Shiing-Shen Chern (October 26, 1911 – December 3, 2004) was a Chinese-born American mathematician. He was regarded as one of the leaders in differential geometry of the twentieth century.
Chern was born in Xiushui County (秀水縣), Jiaxing, in Zhejiang province. The year after his birth, China changed its regime from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China. He graduated from Xiushui Middle School (秀水中學) and subsequently moved to Tianjin in 1922 to ...
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Shiing-Shen Chern (October 26, 1911 – December 3, 2004) was a Chinese-born American mathematician. He was regarded as one of the leaders in differential geometry of the twentieth century.
Chern was born in Xiushui County (秀水縣), Jiaxing, in Zhejiang province. The year after his birth, China changed its regime from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China. He graduated from Xiushui Middle School (秀水中學) and subsequently moved to Tianjin in 1922 to accompany his father. In 1926 after spending four years, Chern graduated from Fulun High School (扶輪中學) in Tianjin.
At age 15, Chern entered the Faculty of Sciences of the Nankai University in Tianjin, studied mathematics there, and graduated with BSc in 1930. At Nankai, Chern's mentor was Li-Fu Chiang (姜立夫), a Harvard-trained geometer who was also from Zhejiang.
At Nankai, Chern was also heavily influenced by physicist Hu Guoding (胡國定) who was also from Zhejiang. Hu now is considered as one of founding fathers of modern Chinese informatics....
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