Chen Jingrun

{{Infobox scientist

|name = Chen Jingrun

|image = Chen Jingrun.jpg

|birth_date = 22 May 1933

|birth_place = Fuzhou, Fujian, China

|death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1996|3|19|1933|5|22}}

|death_place = Beijing, China

|field = Mathematics

|alma_mater = Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xiamen University

|doctoral_advisor = Hua Luogeng

|known_for = Chen's theorem, Chen prime

|module = {{Chinese|child=yes|t=陳景潤|s=陈景润|p=Chén Jǐngrùn|w=Chʻen² Ching³-jun⁴|mi={{IPAc-cmn|ch|en|2|-|j|ing|3|.|r|un|4}}|buc=Dìng Gīng-nông}}

}}

Chen Jingrun ({{zh|s=陳景潤}}; 22 May 1933 – 19 March 1996), also known as Jing-Run Chen, was a Chinese mathematician who made significant contributions to number theory, including Chen's theorem and the Chen prime.

Life and career

Chen was the third son in a large family from Fuzhou, Fujian, China. His father was a postal worker. Chen Jingrun graduated from the Mathematics Department of Xiamen University in 1953. His advisor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences was Hua Luogeng.

His work on the twin prime conjecture, Waring's problem, Goldbach's conjecture and Legendre's conjecture led to progress in analytic number theory. In a 1966 paper he proved what is now called Chen's theorem: every sufficiently large even number can be written as the sum of a prime and a semiprime (the product of two primes) – e.g., 100 = 23 + 7·11.{{cite book|last=Song|first=Yuwu|title=Biographical Dictionary of the People's Republic of China|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DGbyzKLVh30C&pg=PA35|year=2014|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-1-4766-0298-1|page=35}} Despite being persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, he expanded his proof in the 1970s.{{Cite web|url=http://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2017/1218/c405173-29711930.html|title=徐迟报告文学的突破、经验及警示意义|author=Shi Xingze 石兴泽|date=18 December 2017|publisher=China Writers' Association|language=zh|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191026035456/http://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2017/1218/c405173-29711930.html |archive-date=26 October 2019 |access-date=4 October 2019}}

After the end of the Cultural Revolution, Xu Chi wrote a biography of Chen entitled Goldbach's Conjecture ({{lang|zh|哥德巴赫猜想}}). First published in People's Literature in January 1978, it was reprinted on the People's Daily a month later and became a national sensation. Chen became a household name in China and received a sackful of love letters from all over the country within two months.{{Cite web|url=http://mjlsh.usc.cuhk.edu.hk/Book.aspx?cid=4&tid=3821|title=揭开诗人徐迟跳楼之谜|author=Zhang Shouren 张守仁|date=December 2016|publisher=Chinese University of Hong Kong|language=zh|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201107175338/http://mjlsh.usc.cuhk.edu.hk/Book.aspx?cid=4&tid=3821 |archive-date=7 November 2020 |access-date=4 October 2019}}

Chen died of complications of pneumonia on 19 March 1996, at the age of 62 years.{{Cite journal|url=https://thejns.org/focus/view/journals/neurosurg-focus/41/1/article-pE11.xml|doi = 10.3171/2016.2.FOCUS1595|title = Chen Jingrun, China's famous mathematician: Devastated by brain injuries on the doorstep to solving a fundamental mathematical puzzle|year = 2016|last1 = Lei|first1 = Ting|last2 = Belykh|first2 = Evgenii|last3 = Dru|first3 = Alexander B.|last4 = Yagmurlu|first4 = Kaan|last5 = Elhadi|first5 = Ali M.|last6 = Nakaji|first6 = Peter|last7 = Preul|first7 = Mark C.|journal = Neurosurgical Focus|volume = 41|issue = 1|pages = E11|pmid = 27364253|doi-access = free}}

Legacy

File:A statue of Chen Jingrun.JPG, China.|250px]]

The asteroid 7681 Chenjingrun, discovered in 1996, was named after him.

In 1999, China issued an 80-cent postage stamp, titled The Best Result of Goldbach Conjecture, with a silhouette of Chen and the inequality:

: $P_x(1, 2) \ge \frac{0.67xC_x}{(\log x)^2}.$

Several statues in China have been built in memory of Chen. At Xiamen University, the names of Chen and four other mathematicians — Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, Matti Jutila, Yuri Linnik, and Pan Chengdong — are inscribed in the marble slab behind Chen's statue (see image).

Works

J.-R. Chen, On the representation of a large even integer as the sum of a prime and a product of at most two primes, Sci. Sinica 16 (1973), 157–176.
Chen, J.R, "On the representation of a large even integer as the sum of a prime and the product of at most two primes". [Chinese] J. Kexue Tongbao 17 (1966), 385–386.
"Fundamental Number Theory"

References

Pan Chengdong and Wang Yuan, [https://web.archive.org/web/20070715052529/http://www.numbertheory.org/obituaries/OTHERS/chen/ Chen Jingrun: a brief outline of his life and works, Acta Math. Sinica (NS) 12 (1996) 225–233.]

External links

{{MathGenealogy|id=25269}}
[https://web.archive.org/web/20040401112756/http://www.math.ac.cn/Chinese/B/Chenjr/Chenjr.htm Chen's home page]{{in lang|zh}} at the [https://web.archive.org/web/20040401122341/http://www.math.ac.cn/English/2/History.htm Chinese Institute of Mathematics].

Category:1933 births

Category:1996 deaths

Category:20th-century Chinese mathematicians

Category:Academic staff of Guizhou Nationalities University

Category:Academic staff of Henan University

Category:Academic staff of Huazhong University of Science and Technology

Category:Academic staff of Qingdao University

Category:Academic staff of Xiamen University

Category:Academic staff of Fujian Normal University

Category:Delegates to the 4th National People's Congress

Category:Delegates to the 5th National People's Congress

Category:Delegates to the 6th National People's Congress