Chung Tao Yang, or Chung-Tao Yang, Yang Zhongdao (

Traditional Chinese A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays ...

: 楊忠道,

Simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example * Simplification of algebraic expressions, ...

: 杨忠道,

Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally writte ...

: Yáng Zhòngdào) (May 4, 1923 – 2005), was a notable Chinese American

topologist In mathematics, topology (from the Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a geometric object that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, crumpling, and bending; that is, without closing h ...

. He was an academician of the Academia Sinica and served as the chair of the Department of Mathematics,

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

Life

Born in

Pingyang County Pingyang County (, Wenzhounese:''ben yi'') is a county in the prefecture-level city of Wenzhou, located along the southern coast of Zhejiang province, China. There are two main cities with many surrounding villages in Pingyang. The two main settl ...

Wenzhou Wenzhou (pronounced ; Wenzhounese: Yuziou �y33–11 tɕiɤu33–32 ), historically known as Wenchow is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Zhejiang province in the People's Republic of China. Wenzhou is located at the extreme south east ...

, Zhejiang Province, he graduated from Wenzhou Middle School in 1942. He graduated from

Zhejiang University Zhejiang University, abbreviated as ZJU or Zheda and formerly romanized as Chekiang University, is a national public research university based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. It is a member of the prestigious C9 League and is selected into the n ...

in 1946 and his main academic advisor was Su Buqing. From 1946 to 1948 he was an assistant in the Department of Mathematics, Zhejiang University. From 1949 to 1950 he was a lecturer at

National Taiwan University National Taiwan University (NTU; ) is a public research university in Taipei, Taiwan. The university was founded in 1928 during Japanese rule as the seventh of the Imperial Universities. It was named Taihoku Imperial University and served d ...

. During this time he was an assistant and later a researcher in the Institute of Mathematics, Academia Sinica. Yang went to the United States and obtained his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

from

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into a comprehensive pub ...

in 1952. From 1952 to 1954, he taught at the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...

, and from 1954 to 1956, he was a visiting member at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...

, where he began a lifelong collaboration with

Deane Montgomery Deane Montgomery (September 2, 1909 – March 15, 1992) was an American mathematician specializing in topology who was one of the contributors to the final resolution of Hilbert's fifth problem in the 1950s. He served as President of the America ...

. In 1956 he became an assistant professor at the

. He was promoted to associate professor two years later and professor in 1961. He served as chair of the department from 1978 through 1983. He retired and became professor emeritus in 1991. Yang was elected in 1968 to the Academia Sinica. From 1992 to 2004 he was an advisor for the Institute of Mathematics, Academia Sinica.

Research

Yang's earliest research focused on finite projective geometry. Yang worked mainly in differential topology (especially group actions on manifolds) and published numerous papers in this field, many in collaboration with

. His best known work was on the Blaschke conjecture. His theorem, combined with the results of others, established the conjecture for spheres.

References

External links

The Mathematics Genealogy Project - Chung-Tao Yang
(English)

(English)

Yang's contributions to topology (Chinese & English)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yang, Chung Tao 1923 births 2005 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Taiwanese emigrants to the United States Zhejiang University alumni Members of Academia Sinica Topologists Chinese emigrants to Taiwan