Kai Lai Chung (
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 ...
: 鍾開萊;
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, ...
: 钟开莱; September 19, 1917 – June 2, 2009) was a
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 m ...
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
On ...
known for his significant contributions to modern
probability theory
Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set o ...
.
Biography
Chung was a native of
Hangzhou
Hangzhou ( or , ; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), also romanized as Hangchow, is the capital and most populous city of Zhejiang, China. It is located in the northwestern part of the province, sitting at the head of Hangzhou Bay, whi ...
, the capital city of
Zhejiang Province
Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiangs ...
. Chung entered
Tsinghua University
Tsinghua University (; abbreviation, abbr. THU) is a National university, national Public university, public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Minis ...
in 1936, and initially studied
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
at its Department of Physics. In 1940, Chung graduated from the Department of Mathematics of the
National Southwestern Associated University
When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out between China and Japan in 1937, Peking University, Tsinghua University and Nankai University merged to form Changsha Temporary University in Changsha and later National Southwestern Associated Universi ...
, where he later worked as a
teaching assistant
A teaching assistant or teacher's aide (TA) or education assistant (EA) or team teacher (TT) is an individual who assists a teacher with instructional responsibilities. TAs include ''graduate teaching assistants'' (GTAs), who are graduate school ...
. During this period, he first studied number theory with
Lo-Keng Hua and then probability theory with
Pao-Lu Hsu.
In 1944, Chung was chosen to be one of the recipients of the 6th
Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program
The Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program () was a scholarship program for Chinese students to be educated in the United States, funded by the . In 1908, the U.S. Congress passed a bill to return to China the excess of Boxer Indemnity, amounting to ...
for study in the United States. He arrived at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
in December 1945 and obtained his
PhD in 1947. Chung's dissertation was titled “On the maximum partial sum of sequences of independent random variables” and was under the supervision of
John Wilder Tukey
John Wilder Tukey (; June 16, 1915 – July 26, 2000) was an American mathematician and statistician, best known for the development of the fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm and box plot. The Tukey range test, the Tukey lambda distributio ...
and
Harald Cramér
Harald Cramér (; 25 September 1893 – 5 October 1985) was a Swedish mathematician, actuary, and statistician, specializing in mathematical statistics and probabilistic number theory. John Kingman described him as "one of the giants of statist ...
.
In 1950s, Chung taught at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
,
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 ...
,
UC-Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...
,
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
and
Syracuse University
Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...
. He then transferred to
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
in 1961, where he made fundamental contributions to the study of
Brownian motion
Brownian motion, or pedesis (from grc, πήδησις "leaping"), is the random motion of particles suspended in a medium (a liquid or a gas).
This pattern of motion typically consists of random fluctuations in a particle's position insi ...
and laid the framework for the general mathematical theory of
Markov chain
A Markov chain or Markov process is a stochastic model describing a sequence of possible events in which the probability of each event depends only on the state attained in the previous event. Informally, this may be thought of as, "What happe ...
s. Chung would later be appointed Professor Emeritus of Mathematics of the Department of Mathematics at Stanford.
Chung was regarded as one of the leading probabilists after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. He was an Invited Speaker at the
ICM in 1958 in Edinburgh and in 1970 in Nice. Some of his most influential contributions have been in the form of his expositions in his textbooks on elementary probability and Markov chains. In addition, Chung also explored other branches of mathematics, such as probabilistic potential theory and gauge theorems for the Schrödinger equation.
Chung's visit to China in 1979 (together with
Joseph L. Doob and Jacques Neveu), and his subsequent visits, served as a point of renewed exchange between Chinese probabilists and their Western counterparts. He also served as an external examiner for several universities in the Asian region, including the
National University of Singapore
The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national public research university in Singapore. Founded in 1905 as the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School, NUS is the oldest autonomous university in the c ...
.
In 1981, Chung initiated, with
Erhan Cinlar Erhan is a Turkish given of raw Turkic origin, with the combination of word “Er” and “Han”, and is a name for males.
It has the meanings "Soldier King, or Soldier Khan'. Er means Soldier and Han means Khan. It is a Turkish name.
Given name ...
and
Ronald Getoor, the "Seminars on Stochastic Processes", a popular annual national meeting covering Markov processes, Brownian motion and probability.
Chung also possessed a wide-ranging and intimate knowledge of literature and music, especially opera. He also had an interest in
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
culture and taught himself Italian after he retired. Chung spoke several languages and translated a probability book from
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
to English.
Chung died of natural causes on June 1, 2009, at the age of 91.
Publications
* ''Elementary Probability Theory''; by Kai Lai Chung & Farid Aitsahlia; Springer; .
* ''A Course in Probability Theory''; by Kai Lai Chung.
* ''Markov Processes with Stationary Transition Probabilities'', by Kai Lai Chung.
* ''Selected Works Of Kai Lai Chung''; World Scientific Publishing Company; .
* ''Green, Brown, & Probability and Brownian Motion on the Line''; by Kai Lai Chung; World Scientific Publishing Company; .
* ''Introduction to stochastic integration (Progress in probability and statistics)''; K. L. Chung and R. J. Williams.
* ''Introduction to Random Time and Quantum Randomness''; by Kai Lai Chung & Jean Claude Zambrini; World Scientific; .
* ''Chance & Choice: Memorabilia''; Kai Lai Chung.
* ''Markov Processes, Brownian Motion, and Time Symmetry''; (Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften); by Kai Lai Chung & John B. Walsh.
* ''From Brownian Motion to Schrödinger's Equation''; (Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften); Kai Lai Chung & Zhongxin Zhao.
* ''Lectures from Markov Processes to Brownian Motion''; (Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften); by Kai Lai Chung.
Notes
External links
* The Mathematics Genealogy Project
Kai Lai Chung* IMS Bulletin
IMS members’ news – obituary Kai Lai Chung (1917–2009)* Stanford Report
*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20090717005736/http://lists.imstat.org/pipermail/ssp/2009-June/000002.html Kai Lai Chung died* Oberwolfach Photo Collection
Details for Kai Lai Chung* Tsinghua University Obituary
世界知名概率学家钟开莱校友去世* Obituary Kai Lai Chung, 1917-200
Obituary Kai Lai Chung, 1917-2009
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chung, Kai Lai
1917 births
2009 deaths
Writers from Hangzhou
Republic of China (1912–1949) emigrants to the United States
Tsinghua University alumni
Princeton University alumni
Stanford University Department of Mathematics faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Columbia University faculty
Cornell University faculty
University of California, Berkeley faculty
Syracuse University faculty
American statisticians
Probability theorists
Boxer Indemnity Scholarship recipients
20th-century American mathematicians
21st-century American mathematicians
Chinese science writers
National Southwestern Associated University alumni
Mathematicians from New York (state)
20th-century Chinese mathematicians