Hing Tong (16 February 1922 – 4 March 2007) was an American mathematician. He is well known for providing the original proof of the Katetov–Tong insertion theorem.

Life

Hing Tong was born in Canton, China. He received his bachelor's degree from the

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 ...

. In 1947, he received his doctorate in mathematics from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, where his thesis advisor was Edgar Lorch.The Mathematics Genealogy Project
/ref> In 1956, he married fellow mathematician, Mary Powderly. He was the father of five children.

Work

Hing Tong made many significant contributions to the area of algebraic topology, and served in a number of academic capacities. In 1947, after receiving a National Research Council fellowship,Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 53 (1947), 896-904.
/ref> he became an assistant professor at

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

(Columbia University).Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 54 (1948), 869-884.
/ref> In 1955, he was a visiting scholar 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 ...

in Princeton. Also in 1955, he was appointed professor of mathematics (and eventually chairman of the mathematics department) at

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the col ...

. He later became a professor of mathematics at Fordham University, where he also served as chairman of the department. He was listed among the Outstanding Educators of America in 1973. Tong retired from academia in 1984 to concentrate on research in

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

. A commemorative brick in the

Paul Halmos Paul Richard Halmos ( hu, Halmos Pál; March 3, 1916 – October 2, 2006) was a Hungarian-born American mathematician and statistician who made fundamental advances in the areas of mathematical logic, probability theory, statistics, operator ...

Commemorative Walk at the Carriage House Conference Center of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) in Washington, DC, reads: "Hing Tong, Topology and Physics".

Important publications

*Hing Tong, "The elements of the theory of transfinite numbers", Columbia University masters dissertation: 1944.Scientific Commons
/ref> *Hing Tong,
On Ideals Associated with Certain Normed Rings over Topological Spaces
, Columbia University Ph.D. dissertation: 1947. *Hing Tong,
On Some Problems of Cech
, ''The Annals of Mathematics, 2nd Series'', Vol. 50, No. 1: January, 1949, pp. 154–157. *Hing Tong,
On Ideals of Certain Topologized Rings of Continuous Mappings Associated with Topological Spaces
, ''The Annals of Mathematics, 2nd Series'', Vol. 50, No. 2: April, 1949, pp. 329–340. *Hing Tong,
Some characterizations of normal and perfectly normal spaces
, ''Duke Math. J.'' Volume 19, Number 2: 1952, pp. 289–292. *Mary Powderly and Hing Tong,
On Orbital Topologies
, ''The Quarterly Journal of Mathematics'', 7(1), 1956: pp. 1–2. *George Kozlowski and Hing Tong,
Two problems of Hewitt on topological expansions
, ''Duke Math. J.'' Volume 33, Number 3: September, 1966, pp. 475–476. *Edgar Lorch and Hing Tong,
Continuity of Baire Functions and Order of Baire Sets
, ''Indiana University Mathematics Journal'', 16: 1967, pp. 991–995. *Edgar Lorch and Hing Tong,
A Completeness Theorem on the Group of Baire Equivalences
, ''Indiana University Mathematics Journal'', 19: 1970, pp. 189–193. *Hing Tong,
Non-existence of certain topological expansions
, ''Annali di Matematica Pura ed Applicata'', Volume 86, Number 1: December, 1970, pp. 43–45. *Hing Tong,
Solutions of problems of P. S. Alexandroff on extensions of topological spaces
, ''Annali di Matematica Pura ed Applicata'', Volume 86, Number 1: December, 1970, pp. 47–51. *Edgar Lorch and Hing Tong, "Compactness, metrizability, and Baire isomorphism", ''Acta Sci. Math.'' (Szeged) 35: 1973. *Edgar Lorch and Hing Tong,
On the automorphisms of certain groups of permutations
, ''Bulletin of the Institute of Mathematics Academia Sinica'', Volume 2, Number 2: 1974. *Mary Powderly, Hing Tong, and George Kozlowski,
On a problem of Alexandroff and Hopf
, ''Bulletin of the Institute of Mathematics Academia Sinica'', Volume 3, Number 1: 1975. *Edgar Lorch and Hing Tong,
Baire isomorphisms between certain non-metric spaces
, ''Annali di Matematica Pura ed Applicata'', Volume 103, Number 1: December, 1975. *Edgar Lorch and Hing Tong,
On the automorphisms of the group of Baire equivalences of a complete separable metric space
, ''Bulletin of the Institute of Mathematics Academia Sinica'', Volume 6, Number 2: 1978.

External links

Hing Tong in the Mathematical Genealogy project

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tong, Hing 1922 births 2007 deaths Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars Wesleyan University faculty Barnard College faculty American mathematicians Topologists Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Republic of China (1912–1949) emigrants to the United States Scientists from Guangdong Mathematicians from Guangdong Educators from Guangdong