:21 that people studied it so much that it 6:22 became part of the way we think 6:29 from Princeton I went back in 1946 and 6:33 that was immediate after the end of the 6:36 of the war he was entrusted with the 6:39 creation of the mathematics Institute in 6:42 academia sinica China at that point did 6:45 not have enough good mathematicians he 6:48 was the Institute founder and director 6:50 he was its only professor and he taught 6:54 them to party from morning till dusk 6:56 but then the Communist revolution took 7:00 over and and he left the country churn 7:07 came to the United States first to the 7:10 Institute for Advanced Study where he 7:11 had been during the war 1949 he began 7:16 teaching in University of Chicago 7:18 Chicago was very intense Chicago is the 7:22 center of science in the world when he 7:24 was there his notes from that course 7:26 became the basis of present-day 7:29 differential geometry throughout the 7:31 world 7:31 my life was life is good but Chicago is 7:34 very cold and very windy in the winter 7:42 we came to California I guess in March 7:45 of 59 he came to Berkeley as a new star 7:50 in the very short period of time he had 7:53 a great department and differential 7:56 challenger he was a teacher he didn't 7:58 try to explain everything so that there 8:01 was nothing for you to do but he taught 8:04 you to see the importance and beauty of 8:06 things he always seemed to have infinite 8:09 patience and he always seemed to have 8:11 infinite time for me he listened very 8:13 well he made few guiding remarks and 8:17 lots of encouragement not many woman in 8:20 mathematics so I fired first mattang I 8:24 feel very comfortable he didn't make me 8:26 if he didn't treat me differently 8:28 as if I'm a woman he sort of tried to 8:30 give me confidence say it's okay just 8:32 work German was in a sense Berkeley's 8:36 most distinguished professor whenever we 8:38 had to go to the Chancellor's to make 8:40 some special requests we always took 8:42 turned along and it always worked 8:44 somehow he had a presence a gravitas 8:47 there was something about him that 8:49 people just listen to him and usually 8:52 did things his way 8:53 [Music] 8:57 we had put in for a new methods food out 9:01 there and Cal and I convinced churn and 9:06 he should be the director 9:08 I told turn that he didn't have to do 9:12 anything all he had to do is be there I 9:16 seen his all indirect to somehow see I I 9:19 never want to do anything yeah his 9:23 persona the way he looked the things the 9:27 way he dealt with the world was very 9:32 much tied to his basic Chinese culture 9:37 Andre V whose collaboration with churn 9:40 had gone way back decided to use this 9:43 Tang Dynasty sculpture of a horse as the 9:47 frontispiece for his book churn did a 9:51 calligraphy to accompany but this says 9:54 the old horse knows the way 9:57 [Music] 10:03 [Applause] 10:05 [Music] 10:08 his interaction with China resumed after 10:12 the Cultural Revolution was over churn 10:15 went to China talked to people there and 10:18 also convinced the Chinese government 10:21 that it was in their interest to finance 10:23 the studies of Chinese mathematicians 10:26 abroad at that time we didn't have many 10:32 establish a mathematician to come to 10:34 carry lectures so if there was a lecture 10:37 by famous mathematician of course we all 10:40 went even though we didn't understand 10:42 what he was talking about 10:44 professor chain said have a bridge 10:47 between mathematicians of China and 10:51 America and Europe 10:54 professor child has the vision to really 10:58 set up a Institute inside in the mind of 11:01 China so that more young people can get 11:04 educated in to achieve aneema 11:08 well Toby topically Chu Chu chairman 11:13 teach in Nigeria Nagaraju Chilean 11:16 tonight relative polarity and easily 11:25 Taha happy one Josue you're paying us 11:30 all to the soy to solution in the 11:35 process of establishment of the nan Chi 11:38 Institute of mathematics now is