Chia-Chiao Lin (; 7 July 1916 – 13 January 2013) was a Chinese-born American applied mathematician and Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lin made major contributions to the theory of hydrodynamic stability, turbulent flow,

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

, and

astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the h ...

Biography

Lin was born in Beijing with ancestral roots in

Fuzhou Fuzhou (; , Fuzhounese: Hokchew, ''Hók-ciŭ''), alternately romanized as Foochow, is the capital and one of the largest cities in Fujian province, China. Along with the many counties of Ningde, those of Fuzhou are considered to constitute t ...

. In 1937 Lin graduated from the department of physics,

National Tsinghua University National Tsing Hua University (NTHU; ) is a public research university in Hsinchu City, Taiwan. National Tsing Hua University was first founded in Beijing. After the Chinese Civil War, the then-president of the university, Mei Yiqi, and other ...

in Beijing. After graduation he was a teaching assistant in the Tsinghua University physics department. In 1939 Lin won a Boxer Indemnity Scholarship and was initially supported to study in the United Kingdom. However, due to World War II, Lin and several others were sent to

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

by ship. Unluckily, Lin's ship was stopped in

Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, and all students had to return to China. In 1940, Lin finally reached Canada and studied at the University of Toronto from which he earned his M.Sc. In 1941. Lin continued his studies in the United States and received his PhD from the California Institute of Technology in 1944 under Theodore von Kármán. His PhD thesis provided a analytic method to solve a problem in the stability of parallel shearing flows, which was the subject of Werner Heisenberg's PhD thesis. Lin also taught at Caltech between 1943 and 1945. He taught at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

between 1945 and 1947. Lin joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1947. Lin was promoted to professor at MIT in 1953 and became an Institute Professor of MIT in 1963. He was President of the

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific socie ...

from 1972 to 1974. Lin retired from MIT in 1987. In 2002, he moved back to China and helped found the Zhou Pei-Yuan Center for Applied Mathematics (ZCAM) at Tsinghua University. He died in Beijing in 2013, aged 96.

Honors and awards

During his career Lin has received many prizes and awards, including: * The first Fluid Dynamics Prize (from the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

, in 1979) *The 1976 NAS Award in Applied Mathematics and Numerical Analysis * The 1975 Timoshenko Medal * The 1973 Otto Laporte Award * Caltech's Distinguished Alumni Award Lin was a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, cited in the

American Men and Women of Science ''American Men and Women of Science'' (the 40th edition was published in 2022) is a biographical reference work on leading scientists in the United States and Canada, published as a series of books and online by Gale. The first edition was publis ...

. and a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

. Lin was elected Academician of

Academia Sinica Academia Sinica (AS, la, 1=Academia Sinica, 3=Chinese Academy; ), headquartered in Nangang, Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. Founded in Nanking, the academy supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from ...

in 1958, and became a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1994.

References

External links

*
Lin's profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lin, Chia-Chiao 1916 births 2013 deaths Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Foreign members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the American Physical Society Educators from Beijing Mathematicians from Beijing Chinese emigrants to the United States 20th-century American mathematicians Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty Tsinghua University faculty Tsinghua University alumni Boxer Indemnity Scholarship recipients University of Toronto alumni California Institute of Technology alumni California Institute of Technology faculty Brown University faculty Fluid dynamicists Members of Academia Sinica Presidents of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Florida State University faculty Chinese mathematicians Members of the American Philosophical Society