Chow Wei-Liang (; October 1, 1911,

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

– August 10, 1995,

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

) was a Chinese-American

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

stamp collector Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects. It is an area of philately, which is the study (or combined study and collection) of stamps. It has been one of the world's most popular hobbies since the late nineteenth ...

. He was well known for his work in

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics which uses abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, to solve geometry, geometrical problems. Classically, it studies zero of a function, zeros of multivariate polynomials; th ...

Biography

Chow was a student in the US, graduating from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

in 1931. In 1932 he attended the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

, then transferred to the

Leipzig University Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...

where he worked with

van der Waerden Bartel Leendert van der Waerden (; 2 February 1903 – 12 January 1996) was a Dutch mathematician and historian of mathematics. Biography Education and early career Van der Waerden learned advanced mathematics at the University of Amster ...

. They produced a series of joint papers on

intersection theory In mathematics, intersection theory is one of the main branches of algebraic geometry, where it gives information about the intersection of two subvarieties of a given variety. The theory for varieties is older, with roots in Bézout's theorem o ...

, introducing in particular the use of what are now generally called

Chow coordinates In mathematics, particularly in the field of algebraic geometry, a Chow variety is an algebraic variety whose points correspond to effective algebraic cycles of fixed dimension and degree on a given projective space. More precisely, the Chow variet ...

(which were in some form familiar to

Arthur Cayley Arthur Cayley (; 16 August 1821 – 26 January 1895) was a British mathematician who worked mostly on algebra. He helped found the modern British school of pure mathematics, and was a professor at Trinity College, Cambridge for 35 years. He ...

). He married Margot Victor in 1936, and took a position at the

National Central University National Central University (; abbreviated NCU; ) is a public research university based in Taiwan. It was founded in 1902 in Nanjing; initially located in Miaoli after moving to Taiwan, it relocated to Zhongli in 1962 and developed into a com ...

Nanjing Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yang ...

. His mathematical work was seriously affected by the wartime situation in China. He taught at the National Tung-Chi University in

in the academic year 1946–47, and then went to the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

Princeton Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the Unit ...

, where he returned to his research. From 1948 to 1977 he was a professor at

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

. He was also a

, known for his book ''Shanghai Large Dragons, The First Issue of The Shanghai Local Post'', published in 1996.

Research

According to the Chinese-American mathematician and Wolf Prize laureate

Shiing-Shen Chern Shiing-Shen Chern (; , ; October 26, 1911 – December 3, 2004) was a Chinese American mathematician and poet. He made fundamental contributions to differential geometry and topology. He has been called the "father of modern differential geome ...

, "Wei-Liang was an original and versatile mathematician, although his major field was algebraic geometry. He made several fundamental contributions to mathematics: # A fundamental issue in algebraic geometry is intersection theory. The Chow ring has many advantages and is widely used. # The Chow associated forms give a description of the moduli space of the algebraic varieties in projective space. It gives a beautiful solution of an important problem. # His theorem that a compact analytic variety in a projective space is algebraic is justly famous. The theorem shows the close analogy between algebraic geometry and algebraic number theory. # Generalizing a result of Caratheodory on thermodynamics, he formulated a theorem on accessibility of differential spaces. The theorem plays a fundamental role in control theory. # A lesser-known paper of his on homogeneous spaces gives a beautiful treatment of the geometry known as the projective geometry of matrices and treated by elaborate calculations. His discussions are valid in a more general context."

References

External links

* * *
Catalog listing for ''Shanghai Large Dragons, The First Issue of The Shanghai Local Post''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chow, Wei-Liang 1911 births 1995 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 20th-century Chinese mathematicians Academic staff of Tongji University Algebraic geometers Chinese emigrants to the United States Educators from Shanghai Johns Hopkins University faculty Mathematicians from Shanghai University of Chicago alumni Leipzig University alumni

Biography

Research

See also

References

External links