Tien-Yien Li (Chinese: 李天岩; June 28, 1945 – June 25, 2020) was a Taiwanese mathematician. He was a University Distinguished Professor of

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

and University Distinguished Professor Emeritus at

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

. 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, China. At age three, he was brought to

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

by his parents. He earned his B.S. in mathematics from

National Tsing Hua University National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) is a public research university in Hsinchu, Taiwan. It was first founded in Beijing. After the Chinese Civil War, president Mei Yiqi and other academics relocated with the retreating Nationalist government to ...

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, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

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. Life and career Born in Plainfield, ...

,'' in which the mathematical term

chaos Chaos or CHAOS may refer to: Science, technology, and astronomy * '' Chaos: Making a New Science'', a 1987 book by James Gleick * Chaos (company), a Bulgarian rendering and simulation software company * ''Chaos'' (genus), a genus of amoebae * ...

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, endowed by the late Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated d ...

, 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 peer-reviewed scientific journal of mathematics. It was established by Benjamin Finkel in 1894 and is published by Taylor & Francis on behalf of the Mathematical Association of America. It is an exposi ...

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