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China's top 10 sci-tech triumphs in 2020

By Xu Xiaoxuan: 0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, January 8, 2021

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# Two key mathematical conjectures solved by Chinese professors

People queue up to visit the research labs at the University of Science and Technology of China during an open week in Hefei, the capital city of east China's Anhui province, May 19, 2019. [Photo/VCG]

Chen Xiuxiong and Wang Bing, professors from the University of Science and Technology of China, made significant breakthroughs in differential geometry by solving the Hamilton-Tian and partial C0 conjectures — two problems that have confounded mathematicians for over two decades. Their paper was published November in the Journal of Differential Geometry, a peer-reviewed scientific journal of mathematics published by International Press on behalf of Lehigh University in the United States.

Differential geometry, a mathematical discipline that predominantly applies techniques of calculus to study problems in geometry, plays an important role in such fields as physics, astronomy and engineering.

It took the professors five years to study the conjectures and write the article, which is over 120 pages long. Reviewing the paper took a further six years to complete.

Simon Donaldson, a winner of the Fields Medal, the mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize awarded every four years to the most distinguished mathematicians aged 40 or under at the International Congress of Mathematicians, hailed it "a major breakthrough in geometry."