Masahiko Fujiwara (; born July 9, 1943, in Shinkyo,

Manchukuo Manchukuo, officially known as the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of Great Manchuria thereafter, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China that existed from 1932 until its dissolution in 1945. It was ostens ...

) is a Japanese

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 ...

and writer who is known for his book '' The Dignity of the Nation''. He is a professor emeritus at

Ochanomizu University is a women's national university in the Ōtsuka neighborhood of Bunkyō-ku, Tokyo, Japan. Ochanomizu is the name of a Tokyo neighborhood where the university was founded. History The university traces its origins to 1875, when Tokyo Wome ...

Life

Masahiko Fujiwara is the son of

Jirō Nitta is the pen name of Japanese historical novelist . He was born in an area that is now part of the city of Suwa, Nagano Prefecture, Japan.University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

in 1966.

Biography

Masahiko Fujiwara began writing after a two-year position as associate professor at the

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

, with a book ''Wakaki sugakusha no Amerika'' designed to explain American campus life to Japanese people. He also wrote about the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, after a year's visit (''Harukanaru Kenburijji: Ichi sugakusha no Igirisu''). In a popular book on mathematics, he categorized theorems as beautiful theorems or ugly theorems. He is also known in Japan for speaking out against government reforms in secondary education. He wrote '' The Dignity of the Nation'', which according to

Time Asia ''Time'' (stylized in all caps as ''TIME'') is an American news magazine based in New York City. It was published weekly for nearly a century. Starting in March 2020, it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York Ci ...

was the second best selling book in the first six months of 2006 in Japan. In 2006, Fujiwara published ''Yo ni mo utsukushii sugaku nyumon'' ("An Introduction to the World's Most Elegant Mathematics") with the writer

Yōko Ogawa is a Japanese writer. Her work has won every major Japanese literary award, including the Akutagawa Prize and the Yomiuri Prize. Internationally, she has been the recipient of the Shirley Jackson Award and the American Book Award. '' The Memory P ...

: it is a dialogue between novelist and mathematician on the extraordinary beauty of numbers.

References

External links

Article
in the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

'' from 2007.
Online essayEssay on Literature and Mathematics
Mathematics popularizers Number theorists 20th-century Japanese mathematicians 21st-century Japanese mathematicians 1943 births Living people Recreational mathematicians Japanese people from Manchukuo University of Tokyo alumni University of Colorado Boulder faculty 20th-century Japanese essayists 21st-century Japanese essayists Academic staff of Ochanomizu University {{Japan-mathematician-stub