Liu Kefeng, born in December 1965, graduated from Peking University in 1985, and received a doctorate in mathematics from Harvard University in 1993. In 2, he was an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics at UCLA, and in 22, he was a professor in the Department of Mathematics. In 23, he served as executive director and head of the Department of Mathematics of Zhejiang University, and the first batch of Guangbiao professors. Editor-in-chief of Analysis and Geometry Communication.
Liu Kefeng, a professor at UCLA, Guangbiao Professor at Zhejiang University and Executive Director of Mathematics Center, is a world-renowned young master of mathematics.
He proved the marino-Wafa conjecture, the "mirror conjecture" in superstrings, the Qiu Chengtong conjecture in differential geometry, and the famous Witten rigidity theorem in topological quantum field theory ...
He dabbled in many different fields of mathematics, always grasping the most important problems in this field every time, giving simple but exquisite proofs, in differential geometry, topology, mathematical physics and so on.
In p>24, Liu Kefeng was awarded the Morningside Gold Medal, the highest prize in Chinese mathematics, at the 3rd International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians. In addition, he has won many awards, such as Harmo Prize, Sloan Prize and Terman Prize.
A student in Liu Kefeng said, "Whenever there is a class with Mr. Liu, the classroom is always full. His humorous language and profound and wise thoughts always show the essence behind boring concepts to the audience. As soon as he begins to speak, all eyes are attracted by him. In the eyes of ordinary people, abstruse mathematics and old-fashioned mathematics are as fascinating as Zhang Hui's novels. " Liu Kefeng was born in Kaifeng, Henan Province in 1965. As a child, he was a famous troublemaker in the school. Because my father changed jobs as a soldier in Tianjin, he studied in Tianjin. Young Liu Kefeng can't see the shadow of a genius mathematician. He is stubborn and naughty, and climbing trees is a common occurrence.
at first, Liu Kefeng's grades were average. In the third year, the situation changed sharply, because a beautiful girl came to the class, and her appearance made Liu Kefeng feel the inner shock. This girl is not only beautiful, but also has excellent grades. She was the first in her class in the first exam.
Liu Kefeng fell in love with this girl at first sight, and his admiration grew deeper and deeper. He began to secretly think about how to win the girl's heart. He found that girls like to associate with studious students. There is a door! From then on, he changed his past carelessness, worked hard, and his grades soared, especially in mathematics, winning prizes frequently in various competitions. Finally, his outstanding performance was not in vain. In the end, he climbed the palace and won the laurel, and Lingzhi was extremely proud of Ganoderma lucidum.
I don't want to kill two birds with one stone. Liu Kefeng accidentally discovered that he fell in love with a "lover" while embracing the beauty's heart, and stayed with him for life, often on a whim in the middle of the night, getting up and savoring.
This "lover" is math.
In p>1981, he was admitted to the Mathematics Department of Peking University. Four years later, Liu Kefeng was admitted to the Institute of Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Since then, he has embraced a "lover" with a beautiful woman, swimming between material beauty and spiritual beauty, and he has stepped on one difficult problem after another, singing all the way in the field of mathematics and heading for the commanding heights of life.
This unusual mathematician lamented: "With two beautiful women, this life is enough." In the summer of 1985, Liu Kefeng, who had just graduated from university and was admitted to graduate school, attended the National Summer Mathematics Class for Postgraduates held by Chen Shengshen at Nankai University, and met Chen Shengshen, the world's leading geometer.
Chen Shengshen's achievements are called "Chen lei" in mathematics, which has brought differential geometry into a new era and influenced the development of mathematics and modern theoretical physics.
The first time I attended a master's academic lecture, Liu Kefeng was attracted by Chen's charming smile magnet.
Chen Shengshen personally designated the textbook for the summer school —— "Topology Lecture Notes" by American mathematician Porter. For Liu Kefeng, who just graduated, this book is awkward and difficult to understand, just like a gobbledygook. Fortunately, he has perseverance and toughness. He believes that the textbooks designated by the master must be good things, so he chews them repeatedly even though he doesn't understand them.
gradually, Liu Kefeng likes this textbook. Liu Kefeng recalled: "On a hot summer day in July, 1986, I was lying on a mat in a daze, but my mind was full of thoughts on how to localize. Suddenly, my confused mind was wide open, and I sat up with a carp, and my mind was shining with excitement that the key step-Porter's formula is the answer to the question! "
"That moment can be said to be the most exciting moment in my research career. The idea of that moment gave me the first paper in my life and also gave me the confidence to become a mathematician. "
On a cold morning in December p>1987, after playing all night, Liu Kefeng, who was curled up in bed, was awakened by a quick knock at the door. The bearer was Wang Qiming, deputy director of the Graduate School of Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Liu Kefeng's laziness was immediately dispelled by Professor Wang's enthusiasm. It turns out that when Wang Qiming saw his paper, he found its novelty and subtlety, so he came to you personally.
