Tien-Yien Li (李天岩) (June 28, 1945 – June 25, 2020) was a University Distinguished Professor of

Mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

and University Distinguished Professor Emeritus at

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

. There, he spent 42 years and supervised 26 Ph.D. dissertations.

Early life and education

Li was born on June 28, 1945 in

Sha County, Fujian Province Shaxian District (), formerly Sha County, is a District of Sanming, Fujian Province, People's Republic of China. Shaxian District is the hometown of Shaxian delicacies, which are considered part of the food heritage of China. Transportation Shaxi ...

, China. At age three, he was brought to

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

by his parents. He earned his B.S. in Mathematics at the National Tsinghua University in 1968. Li received his doctorate in 1974 from

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

under the guidance of James Yorke.

Academic career

Li joined the faculty of the Department of Mathematics at Michigan State University in 1976 and was promoted to the rank of full professor in 1983. He retired as a University Distinguished Professor Emeritus in 2018 after spending 42 years at the university. Li and his supervisor James Yorke published a paper in 1975 entitled ''

Period three implies chaos James A. Yorke (born August 3, 1941) is a Distinguished University Research Professor of Mathematics and Physics and former chair of the Mathematics Department at the University of Maryland, College Park. Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, United S ...

,'' in which the mathematical term chaos was coined. He also proved Ulam's conjecture in the field of computation of invariant measures of chaotic dynamical systems. Working with Kellogg and Yorke, Li's ideas and the use of numerical methods in computing Brouwer's fixed point, part of the field of modern Homotopy Continuation methods.

Awards and honors

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

, 1995 * Distinguished Faculty Award, College of Natural Science, Michigan State University, 1996. * Distinguished Faculty Award, Michigan State University, 1996. * J.S.Frame Teaching Award, 1996. * University Distinguished Professor, Michigan State University, 1998. * Distinguished Alumni, College of Sciences, Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, 2002. * Outstanding Academic Advisor Award, College of Natural Science, Michigan State University, 2006. * National Tsinghua University's Outstanding Alumni Award, Taiwan, 2012.

References

External links

* T. Y. Li, and J. A. Yorke, ''Period Three Implies Chaos'',

American Mathematical Monthly ''The American Mathematical Monthly'' is a mathematical journal founded by Benjamin Finkel in 1894. It is published ten times each year by Taylor & Francis for the Mathematical Association of America. The ''American Mathematical Monthly'' is an e ...

82, 985 (1975)
Celebration of Life Dr. Tien-Yien Li (1945-2020)Dr. Tien-Yien Li
{{DEFAULTSORT:Li, Tien-Yien 1945 births 2020 deaths American educators American people of Chinese descent 20th-century Taiwanese mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians