Celebratio Mathematica

Zala Films pro­duced a bio­graph­ic­al film about Shi­ing-Shen Chern called “Tak­ing the Long View: The Life of Shi­ing-shen Chern”. In the words of the film­maker, George Csic­sery:

Tak­ing the Long View: The Life of Shi­ing-shen Chern ex­am­ines the life of a re­mark­able math­em­atician whose clas­sic­al Chinese philo­soph­ic­al ideas helped him build bridges between China and the West. Shi­ing-shen Chern (1911–2004) is one of the fath­ers of mod­ern dif­fer­en­tial geo­metry.

His work at the In­sti­tute for Ad­vanced Study and in China dur­ing and after World War II led to his teach­ing at the Uni­versity of Chica­go in 1949. Next came Berke­ley, where he cre­ated a world-renowned cen­ter for geo­metry, and, in 1981, co-foun­ded the Math­em­at­ic­al Sci­ences Re­search In­sti­tute. Dur­ing the 1980s, he brought tal­en­ted Chinese schol­ars to the USA and Europe. By 1986, with Chinese gov­ern­ment sup­port, he es­tab­lished a math in­sti­tute at Nankai Uni­versity in Tianjin. Today it is called the Chern In­sti­tute of Math­em­at­ics.

Tak­ing the Long View: The Life of Shi­ing-shen Chern from Zala Films on Vimeo.