"You have a good foundation and should go abroad for further study." Wang Qiming said. At the beginning of 1988, Liu Kefeng, who was just married and immersed in happiness, suddenly received the doctoral application form from the Department of Mathematics of Harvard University. The sender was actually Qiu Chengtong, a master of mathematics.
at the age of 27, Qiu Chengtong solved Calabi's conjecture, a difficult mathematical problem in the world, and at the age of 33, he won the Fields Medal, the highest prize in mathematics in the world. It was Wang Qiming who sent Liu Kefeng's paper to Qiu Chengtong. Qiu Chengtong took a fancy to Liu Kefeng at first sight, and his heart of cherishing talents and his love for talents were sudden, so he was taken into his family.
Liu Kefeng was so happy that she was in a dream. In September 1988, Liu Kefeng came to Harvard and became a disciple of Qiu Chengtong.
At Harvard, Liu Kefeng met the "crooked" Porter. In life, Porter is never "bent and twisted". When Porter's theorem of residue is combined with this straight-backed, unhurried porter on Harvard campus, Liu Kefeng's excitement can be imagined. Porter is a dream for him. It was this dream that led him to Harvard, and now this dream extends to his future.
From the beginning, Porter fell in love with this handsome, intelligent and talented China boy.
Witten, a legend in physics and mathematics, focused on history in college, turned to physics as a graduate student, and later benefited from Porter's guidance, and made extraordinary achievements in mathematics, winning the highest prize in mathematics-the Fields Prize. He put forward a famous conjecture-Witten's rigidity theorem in the 198s. The conjecture put forward by the students, as a teacher, is proved by Bao Te and another mathematician, Tao Bushi, but this proof is so complicated that almost no mathematician can understand their proof.
Liu Kefeng, a fearless young man, openly proposed to find a new way to simplify the proof of the teacher's teacher, Porter. A few months later, he gave an extremely exquisite proof, completely clarified the difficulties in this field, and applied the modular form to the study of topology and geometry for the first time, opening up a new research direction.
"After the proof, no one believed that my proof was correct. I talk to Porter once a week to explain my proof. " Liu Kefeng said, "Porter invited me to talk about my achievements in his seminar. Many big professors came to the first seminar. Later, a great mathematician told me that I was talking about a very sensitive topic that others dared not talk about. " At that time, many mathematicians doubted the correctness of the rigidity theorem.
Liu Kefeng really succeeded! He not only made a great breakthrough in the understanding of Witten's rigidity theorem just proved by Porter and Taubusch, but also gave an extremely concise and "very beautiful" proof, and also deduced several brand-new rigidity and extinction theorems, and found an unexpected and profound connection with other branches of mathematics. Porter was more excited than Liu Kefeng and rushed to Paris to give a speech on Liu Kefeng's latest achievements.
Many years later, Porter wrote emotionally in the introduction of his complete works: "Liu gave an extremely concise proof of Witten's rigidity theorem, and found a brand-new rigidity theorem and its unexpected connection with infinite dimensional Lie algebra. I am glad to see that my beloved attiya-Porter fixed point theorem still plays an important role here."
in p>1993, Dr. Liu Kefeng graduated. At this time, he has been widely recognized in American mathematics, and universities have invited him to work. He has taught at MIT, Stanford and UCLA.
Liu Kefeng's career has entered a high-yield period. The conquest of mirror symmetry conjecture won him the Gu Geng Harmo Prize, which is one of the highest awards given to American scientists, artists and writers who have made great achievements.
