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30 June 2007

la vie mathematique: He made Gauss-Bonnet a household word

Shiing-shen Chern

Born 26 October 1911 in Chia-hsing (or Jiaxing), Chekiang province (now Zhejiang), China; died 3 December 2004 in Tianjin Municipality, China

In 1979 a Symposium held to honor the Chinese mathematician Shiing-shen Chern sang this tribute:

Hail to Chern! Mathematics' Greatest!
He made Gauss-Bonnet a household word,
Intrinsic proofs he found,
Throughout the World his truths abound,
Chern classes he gave us,
and Secondary Invariants,
Fibre Bundles and Sheaves,
Distributions and Foliated Leaves!
All Hail All Hail to CHERN!


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