Published : 2025-03-19
The famous Chinese mathematician Chen Jingrun (陳景潤) passed away in Beijing on March 19, 1996, at the age of 63.
Chen Jingrun was born on May 22, 1933, in Fuzhou, Fujian. Since childhood, he was sensitive to numbers and loved mathematics. He was admitted to the Mathematics Department of Xiamen University with excellent grades.
After graduating from university in 1953, Chen was assigned to teach at Beijing No. 4 High School, but due to his unclear speech, he was "suspended from teaching to return home for treatment."
In 1954, Chen Jingrun was transferred back to Xiamen University as a data clerk. During this time, he began researching number theory, combinatorial mathematics, modern economic management, and other areas.
In February 1955, Mr. Wang Yanan (王亞南), the president of Xiamen University, recommended Chen for the position of assistant professor in the Mathematics Department.
Later, in September 1957, he was favoured by Professor Hua Luogeng (華羅庚) and was able to transfer to the Institute of Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) as a research intern.
Subsequently, he worked at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics under the CAS.
Chen Jingrun's mathematical achievements were outstanding. He made several significant research contributions in the field of analytic number theory and received numerous honours, including the National Natural Science Award (First Class), the He Liang He Li Foundation Award (何梁何利基金獎), and the Hua Luogeng Mathematics Award.
In May 1965, Chen published a paper titled On the Representation of a Large Even Integer as a Sum of a Prime and the Product of at Most Two Primes. This was a milestone in the research of the "Goldbach Conjecture".
The paper immediately attracted great attention and praise from the mathematics community and numerous mathematicians. British mathematician Heini Halberstam and German mathematician Michael M. Richter even included Chen Jingrun's paper in mathematics books, referring to it as the "Chen's Theorem".
Chen Jingrun also authored books such as Talks on Mathematical Amusements and Combinatorial Mathematics.
