On January 5-6, a conference was held in ECNU to provide an overview of the 40-year history of algebraic groups, algebraic geometry and representation theory in China, while also commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Cao Xihua, a Chinese mathematician.
Conference held on China's mathematics history commemorates mathematician Cao Xihua.
Cao Xihua（1920-2005）was born on March 24, 1920. He was admitted to the Department of Mathematics of Chongqing University in 1940 before transferring to the Department of Mathematics of Zhejiang University in September 1942. In September of 1948, he pursued a doctor's degree in math at the University of Michigan in United States. His doctoral supervisor was Richard Dagobert Brauer (1901～1977), a leading American mathematician who specialized in group theory. Prof. Cao returned to China in September of 1950 and subsequently hired as an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics of Zhejiang University.
In October of 1951, he was transferred to the Department of Mathematics of ECNU and became dean in 1958. Later he was promoted to professor in 1979 and doctoral supervisor thereafter.
Prof. Cao was a major contributor to the development of mathematics in China. In having cultivated a number of notable algebra postgraduates, algebra teams, quantum group researchers and teachers composed of the elderly, middle-aged and youth, he has been credited for establishing the teaching-research section of the Department of Mathematics of ECNU into aninfluential algebra research center, both in China and globally.
Speaking at the Conference on Forty Years of Algebraic Groups, Algebraic Geometry, and Representation Theory in China, head of the Mathematical Sciences School Tan Shengli said Prof. Cao had an enormous breadth of knowledge and had a precise , macro-control for every potential research direction in the study of mathematics.
Wang Jianpan, a former pupil of Prof. Cao and once-president of ECNU, highlighted in a speech that the life achievements of ECNU’s highly-respected professor consist of three parts in chronological order: first, Twists and Turns of Life as a Student; second, Returning to China in a Burning Desire to Pay Back to the Motherland; and third, Making Algebra Research Catch Up With the International Frontier.
James Edward Humphreys with the University of Massachusetts, who was the first foreign scholar to be invited by Prof. Cao to give lectures at ECNU, recalled unforgettable experiences on his first trip to ECNU. Mr. Cao was a major driving force that led ECNU students on the way to modern algebraic group and modular representation, he said.
Leonard L. Scott, professor of the University of Virginia, recalled the times when his university and ECNU started close cooperation and academic exchanges. "Thanks to the efforts of Prof. Cao. Since 1987, I and Mr. Brian Parshall have paid multiple visits to ECNU and witnessed the legend created by Cao in pushing forward the development of mathematics, "said Prof. Scott.
Vlastimil Dlab, professor of Canada's Carleton University, looked back on his memoires of Prof. Cao and the time when he came to China as a visiting scholar in 1990.
Cao Xihua poses for a photo at a wharf while studying in the United States in 1948.
Prof. Cao Xihua.
Prof. Cao was a passionate trailblazer, said Henning Andersen, professor from Denmark. At that time he was committed to passing the baton to the next-generation doctoral and postdoctoral students of his in expanding the bulk of Chinese researchers at ECNU, other Chinese universities and research centers. In a way, the vitality he displayed while playing the table tennis revealed the same good traits of hardworking, daring to explore and perseverance he possessed as that in his pursuit of promoting China's mathematics.
What I found very impressive was that both Prof. Cao felt his responsibility to take care of the development of algebra in all of China and he was very eager to built up international contacts and to join the worldwide endeavor of creating the mathematical basis for understanding the universe, said Claus Michael Ringle, professor of German University of Bielefeld.
In the following session, attendees shared their past experiences with Prof. Cao, paying tribute to the ECNU teacher who devoted his entire career to the cause of algebra in China and all over the world.
Editor: Zhang Linlan
Copy editor: Joshua Mayfield，Wenjun Guo
