Chen Jiangong

Chen Jiangong , or Jian-Gong Chen, was a renowned educator, mathematician and a pioneer of modernizing Chinese mathematics . He was the dean of Department of Mathematics, National Chekiang University , and an academician of Academica Sinica and Chinese Academy of Sciences .

Biography

Born in Qing Dynasty Guangxu Era in Shanying Xian, Shaoxing Fu , Zhejiang Province, Chen studied in Shanying School and later in Shaoxing Prefecture School. 1910, he entered Zhejiang Advanced Normal School .

He went to Japan to continue his study. 1916, he graduated from Tokyo Institute of Technology and Tokyo Institute of Physics .

1923, he graduated from Tohoku University, he then went back to China, became a lecture in Zhejaing Industrial School . 1924, he went to Wuhan, Hubei Province, and became a professor in National Wuchang University .
1926, he went back to Tohoku University, continued his study in mathematics there, and completed his PhD in 1929. In Japan he met his later colleague Su Buqing.

1929, he went back to Zhejiang, invited by the president Shao Feizhi , he started serving as the director of the Department of Mathematics, National Chekiang University, for 20 years. 1931, due to Chen's strong advice, Su Buqing was invited to join with the department . They cooperated very well and set up the famous Chen-Su School in modern Chinese mathematics history . 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out, he and his whole department had to move out of Hangzhou. Feb 1940, they arrived at Zunyi then Meitan, Guizhou Province, and he started resetting up colleges of engineering and sciences.

1945, the Japanese army was defeated, invited both by the biologist Luo Zongluo and the Nanjing Nationalist Government, he was sent to Taipei, to handle and rearrange the university there . Spring 1946, he returned to mainland China, continued teaching in National Chekiang University, and became a research in Academia Sinica Mathematics Research Institute. 1947-1948, he did one-year research in the Institute for Advanced Study, , USA. After the Chinese Civil War, he remained in Zhejiang.

1952, Zhejiang University was dissociated and its colleges of sciences and humanism were distributed to Fudan University in Shanghai. Both Chen and Su Buqing had to move to Shanghai. In Shanghai, he translated many mathematical works from the USSR.

1958, some departments of Zhejiang University were splitted out again and formed a new university - Hangzhou University . Chen was pointed to be the vice president of the university and moved back to Hangzhou.

Notable students

*Gu Chaohao - mathematician, former president of University of Science and Technology of China
*Xia Daoxing - mathematician
*Hu Hesheng - woman mathematician, 2002