By Li Han
Staff Writer of the Tsinghua News Center
The Second International Symposium on the Frontier of Applied Mathematics in celebration of the 90th birthday of world-famous mathematician Chia-Chiao Lin opened in Tsinghua on June 8.
The symposium, which runs through June 9, features lectures on frontier of applied mathematics by 15 scientists.
State Councilor Chen Zhili, Ms. Wu Qidi, Vice Minister of Education, Mr. Sun Zhaohua, deputy general directors of State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, Professor Chen Xi, Chairman of Tsinghua University Council, and Tsinghua Vice President Gong Ke, attended the opening ceremony held in the morning. Tsinghua Vice President Kang Kejun hosted the ceremony.
State Councilor Chen Zhili addressed the ceremony. She wished Professor Lin a happy birthday and the symposium a complete success. Professor Lin has made important contributions to education and scientific development in China, State Councilor Chen noted. She also stressed the importance of innovation in her speech.
Professor Chia-Chiao Lin graduated from Tsinghua in 1937. He got ph. D from the California Institute of Technology in 1944 and was successively associate professor, professor of mathematics, and Professor Emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1947. Professor Lin was invited an honorary professor of Tsinghua in 1979 and then professor of Tsinghua in 2001. Professor Lin is now the Honorary Director of the Zhou Pei-Yuan Center for Applied Mathematics, Tsinghua University.
Prof. Lin devoted most of his life to the development of applied mathematics and achieved great success in applying mathematics to advance several areas of natural sciences, including fluid mechanics and astrophysics. Now, he is making an endeavor to do the same for biology, specifically, in the study of protein structure and the mechanism of protein folding.
Tsinghua President Gu Binglin, Professor C. N. Yang, the Nobel Prize Winner, and Professor Andrew Chi-chih Yao, the Turing Award Winner, attended the dinner party in celebration of the 90th birthday of Professor C. C. Lin.
