Pan Chengdong ( zh, c=潘承洞, p=Pān Chéngdòng; 26 May 1934 – 27 December 1997) was a Chinese

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 ...

who made numerous contributions to

number theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic function, integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777� ...

, including progress on

Goldbach's conjecture Goldbach's conjecture is one of the oldest and best-known unsolved problems in number theory and all of mathematics. It states that every even natural number greater than 2 is the sum of two prime numbers. The conjecture has been shown to hold ...

. He was vice president of

Shandong University Shandong University (, abbreviated as Shanda, , English abbreviation SDU) is a public research comprehensive university in Jinan, Shandong with one campus in Weihai, Shandong and one campus in Qingdao, Shandong and is supported directly by the ...

and took the role of president from 1986 to 1997. Born in

Suzhou Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trade ...

Jiangsu Province Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its ca ...

on 26 May 1934, he entered the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics of

Peking University Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter ...

in 1952 and obtained a postgraduate degree in 1961 advised by Min Sihe, a student of

Edward Charles Titchmarsh Edward Charles "Ted" Titchmarsh (June 1, 1899 – January 18, 1963) was a leading British mathematician. Education Titchmarsh was educated at King Edward VII School (Sheffield) and Balliol College, Oxford, where he began his studies in October ...

. He then went to work at the Department of Mathematics of Shandong University. He was honored with an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Science in 1991. Previously, Wang Yuan made progress toward Goldbach’s Conjecture on the distribution of prime numbers. His result was that for any sufficiently large even number, that number is the sum of two numbers—one a product of at most ''two'' primes, the other a product of at most ''three'' primes. This case is denoted by (2,3). In 1962, Pan Chengdong also made progress in proving Goldbach’s conjecture by proving the (1,5) case independently and the (1,4) case the following year with N.B. Barban and Wang Yuan.

External links

References

1934 births 1997 deaths 20th-century Chinese mathematicians Educators from Suzhou Mathematicians from Jiangsu Members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Peking University alumni Presidents of Shandong University Scientists from Suzhou {{asia-mathematician-stub