Since p>1994, Liu Kefeng has been presiding over and undertaking important scientific research projects such as the National Science Foundation of the United States, and won the Sloan Award and the Terman Award. At this time, Liu Kefeng has become one of the first-class mathematicians in the world, and his academic status has been recognized by his peers.
in p>2, he came to UCLA. This is where the tutor Qiu Chengtong proved Calabi's conjecture, and where many famous mathematicians proved their famous theorems. As soon as Liu Kefeng arrived here, a more amazing world problem immediately entered his field of vision-marino-Wafa conjecture. Together with Sun Xiaofeng and Qiu Chengtong, he proved Qiu himself's world-famous conjecture about the equivalence of geometric measurement more than 2 years ago. Internationally, the three of them are named after the new metric introduced in their proofs: Liu-Sun-Qiu metric. In August 22, the newly built Yongqian Mathematics Building in Zhejiang University attracted the attention of the whole world. The string theory meeting of the International Congress of Mathematicians was held here. The "Gemini" in the international physics field-"Newton" Witten and "Einstein in Wheelchair" Hawking gathered in Hangzhou, and Nobel Prize winner Gross and others attended the meeting. The organizers of this activity are Qiu Chengtong and Liu Kefeng.
The Mathematics Center of Zhejiang University was established after nearly two years' brewing with the direct efforts of Qiu Chengtong. However, after the establishment of the center, there is a lack of a leading figure who can lead the world mathematics trend. Qiu Chengtong thought of Liu Kefeng.
At that time, Liu Kefeng was at the best of his life and career. In 22, he won the Harmo Prize of Gu Geng, and therefore received a rare award-a year off. Before he could make arrangements for this year, the teacher called his home: "Can you go to the Mathematics Center of Zhejiang University to preside over the work?"
in June, 23, China was shrouded in the shadow of SARS, but Liu Kefeng flew to Hangzhou and was employed as the executive director of the Mathematics Center of Zhejiang University and concurrently the head of the Mathematics Department.
after Liu Kefeng took office, the center operated in full accordance with international practice, with professors ruling the department and establishing academic, teaching and logistics committees, so that the front-line professors could have autonomy; Publishing the latest academic achievements on the Internet, implementing the online office system, and advocating the communication between professors and students on the Internet. As soon as this move came out, the mathematics departments of various schools across the country followed suit, proposing to cancel the requirement that master students must publish papers and implement the reading report system, so as to eliminate the phenomenon that master students make fraud for publishing papers.
In order to cultivate top talents, Liu Kefeng is determined to start from the foundation, set up a mathematical talent class in Qiu Chengtong, recruit talents from all over the world, and personally select talents from various middle schools.
how to attract high-level mathematicians to center teaching and research? Liu Kefeng has its own brilliant idea: to attract celebrities by holding top international academic activities. In the past three years, the Mathematics Center of Zhejiang University has held more than 3 major events, attracting a large number of world-class masters to exchange and give lectures here: Witten, winner of the Fields Prize, Hawking, winner of the Wolff Prize, Gross and Hofter, winner of the Turing Prize, Yao Qizhi, academicians of the European and American National Academy of Sciences, Coates, Boer, Hall, Xiao Gai, Bo Guinong, Hamilton, Cafarelli, Luztiege ... There are 4 professors of Guangbiao, 1 professor of Changjiang and 3 senior professors in the Mathematics Center.
In just three years, the mathematics discipline of Zhejiang University has soared, ranking among the best in China. The enrollment ranking of the mathematics department of Zhejiang University jumped from the fifth place in the whole school to the top two. After arriving at Zhejiang University, Liu Kefeng still made a lot of achievements. His marino-Wafa conjecture proved to be one of the top ten scientific and technological advances in Chinese universities in 24. Qiu and Liu jointly proved Qiu's world-famous conjecture about geometric measurement equivalence put forward more than 2 years ago, and Zhang Yi, a postdoctoral fellow at Zhejiang University Mathematics Center, made an important breakthrough in the research on the rigidity of Calabi-Qiu nationality. These three landmark achievements were hired and published by the top international publications, Journal of American Mathematical Society and Journal of Differential Geometry, and were highly praised by international academic circles.
Liu Kefeng feels more and more that mathematics is so simple and beautiful, simple and gorgeous, like Xizi Lake's light makeup, so beautiful that no words can express it. At the Third World Congress of Chinese Mathematicians, Liu Kefeng won the highest prize, the "Morningside Mathematics Gold Award". Facing the media reporters, he frankly expressed his love for mathematics: "If there is an afterlife, I will still be a mathematician!" "