Notices of the International Consortium of Chinese Mathematicians

Volume 5 (2017)

Number 2

Youth, Mathematics, and a Poem Made Famous by a Famous General

Pages: 76 – 78

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4310/ICCM.2017.v5.n2.a7

Author

Lizhen Ji (Department of Mathematics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., U.S.A.)

This article was written upon a strong request of Prof. Yau. Among all the mathematicians I know, he is the most youthful according to the definition by Samuel Ullman above: Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Published 8 December 2017