Mathematics is open and belongs to all mankind. We welcome scientists from different countries and fields to cooperate with each other to make mathematics the most basic, promising, and abundant science.
—— Academician Shing-Tung Yau
ICCM1998-2022
The International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians(ICCM), was initiated in 1998 by Academician Shing-Tung Yau president of ICCM and internationally renowned mathematician. Its mission is to strengthen the connection between Chinese mathematicians at home and abroad, discuss the latest progress in mathematical science, and promote the common development of Chinese mathematics and the world mathematical science.
ICCCM held once every three years, is held in Beijing, Taipei, Hong Kong, Hangzhou, and other places, the first attendance of 1998400 people in 2019 eighth 1000 people, became the international Chinese mathematics largest and most influential top academic event, greatly enriched the communication between Chinese mathematicians, Chinese mathematicians gathered at home and abroad to discuss the latest research progress in mathematics to build good academic exchange platform.
Just before ICCM2022 opens(Notes: the time to write the article), let's revisit the highlights of the World Congress of Chinese Mathematicians.
ICCM1998 Beijing
First ICCM
In the 1980s and 1990s, in the tide of studying abroad, many excellent mathematical talents emerged, completed outstanding research achievements overseas, and gradually gained a foothold in the international academic circle.
Given this, Mr.Yau originally with the help of selecting Chinese college students to study abroad, considered a world conference for Chinese mathematicians. On the one hand, it is for Chinese scholars to set up academic exchanges; on the other hand, it provides opportunities and Windows for domestic scholars and students who cannot go abroad due to various conditions to contact international cutting-edge academic trends.
From December 12 to 16,1998, the first ICCM was held in Beijing. At the opening ceremony, Yau briefly explained the purpose of the conference: "This is a historic event, the first time that Chinese mathematicians from all over the world were gathered together to present their research. Both the result and the display itself are quite spectacular.”
Yau wrote an inscription for ICCM
In 1998, the first ICCM had 13 reports and 5545-minute invitation reports from all Chinese mathematicians active around the world. Four Morningside Lectures invited outstanding non-Chinese mathematicians to promote the weak branches of mathematics in China.
According to the International Conference of Mathematicians (ICM), in addition to the reporting session, the Morningside Mathematics Award established by the first conference is also consistent with the operation mode of the Fields Award. The international nomination and authoritative mathematician review have won the reputation of the "Chinese Fields Award" because of its strictness and authority.
A group of internationally renowned mathematicians attended the first ICCM and delivered an enthusiastic academic speech, including R.Graham(Former President of the American Mathematical Society), J.P.Bourguignon(President of the European Mathematical Society and Director of the French Institute of Advanced Science), J. Jost(Director of the Max Planck Institute of Mathematics), M.Taylor(President of the London Mathematical Society), S.L.Lee(President of the Singapore Mathematical Society), T.Sunada(Treasurer of the Japanese Mathematical Society), K.S.Chang(Chairman of the South Korean Mathematical Society). During the conference, a concert was also held in the Great Hall of the China Association for Science and Technology.
ICCM 1998 Group photo of the participants
Mathematicians recalled that the organization of the conference was impressive: " The opening ceremony of the congress was held in the Great Hall of the People. In the morning, more than a dozen buses carrying the participants left from the Morningside Mathematics Center to the Great Hall to the destination.”
ICCM 2001, Taipei
Set up the Chern Prize
The second ICCM was held from December 17 to 22,2001 in Taipei Yuan Shan Hotel.
This conference specially features the “Morningside Lifetime Achievement Award in Mathematics”, awarded to Mr.Shiing-Shen Chern.
Mr.Chern was awarded the Morningside Lifetime Achievement Award for his great contributions to the founding work in Chinese mathematics, epoch-making research on differential geometry, and the support of outstanding mathematicians at home and abroad. In the 1940s, when differential geometry was at a low ebb, this field of mathematics was only beginning to be understood and applied. Mr.Chern became a pioneer of the discipline, and some of his main achievements include the proof of the characteristic class of a fiber bundle and the Gauss-Bonnet formula.
ICCM 2001 Group photo of the participants
At the same time, the conference set up the "Chern Prize" to commend Chinese mathematicians who have made outstanding contributions to mathematical research or public service in promoting the development of mathematics.
The most outstanding international mathematicians attending the second ICCM include John Coates, Gerd Faltings, Peter Lax, and others. Faltings reported to the conference and a report entitled "Progress in Applied Mathematics in the 21st Century".
The conference also organized seminars on "How Technology Affects the Economy and Business in Asia" and "Progress in Applied Mathematics in the 21st Century".
