Memorial Pavilion in Honor of Great Mathematician

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The year 2011 marks the centennial anniversary of the birth of Chen Xingshen (1911-2004), a Chinese American mathematician of international renown. Usuallya known as Shiing-Shen Chern among English-speaking mathematicians and physicists, Chen once served as a vice president of American Mathematical Society. In 1984 he founded the Nankai Institute for Mathematics at his alma mater Nankai University in Tianjin, a port city near Beijing in northern China. In 2000, he came back to live in China.

Chen’s work extends over all the classic fields of differential geometry. A number of theories are named after him. In his lifetime he received numerous honors and awards in recognition of his accomplishments.

In order to commemorate the anniversary of the great scholar, Jiaxing City Government in Zhejiang erected a pavilion across the gate of Xiuzhou Middle School, where Chen spent his middle school years.

The square structure stands more than four meters in height, with four pillars and four upward eaves in the architectural style of ancient Chinese garden landscaping. Behind the pavilion is a small river that leads to Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal nearby. On the right of the pavilion stands a granite stele with an inscription of “Beauty of Mathematics” and a great variety of geometric shapes engraved. On the back side of the stele is a brief history of the professor. The pavilion is surrounded by a group of art installations, connected with paths in the shape of X, S, Y and L.

Chen Xingshen was born on October 28, 1911 in Xiatang Street, Jiaxing. The present address of the former residence is 665 Jianguo Road. Chen’s father was a skillful writer (an academic degree recognized by the state government) in the last years of the Qing Dynasty. The father used two characters 省身 from Confucius’ Analects to name his son. As a child, Chen Xingshen loved drawing and doing arithmetic problems. Under the guidance of his grandmother who acted as his abecedarian, the prodigy studied all the three math books his father had bought for him and got all the answers right. This happened before he went to primary school and the preschooler was considered as a math wunderkind.

In 1922, the junior followed his parents to Tianjin, where his father worked as a judge. Before Chen Xingshen was to leave, the 11-year-old boy asked his grandmother to take him to Xiuzhou Middle School where he had studied. He visited the school and exited the school through its back gate and came to the river which leads to the Grand Canal. That is exactly why the pavilion stands there today.

The inscription “Beauty of Mathematics” was picked from a keynote speech by Chen Xingshen at a national mathematics symposium held in Jiaxing on April 20, 2004, nearly eight months before he passed away. Tianjin Television Studio made a namesake documentary, which was later screened across the country.

Chen passed away on December 3, 2004. He died of heart disease.