Wu Wenjun (simplified Chinese: 吴文俊; traditional Chinese: 吳文俊; pinyin: Wú Wénjùn; Wade-Giles: Wu Wen-Tsün) (born May 12, 1919) is a Chinese mathematician and academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Biography

Wu's ancestral hometown is Jiashan, in Jiaxing of Zhejiang. Wu was born in Shanghai, China where he would later graduate from Chiao Tung University (currently Xi'an Jiaotong University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University) in 1940. In 1945, Wu taught several months at Hangchow University (aka Zhijiang University, 之江大学, later merged into Zhejiang University) in Hangzhou.

In 1947, he went to France for further study at the University of Strasbourg. In 1949, he received his PhD, for his thesis Sur les classes caractéristiques des structures fibrées sphériques, written under the direction of Charles Ehresmann. Afterwards, he did some work in Paris with René Thom and discovered the Wu class and Wu formula in algebraic topology. In 1951 he was appointed a post at Peking University. However, Wu may have been among a wave of recalls of Chinese academics working in the West following Chiang Kai-shek's ouster from the mainland in 1949, according to eyewitness testimony by Marcel Berger, as he one day disappeared from France without saying a word to anyone.[1]

Honors and awards

In 1957, he was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 1990, he was elected as an academician of the Third World Academy of Sciences.

Along with Yuan Longping, he was awarded the State Preeminent Science and Technology Award by President Jiang Zemin in 2000, when this highest scientific and technological prize in China began to be awarded. He also received the Shaw Prize in 2006.

Research

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 to algebraic topology. The Wu class and the Wu formula are named after him. In the field of automated theorem proving, he is known for Wu's method.

He is also active in the field of history of Chinese mathematics, he was the chief editor of the ten volume Grand Series of Chinese Mathematics, covering from antiquity to late Qin dynasty.

References

1. ^ Katz, Mikhail G. (2007). Systolic geometry and topology. Mathematical Surveys and Monographs. 137. Providence, R.I.: American Mathematical Society. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-8218-4177-8. http://books.google.com/?id=JuY5tsWAHoUC&pg=PA19&vq=pu&dq=Systolic+geometry+and+topology. .

* Wu Wenjun at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
* O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Wu Wenjun", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Wu_Wen-Tsun.html .
* Wenjun Wu (2006). "Autobiography of Professor Wu Wentsun". The Shaw Prize Foundation. http://www.shawprize.org/en/laureates/2006/mathematical/Mumford_Wu/autobiography/Wu.html. Retrieved 2007-09-16.

External links

* Wu's homepage (Chinese)