Her mother Liang is the daughter of Liang Bocong, the last scholar in Meicheng. Born in a scholarly family, she was influenced by the traditional culture of China before she became a nun. Later, she often exhorted and warned her children not to go beyond the rules of being a man, hoping that they would go down in history in the future. Such encouragement, accompanied by the growth of Qiu Chengtong, Qiu Chengtong's later efforts and self-motivation are not unrelated to the good and profound influence of his parents.
Qiu Chengtong lost his father in his early years and his family was poor. His mother overcame all kinds of difficulties to send him to school. When I was studying in Peizheng Middle School, I studied mathematics diligently and got excellent grades. 1966 entered the Mathematics Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. 1969, he finished the course four years ahead of schedule. He was highly valued by Professor Chen Shengshen of the University of California, Berkeley, and was admitted as a graduate student as an exception. Under the guidance of Chen Shengshen, he received his doctorate at 197 1. He has taught at new york State University and Stanford University, and is a tenured professor at Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies. Now he teaches at Harvard University.
My father teaches at Hong Kong Xiangrang College and Chung Chi College, the predecessor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. My godmother's words are carefree childhood and excellent academic performance. But when 14 years old, his father died suddenly, and the family suddenly lost its financial resources. Although Qiu Chengtong had to study while working, he was admitted to the Mathematics Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong with excellent results. I came to the University of California at Berkeley when I was 9 years old. "When you graduate at 2 1, you are destined to change the face of mathematics." This is not the author's words. A few years ago, when UCLA wanted to hire Professor A Qiu, an old geometer in the department quoted Mr. Chen Shengshen. During his study in Berkeley, he proved Calabi conjecture and positive mass conjecture, and created a new field: geometric analysis. He is only 28 years old. In other words, it was less than 10 years from his admission to Berkeley to his one-hour speech at the World Congress of Mathematicians. In the year of the speech, Mr Chen Jingrun was also invited to give a 45-minute speech.
Berkeley, around the 1970s, was the center of differential geometry in the world, where many outstanding geometricians and young scholars gathered. Here, Qiu Chengtong won a scholarship from IBM and studied under the famous differential geometer Chen Shengshen. Mathematics is wonderful and rough. Even young students who are determined to make contributions in the field of mathematics can persist and achieve results, which is really rare. Qiu Chengtong is such a "morning star". It often happens that there are fewer and fewer students in the huge classroom, and finally only the professor is left to give a serious lecture to the only student under the podium. The only student here is Qiu Chengtong. After studying in Berkeley for one year, Qiu Chengtong finished his doctoral thesis and skillfully solved the famous "Wolf conjecture" at that time. His ingenious solution to this problem made the world mathematics community aware of the emergence of a new mathematical star.
From 65438 to 0976, Qiu Chengtong was promoted to be a professor of mathematics at Stanford University.
From 65438 to 0978, he was invited to give an academic report entitled "The Role of Partial Differential Equations in Differential Geometry" at the World Mathematical Congress held in Finland. This report represents the research direction, methods and mainstream of differential geometry around the 1980s. Later, a series of mathematical problems such as "positive mass conjecture" were solved.
Qiu Chengtong's research work is profound and extensive, involving all aspects of differential geometry, with fruitful results.
198 1 year, at the age of 32, he won the Van Buren Award of the American Mathematical Society, one of the highest awards in differential geometry.
1982 was awarded the Fields Medal, which is the highest honor in mathematics.
From 65438 to 0989, the American Mathematical Society held a conference on differential geometry in Los Angeles, and Qiu Chengtong, as a new generation leader of differential geometry in the world, became the chairman of the conference. Fate is fair, medals and honors are awarded to those who stay in the classroom until the end. However, this does not prevent Qiu Chengtong from continuing to do a lot of complicated research work and making continuous achievements. Perseverance, perseverance and perseverance are the spirit of Qiu Chengtong. Mr. Zheng, a famous mathematician, recalled that he had been thinking about many mathematical problems for nearly 20 years. Although they still haven't solved it, he still hasn't given up thinking easily.
1994, he won the Crawford Prize again. During his college years, he completed all the required courses in three years and read a lot of extracurricular materials. His outstanding achievements and research spirit were appreciated by Saraf, an American professor at that time, and Saraf strongly recommended him to study for a doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley.
20 10 won the wolf prize in the field of mathematics, which is the closest award to the nobel prize before the Abel prize and the lifelong achievement award in the field of mathematics. Qiu Chengtong has always been very concerned about China's mathematics.
Since 1984, he has recruited more than a dozen doctoral students in China to train talents in differential geometry for China. His approach is not only to teach students some special skills, but more importantly, to teach them how to grasp the bright spot of mathematics. His student, Tian Gang, also won the Van Buren Prize of 1996, and was recognized as one of the most outstanding differential geometricians in the world.
Over the past 30 years, Mr. Qiu has not only grasped the pulse of mathematics and physics at all times and guided the development trend of mathematics in the world, but also cared for and helped the progress of mathematics in China with a pure heart. He trained many mathematicians in China. His students and postdoctoral researchers are in all important universities abroad.