Chen Jingrun
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Chen Jingrun (; 22 May 1933 – 19 March 1996), also known as Jing-Run Chen, 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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...
who made significant contributions to
number theory Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example ...
, including
Chen's theorem In number theory, Chen's theorem states that every sufficiently large parity (mathematics), even number can be written as the sum of either two prime number, primes, or a prime and a semiprime (the product of two primes). It is a weakened form o ...
and the Chen prime.


Life and career

Chen was the third son in a large family from
Fuzhou Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian, China. The city lies between the Min River (Fujian), Min River estuary to the south and the city of Ningde to the north. Together, Fuzhou and Ningde make up the Eastern Min, Mindong linguistic and cultural regi ...
,
Fujian Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefe ...
, China. His father was a postal worker. Chen Jingrun graduated from the Mathematics Department of Xiamen University in 1953. His advisor at the
Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS; ) is the national academy for natural sciences and the highest consultancy for science and technology of the People's Republic of China. It is the world's largest research organization, with 106 research i ...
was Hua Luogeng. His work on the twin prime conjecture, Waring's problem,
Goldbach's conjecture Goldbach's conjecture is one of the oldest and best-known list of unsolved problems in mathematics, unsolved problems in number theory and all of mathematics. It states that every even and odd numbers, even natural number greater than 2 is the ...
and Legendre's conjecture led to progress in
analytic number theory In mathematics, analytic number theory is a branch of number theory that uses methods from mathematical analysis to solve problems about the integers. It is often said to have begun with Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet's 1837 introduction of Dir ...
. In a 1966 paper he proved what is now called
Chen's theorem In number theory, Chen's theorem states that every sufficiently large parity (mathematics), even number can be written as the sum of either two prime number, primes, or a prime and a semiprime (the product of two primes). It is a weakened form o ...
: every
sufficiently large In the mathematical areas of number theory and analysis, an infinite sequence or a function is said to eventually have a certain property, if it does not have the said property across all its ordered instances, but will after some instances have ...
even number can be written as the sum of a prime and a semiprime (the product of two primes) – e.g., 100 = 23 + 7·11. Despite being persecuted during the
Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...
, he expanded his proof in the 1970s. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, Xu Chi wrote a biography of Chen entitled ''Goldbach's Conjecture'' (). First published in '' People's Literature'' in January 1978, it was reprinted on the ''
People's Daily The ''People's Daily'' ( zh, s=人民日报, p=Rénmín Rìbào) is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the CCP in multiple lan ...
'' a month later and became a national sensation. Chen became a household name in China and received a sackful of love letters from all over the country within two months. Chen died of complications of pneumonia on 19 March 1996, at the age of 62 years.


Legacy

The
asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...
7681 Chenjingrun, discovered in 1996, was named after him. In 1999, China issued an 80-cent postage stamp, titled ''The Best Result of Goldbach Conjecture,'' with a silhouette of Chen and the inequality: : P_x(1, 2) \ge \frac. Several statues in China have been built in memory of Chen. At Xiamen University, the names of Chen and four other mathematicians — Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, Matti Jutila, Yuri Linnik, and Pan Chengdong — are inscribed in the marble slab behind Chen's statue (see image).


Works

*J.-R. Chen, On the representation of a large even integer as the sum of a prime and a product of at most two primes, Sci. Sinica 16 (1973), 157–176. *Chen, J.R, "On the representation of a large even integer as the sum of a prime and the product of at most two primes". hineseJ. Kexue Tongbao 17 (1966), 385–386. *"Fundamental Number Theory"


References

*Pan Chengdong and Wang Yuan
''Chen Jingrun: a brief outline of his life and works'', Acta Math. Sinica (NS) 12 (1996) 225–233.


External links

*

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Chen, Jingrun 1933 births 1996 deaths 20th-century Chinese mathematicians Academic staff of Guizhou Nationalities University Academic staff of Henan University Academic staff of Huazhong University of Science and Technology Academic staff of Qingdao University Academic staff of Xiamen University Academic staff of Fujian Normal University Delegates to the 4th National People's Congress Delegates to the 5th National People's Congress Delegates to the 6th National People's Congress Writers from Fuzhou Educators from Fujian Mathematicians from Fujian Members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Number theorists People from Fuzhou Xiamen University alumni