Wu Wenjun | |||||||||
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| Born | (1919-05-12)12 May 1919 | ||||||||
| Died | 7 May 2017(2017-05-07) (aged 97) | ||||||||
| Alma mater | Shanghai Jiao Tong University University of Strasbourg | ||||||||
| Awards | Shaw Prize in Mathematics (2006) Highest Science and Technology Award (2000) | ||||||||
| Scientific career | |||||||||
| Fields | Mathematics | ||||||||
| Doctoral advisor | Charles Ehresmann | ||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 吳文俊 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 吴文俊 | ||||||||
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Wu Wenjun (Chinese:吴文俊; 12 May 1919 – 7 May 2017), also commonly known asWu Wen-tsün, was a Chinesemathematician, historian, and writer. He was anacademician at theChinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), best known forWu manifold,Wu class,Wu formula, andWu's method of characteristic set.
Wu'sancestral hometown wasJiashan,Zhejiang. He was born inShanghai in 1919.[1]: 81
Wu graduated fromShanghai Jiao Tong University in 1940. In 1945, he taught several months atHangchow University (later merged intoZhejiang University) inHangzhou.
In 1947, he went toFrance for further study at theUniversity of Strasbourg. In 1949, he received his PhD from that university,[1]: 81 for his thesisSur les classes caractéristiques des structures fibrées sphériques, written under the direction ofCharles Ehresmann. Afterwards, he did some work in Paris withRené Thom and discovered theWu class andWu formula in algebraic topology.
In 1951 he was appointed to a post atPeking University. However, Wu may have been among a wave of recalls of Chinese academics working in the West followingChiang Kai-shek's ouster from the mainland in 1949, according to eyewitness testimony byMarcel Berger, as he disappeared from France one day, without saying a word to anyone.[2] He returned to China in 1951.[1]: 81
In 1957, he was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 1986 he was an Invited Speaker of theICM in Berkeley.[3] In 1990, he was elected as an academician ofThe World Academy of Sciences (TWAS).
Along withYuan Longping, he was awarded theState Preeminent Science and Technology Award by PresidentJiang Zemin in 2000, when this highest scientific and technological prize in China began to be awarded. He also received theTWAS Prize in 1990[4] and theShaw Prize in 2006. He was the President of the Chinese society of mathematics. He died on 7 May 2017, 5 days before his 98th birthday.[5]
The research of Wu includes the following fields:algebraic topology,algebraic geometry,game theory,history of mathematics,automated theorem proving. His most important contributions are toalgebraic topology. TheWu class and theWu formula are named after him. In the field ofautomated theorem proving, he is known forWu's method. Wu's is generally viewed as a pioneer of early artificial intelligence research.[1]: 81
He was also active in the field of the history of Chinese mathematics. He was the chief editorof the ten-volume Grand Series of Chinese Mathematics, covering the time from antiquity to late part of theQin dynasty.
In the 1970s, Wu studied ancient Chinese mathematics and concluded that traditional Chinese disciplinary practices differed from the axiomatic mathematics that originated in Greece.[1]: 80 In Wu's view, Chinese mathematics were highly systemized and practical, which contrasted with the logic approach which is at the core of Westerngeometry.[1]: 80 Rather than a focus on theorems, ancient Chinese mathematics emphasized precise and simple problem solving derived from the need to solve practical tasks of administration like dividing fields and calculating food rations.[1]: 80
Wu contended that thebinary system attributed toGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is an imitation of a systemic understanding of reasoning that Chinese scholars had been working with for centuries previously.[1]: 82 Leibniz had corresponded extensively with Chinese missionaries in China.[1]: 82
