《纽约时报》报道:新几何的创始者陈省身逝世
(转自《New
York Times》,December 7, 2004;KENNETH CHANG)
Shiing-Shen Chern, 93, Innovator in New Geometry, Dies
Dr. Shiing-Shen Chern in 1985
Dr. Shiing-Shen Chern, a
mathematician whose seemingly purely abstract discoveries about the twistings of geometric surfaces have found wide use in
physics and mathematics, died Friday at his home in
Dr. Chern also helped set up three mathematics institutes, two
in China and one at the University of California, Berkeley.
"He's a
towering figure in 20th-century mathematics," said Dr. Calvin C. Moore, a
professor of mathematics at the
Dr. Chern's work in a field called differential geometry looked
at the way the curvature of a surface can tell something about the overall
shape. For example, someone standing on a sphere will see the surface dropping
off in all directions. But on other shapes, like that of a doughnut, there must
be places - around the hole, in particular - where the surface is shaped like a
saddle, curving upward in some directions.
The field was
pioneered in the 19th century by Carl Friedrich Gauss, who wanted to know how
to accurately survey the landscape of a curved planet, but interest had waned
by the 1930's, Studying the curvature of surfaces in spaces greater than three
dimensions, Dr. Chern devised mathematical
quantities, which he called characteristic classes, that differentiated
different types of surfaces. "Everyone else in the world called them Chern classes," Dr. Moore said.
For example, a
strip of paper whose ends are glued together as a ring is in a different Chern class than one that has been twisted into a Möbius strip. "Chern classes
measure the degree of twisting in different dimensions," said Dr. Jeff Cheeger, a professor of mathematics at
Chern
classes and later advances in differential geometry have now found applications
in fields as diverse as string theory in theoretical physics and computer
graphics. "I think that he, more than anyone, was the founder of one of
the central areas of modern mathematics," said Dr. Phillip A. Griffiths, a
professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in
Born in
He accepted a
professorship at
He returned to
Dr. Chern retired in 1979, but two years later returned to
full-time work when he founded Berkeley's Mathematical Sciences Research
Institute with Dr. Moore and Dr. Isadore Singer, now
at M.I.T. Dr. Chern was the director of the
institute, which offers postdoctoral research positions, from 1981 to 1984.
"He took
great pleasure in getting know and working with and
helping to guide young mathematicians," Dr. Griffiths said. "I was
one of them."
Dr. Chern received a United States National Medal of Science in
1975 and the Wolf Prize, one of the most prestigious honors in mathematics, in
1983. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
In 1995, Robert
G. Uomini, who had taken Dr. Chern's
class on differential geometry as an undergraduate, won $22 million in a
lottery and donated part of his winnings to establish a chair for his former
professor.
Four years ago,
after his wife of 61 years, Shih-ning Chern, died, Dr. Chern returned
to
Dr. Griffiths
recalled a meeting that he and Dr. Chern attended
with Jiang Zemin, then
"It was
clear Jiang Zemin revered this man," Dr.
Griffiths said.
Dr. Chern is survived by a son, Paul, of