The Chinese-American mathematician Yau was the first Chinese winner to win the Fields Medal, the highest honor in mathematics, and was a professor at Harvard University for more than 30 years.
In his later years, Yau returned to China, taught at Tsinghua University for free, and also opened Yau Chengtong's mathematics class, in order to cultivate more mathematical talents in China.
In a public lecture, he talked about the pointed question of why China has not produced a significant mathematician in its history for so many years.
对数学系统性的研究源于古希腊
"Ancient China's understanding of mathematics is incomplete, only a fragmented application, and mathematics really began to be systematically studied from ancient Greece. ”
This passage is very accurate, Euclid, known as the "father of geometry", Pythagoras, the proposer of the Pythagorean theorem and the theory of the circle of the earth, and Archimedes, the founder of calculus, are all from ancient Greece.
Euclid, the father of geometry
And these mathematicians have many different identities, they are also scientists, philosophers, engineers, and so on. For example, Pythagoras and Plato also had a deep understanding of philosophy. ”
Pythagoras
When it comes to our ancient mathematicians, Yau Chengtong believes that their research on mathematics is not deep enough: "To be honest, ancient Chinese mathematicians mainly solved some small mathematical problems, and lacked systematic research on mathematics.
Because of their knowledge of the macroscopic aspects of mathematics, few of them can be called great mathematicians. ”
症结在哪
When it comes to the reason why there are so few great mathematicians in China, Professor Yau's analysis hit the nail on the head: "The key to mathematics is to understand the laws of the world, which has generally not been taken seriously since ancient times.
Most of them don't think about building a macro framework of mathematics, but only solve specific problems, so it is difficult for mathematics to develop well.
applied mathematics
Yau believes that the current problem is that in the field of mathematics, we have a large number of talents who are very good at solving problems, but there is a lack of talents who can ask good questions.
"What we do best is solving problems and proving problems that people have proposed, but it is very difficult for us to see meaningful propositions put forward by Chinese mathematicians for mathematicians all over the world to study and prove. ”
缺乏人文素养
Yau believes that this has something to do with the lack of humanistic qualities, which our scientists generally lack. "Many of our writers have been able to do what Wang Guowei said, but scientists are rarely influenced by the humanities, and they do not have too deep research on the natural sciences.
"Looking at the end of the world" from "Words in the World"
Take the historical records written by Sima Qian as an example, every time he finishes a chapter, he is always followed by an overall view, which is the essence of this.
We have a lot of applied mathematicians who focus on solving other people's problems and don't pay attention to a macro view. Their strength lies in the application of mathematical theories, but their disadvantage lies in their inability to identify problems beyond the specific problem.
In order to become a great mathematician who can truly go down in history and influence the development of mathematics, it is necessary to have the literacy to ask meaningful questions, and to get out of the dead end of solving problems. ”
We see that the reason why Einstein and Newton were able to have such a great impact on the world is precisely because of their systematic study of the laws of the operation of the whole world.