ICCM2004, Hong Kong
Establish International Cooperation Prize
The third ICCM opened on December 17, 2004, in the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, to commemorate Mr.Chern, a famous math master who died on the eve of the conference. Mr.Chern had been caring about and supporting the Chinese Mathematics and the Chinese Mathematics Community. He also donated 100,000 yuan to the Chinese Mathematicians' Conference before his death.
ICCM,2004, the site
The conference established the "International Cooperation Prize" to recognize outstanding people who promote the development of mathematics in inner China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan through cooperation, cultivation, and support for Chinese mathematicians. The first ICCM International Cooperation Prize was awarded to Professor John Coates for his selflessness in cultivating Chinese mathematicians.
In addition to more than 100 math reports, two public lectures arranged by the ICCM conference in 2004 also attracted a lot of attention. One of the lectures on mathematics and Chinese poetry, entitled " Mathematics in Poetry? Poetry in Mathematics "; another lecture on mathematics in gambling, entitled" What are my odds? A historical and modern effort to win a game of opportunity ".
The conference also set up the Hang Lung Mathematics Award, the first mathematics research competition for middle school students, which continued into the later Yau Middle School Science Award.
ICCM,2007, Hangzhou
Establish the New World Mathematics Award
From December 17 to 22,2007, the 4th World Conference of Chinese Mathematicians was held in Hangzhou. The opening ceremony of the conference was held in the Great Hall of the People in Zhejiang province, and the conference report was arranged at Zhejiang University. Twelve outstanding mathematicians were invited to give Morningside Lectures, more than 30 other mathematicians gave one-hour reports, and nearly 200 other mathematicians gave specially invited lectures in 40 mathematical thematic groups.
This conference created the New World Mathematics Award (the ICCM Graduation Thesis Award) to award the highest level of mathematical academic papers for undergraduate, master's, and doctoral students around the world.
ICCM 2007, the site
The conference also organized a panel discussion on "Women in Mathematics", including Melissa Chiu-Chu Liu, Dusa McDuff, Chuu-Lian Terng, and Claire Voisin.
The conference organized the "Challenges facing Higher Education in the 21st Century" seminar, including the President of the University of Chicago, President of the University of California at Santa Barbara, President of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Dean of Harvard College at Harvard University, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University, and President of Zhejiang University.
ICCM, 2010, Beijing
The first female mathematician won the Morningside Math Prize After 12 years, the ICCM returned to Beijing again, with the theme of commemorating Mr.Shiing-Shen Chern and Mr.Hua Luogeng.
The preface to the agenda of the fifth ICCM Conference states: " ICCM2010 aims to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Hua Luogeng and the 99th anniversary of the birth of Chen Shengshen. These two gentlemen are the greatest Chinese mathematicians of the 20th century. They both taught at Tsinghua University and trained a large number of outstanding mathematicians (including HsienChung Wang, Hao Wang, and Wan Zhexian), who have become the leading mathematicians in China. Hua Luogeng is a leading figure in the development of mathematics in modern China, and has played a positive role in promoting the establishment of the Institute of Mathematics and Systems of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.”
Wang Mudao, professor of Mathematics at Columbia University, and Wu Xiangjue, Robert W Chair Professor of Mathematics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, won the Morningside Mathematics Gold Award for their outstanding contributions to differential geometry and geometric partial differential equations and the overall adaptation of small amplitude solutions of two-dimensional and three-dimensional water wave problems. Wu Xiangjue became the first female mathematician to win the gold medal in the history of the Morningside Mathematics Prize.
ICCM,2010 The winners take a group photo with the guests
From December 18 to 22, the conference held several special academic reports and seminars at Tsinghua University, and nearly 200 mathematicians delivered reports on 30 group topics.
We can understand the purpose and atmosphere of the conference through a short article written by Professor Shing-Tung Yau for the conference.
Preface to the ICCM
ICCM began in the capital Beijing and kept for 12 years. This year of Xinmao, two thousand people were reunited in the capital hall. At the time of deep winder, cars are full on the road, all brilliant Chinese mathematicians are gathering here, taking lectures, and making friends. What a happy thing it is!
I remember Mr.Hua and my teacher Mr.Chern. They are the heroes among hundreds of Chinese generations, and they created the foundation for the future of Chinese in the next 10 thousand years. This helps China to have the potential to fly highly. It is 100 years away from these two great professors’ birthdays, can we Chinese mathematicians today forget our ancestors without any words? So I made a poem saying:
Brilliant mathematicians gather in the Great Hall,
Memorize the gone ancestors and follow what they did,
Make your mind fly away,
Like a crane mocking in the sky,
Let your heart rise up and upper,
Studying with so many friends deeper and deeper,
We are showing the beauty of mathematics,
Our song is responding with the truth of Heaven,
The sun will appear over China,
The moon will also protect us brightly.
