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 or ...

: 楊忠道, Simplified Chinese: 杨忠道, Pinyin: Yáng Zhòngdào) (May 4, 1923 – 2005), was a notable

Chinese American Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...

topologist. He was an academician of the

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 ...

and served as the chair of the Department of Mathematics, University of Pennsylvania.

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 o ...

Zhejiang Province Zhejiang ( or , ; , Chinese postal romanization, also romanized as Chekiang) is an East China, eastern, coastal Provinces of China, province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable citie ...

, 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 na ...

in 1946 and his main academic advisor was

Su Buqing Su Buqing, also spelled Su Buchin (; September 23, 1902 – March 17, 2003), was a Chinese mathematician, educator and poet. He was the founder of differential geometry in China, and served as president of Fudan University and honorary chairman ...

. 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. 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 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 Universi ...

, and from 1954 to 1956, he was a visiting member at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he began a lifelong collaboration with Deane Montgomery. In 1956 he became an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania. 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

. 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 In mathematics, differential topology is the field dealing with the topological properties and smooth properties of smooth manifolds. In this sense differential topology is distinct from the closely related field of differential geometry, which ...

(especially group actions on manifolds) and published numerous papers in this field, many in collaboration with Deane Montgomery. 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