Wang Yuan (; 29 April 1930 – 14 May 2021) was a Chinese mathematician and writer known for his contributions to the Goldbach conjecture. He was a president of the

Chinese Mathematical Society The Chinese Mathematical Society (CMS, ) is an academic organization for Chinese mathematicians, with the official websitwww.cms.org.cn It is a member of China Association of Science and Technology. History The Chinese Mathematical Society (CMS) ...

and head of the Institute of Mathematics,

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republi ...

Life

Wang was born in Lanxi, Zhejiang, China. His father was a magistrate in the local government. Because of the Japanese invasion (the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

), Wang's family had to move away from Zhejiang Province, and finally arrived at the southeast city Kunming in Yunnan in 1938. 1942, Wang's father rose to the position of Chief Secretary of the Academia Sinica. 1946 after the Japanese surrender, his family moved to the capital city,

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...

. 1946–1949, Wang's father was the Acting Director of the institute. In 1949, Wang separated with his father, who went 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 ...

. Wang entered Yingshi University (later merged into National Chekiang University, now

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 n ...

) in

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, whic ...

, and graduated from the Department of Mathematics in 1952. He then earned a position in the Institute of Mathematics, Academia Sinica.

Hua Luogeng Hua Luogeng or Hua Loo-Keng (; 12 November 1910 – 12 June 1985) was a Chinese mathematician and politician famous for his important contributions to number theory and for his role as the leader of mathematics research and education in the Peop ...

was his academic adviser and one of his closest collaborators. In 1966, Wang's career was interrupted by the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...

. He was unable to work for more than five years, until 1972. During this time, Wang was harassed and put through interrogation. In 1978, Wang was back to his professorship, in the Institute of Mathematics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 1980, he was elected to be a member of Chinese Academy of Science. 1988–1992, he was the president of the

. Wang also worked in the United States for a period of time. He visited the Institute of Advanced Studies and taught at the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University o ...

. Wang advised Shou-Wu Zhang when he studied at the Chinese Academy of Sciences for his master's degree from 1983 to 1986. Wang is the father of Chinese American computer scientist James Z. Wang.

Research

Number theory

Wang's research focused on the area of

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 integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said, "Mat ...

, especially in the Goldbach conjecture, through

sieve theory Sieve theory is a set of general techniques in number theory, designed to count, or more realistically to estimate the size of, sifted sets of integers. The prototypical example of a sifted set is the set of prime numbers up to some prescribed lim ...

and the

Hardy-Littlewood circle method A twin prime is a prime number that is either 2 less or 2 more than another prime number—for example, either member of the twin prime pair (41, 43). In other words, a twin prime is a prime that has a prime gap of two. Sometimes the term ''twin p ...

. He obtained a series of important results in the field of number theory.

Numerical integration and statistics

With

(华罗庚, alternatively Hua Loo-Keng), he developed high-dimensional

combinatorial design Combinatorial design theory is the part of combinatorial mathematics that deals with the existence, construction and properties of systems of finite sets whose arrangements satisfy generalized concepts of ''balance'' and/or ''symmetry''. These co ...

s for

numerical integration In analysis, numerical integration comprises a broad family of algorithms for calculating the numerical value of a definite integral, and by extension, the term is also sometimes used to describe the numerical solution of differential equations ...

on the

unit cube A unit cube, more formally a cube of side 1, is a cube whose sides are 1 unit long.. See in particulap. 671. The volume of a 3-dimensional unit cube is 1 cubic unit, and its total surface area is 6 square units.. Unit hypercube The term '' ...

. Their work came to the attention of the statistician Kai-Tai Fang, who realized that their results could be used in the

design of experiments The design of experiments (DOE, DOX, or experimental design) is the design of any task that aims to describe and explain the variation of information under conditions that are hypothesized to reflect the variation. The term is generally associ ...

. In particular, their results could be used to investigate

interaction Interaction is action that occurs between two or more objects, with broad use in philosophy and the sciences. It may refer to: Science * Interaction hypothesis, a theory of second language acquisition * Interaction (statistics) * Interactions o ...

, for example, in

factorial experiment In statistics, a full factorial experiment is an experiment whose design consists of two or more factors, each with discrete possible values or "levels", and whose experimental units take on all possible combinations of these levels across all ...

s and

response surface methodology In statistics, response surface methodology (RSM) explores the relationships between several explanatory variables and one or more response variables. The method was introduced by George E. P. Box and K. B. Wilson in 1951. The main idea of RSM ...

. Collaborating with Fang led to ''uniform designs'', which have been used also in computer simulations.:

Books

* * *

Citations

References

* *

External links

Wang Yuan biography

Brief Introduction of CMS (Center of Mathematical Sciences)

Yuan Wang's Home Page, Goldbach Conjecture
with photos *

from the website of Chinese Academy of Science
Wng Yuan's story, from Sina.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wang, Yuan 1930 births 2021 deaths 20th-century Chinese mathematicians 21st-century Chinese mathematicians Mathematicians from Zhejiang Members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Number theorists Scientists from Jinhua Victims of the Cultural Revolution Zhejiang University alumni People from Lanxi, Zhejiang