called a 11:41 10 issue of mathematics professor chain 11:44 and professor who get much help from the 11:48 high rented officers in Chinese 11:50 government including mr. dong mr. Jung 11:54 and also some other ministers after his 11:59 retirement he was suddenly between China 12:02 and Berkeley for about 20 years and then 12:05 in 1999 he decided to move back to China 12:09 permanently 12:19 he was the one that had the idea of 12:21 having the International Congress in 12:24 Beijing in 2002 enjoying two men 12:27 committed to having the opening ceremony 12:30 in the Great Hall of the People turn had 12:34 the stature to mobilize the Chinese 12:36 government to do this term was certainly 12:41 well recognized in his career he was a 12:44 member of the National Academy he got 12:46 the National Medal of Science here 12:48 obviously a member of the Chinese 12:50 National Academy a member of several 12:52 foreign academies around the world and 12:58 my father received the Shah prize in 13:00 September of 2004 and it was the first 13:04 time the official prizes were awarded 13:06 the Shah price is a million dollars us 13:09 of that million it was all it was all 13:11 donated 13:13 Chern said to me once if you do one 13:18 thing that's really good that's all you 13:24 can really expect in a lifetime we 13:26 marvel that churns ability to continue 13:29 to produce interesting and deep 13:31 mathematics throughout his career and 13:34 when I asked him about this he replied 13:38 that the trick is to have enough good 13:40 ideas when you're young to last a 13:43 lifetime a few days before his days 13:46 change fees about proving some important 13:52 conjecture more than 15 years old we 13:57 here in this custom idea of proving this 14:02 year I saw the work up to my taste 14:07 according to chance and wife 14:11 I usually call him ordinary great men 14:17 because usually people like to say that 14:20 extraordinary unusual people I consider 14:24 him it's very usual person but quick he 14:28 encouraged you to do things which may 14:30 not be the norm but he was looking out 14:35 into the distant future his sight was 14:38 further than most other people there's a 14:46 quotation from Lao Tzu an ancient 14:50 Chinese philosopher that could have been 14:52 written about churn the master does his 14:55 job and then stops he understands that 14:59 the universe is forever out of control 15:01 and that trying to dominate events goes 15:05 against the current of Dao because he 15:09 believes in himself he doesn't try to 15:11 convince others because he is content 15:14 with himself he doesn't need others 15:16 approval because he accepts himself the 15:19 whole world accepts him 15:23 [Music] … 19 Comments rongmaw lin Add a comment... @hayekianman 2 years ago jeez. never thought obscure documentaries on mathematicians could move me. what an amazing man 9 Reply @user-cu9ww9tj4i 4 weeks ago 인생은 즐기는 자가 확실히 좋음.천싱선씨처럼 즐기길.. Reply @user-cu9ww9tj4i 3 months ago 고통과 기쁨이 같이 있어서 계속 할 수 있음. Reply @user-jp9by9bh9q 2 years ago 先生之风，山高水长。 3 Reply @therealtraderlife 1 month ago If we paid these guys like sport stars we would have teleportation by now Reply @parvdize3968 1 year ago G.O.A.T. 2 Reply @apareek96 3 years ago Inspiring 3 Reply @n3sstxi 2 months ago love how Simons is just labelled as mathematician. not as a quant trader and one of the richest people in the world. Reply @kw7807 2 months ago Ahh CN Yang wasn’t in the film Reply @sntk1 1 year ago Thanks for your terrific video. I feel as though I know the man a bit more. I'd guess the English caption should read: He taught his students topology rather than "to party," but then I'm not familiar with Chinese educational methods:) 1 Reply @luyuwang379 3 years ago 啊哈，三个人都提到 "his head is somewhat bigger than normal" 智慧的大脑 6 Reply 1 reply @djtan3313 2 years ago I never knew… Reply @mappingtheshit 3 years ago 12:39 is that John Nash? 3 Reply 1 reply @mikewei2619 2 months ago He is in higher dimensions now... Reply @santafucker1945 8 months ago RIP Reply