ICCM2013 Taipei
The Morningside Mathematics Outstanding Achievement Award is presented
ICCM2013 Zhang Yitang won the Morningside Mathematics Outstanding Achievement Award
On July 14-19,2013, the 6th ICCM was held in Taipei.
The Morningside Mathematics Outstanding Achievement Award was awarded to Zhang Yitang for his breakthrough in the twin prime number issue. In Zhang Yitang's group report, the famous mathematician Dr. Jean-Pierre Serre asked him a question about the use of the exponential and the key steps in Zhang's proof process (related to the work of Hermann Weyl's algebraic curve on finite fields). Zhang Yitang immediately gave a perfect answer, to which Sell was very satisfied, and said on the spot that he liked the answer —— This became a story of mathematicians exchanging ideas and colliding during the conference of Chinese mathematicians.
ICCM2016 Beijing
More than 1,500 people attended the opening ceremony
On August 6, 2016, the 7th ICCM opened in the Great Hall of the People, and more than 1,500 people attended the opening ceremony.
ICCM2016, the conference site
Zhang Wei, a professor of mathematics at Columbia University, and Li Si, a professor of the Mathematics Science Center and Department of Tsinghua University, won the Morningside Mathematics Prize. Yin Wotao, a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles, won the Morningside Gold Medal in Applied Mathematics. Chen Binglong, Lan Kaiwen, Lei Leming, Yin Jun, Ying Lexing, and Yun Zhiwei won the silver award of the Morningside Mathematics Award. The conference also presented the Chern Prize and the ICCM International Cooperation Award.
The participants discussed the frontier progress in various major fields of mathematics, including "The Golden Age of Basic Physics", "Quantitative Biology and Biomedicine", and "The Irrational Effect of Big Data". Eight outstanding mathematicians gave Morningside lectures, more than 30 mathematicians gave one-hour reports, and more than 100 mathematicians gave invited reports.
ICCM2019 Beijing
The most consecutive speakers at the conferences
From June 9 to 14,2019, on the occasion of the 21st anniversary of the establishment of the conference, the 8th World Chinese Mathematicians Conference was held at Tsinghua University, which is also the second cycle of Tsinghua University after the fifth ICCM held in Tsinghua University in 2010.
ICCM2019, the site
Yun Zhiwei, professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Zhu Xinwen, professor of mathematics at the California Institute of Technology respectively due to their generalization work and outstanding contributions in the integral Springer theory, rigid self-serving formalism, inverse Galois problem and the Gross-Zagier formula to higher order derivatives, and in the proof of Coherence Conjecture, the solution of the Kottwitz conjecture and in geometric Satake equivalence, won The ICCM Mathematics Golden Award.
The conference has 376 speakers, the most ever. During the six-day session, Wolf Prize winner, Academician Richard Schoern of the University of California, Fields Prize winner, Vaughan Jones of Vanderbilt University, USA, and other 7 world's top mathematicians delivered outstanding reports. 9 forum speakers, 34 1-hour speakers, 300 45-minute speakers, and 26 20-minute speakers participated in special academic reports and mathematical seminars, covering a wide range of mathematical sciences, including number theory, geometry, differential equations, statistics, artificial intelligence, and biological mathematics.
Content sources:
[1]ICCM Notices, Vol. 4 (2016), No.1, P. 73-87,Chinese mathematics and the ICCM.
[2]“中国数学与世界华人数学家大会”, 2016年5月19日
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/5beJZygKp5gJwQOcX3g4hQ
[3]中国新闻网, “第四届华人数学家大会在杭州举行”, 2007年12月17
https://www.chinanews.com.cn/hr/zgqj/news/2007/12-17/1106927.shtml
[4]中国科学报，“第七届世界华人数学家大会召开”, 2016年8月8日
https://www.cas.cn/cm/201608/t20160808_4570661.shtml
[5]第八届世界华人数学家大会在京开幕 三大奖项全部揭晓
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/yRFOeesQt_RgDqWppLtkgw
ICCM2022 will be held in Nanjing soon
ICCM has decided to Academician John Coates’s name for the ICCM International Cooperation Award.
Content arrangement / typesetting: Zhang Yan
Translation: Gao Xudong
