Transnational Mathematics and Movements: Shiingshen Chern, Hua Luogeng, and the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study from World War II to the Cold War

跨国数学和迁徙--从第二次世界大战到冷战时期的陈省身、华罗庚和普林斯顿高等研究院

This paper reconstructs,based on American and Chinese primary sources,the visits of Chinese mathematicians Shiing-shen Chern陈省身(Chen Xingshen)and Hua Luogeng华罗庚(Loo-Keng Hua)4 to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in the United States in the 1940s,especially their interactions with Oswald Veblen and Hermann Weyl,two leading mathematicians at the IAS.It argues that Chern’s and Hua’s motivations and choices in regard to their transnational movements between China and the US were more nuanced and multifaceted than what is presented in existing accounts,and that socio-political factors combined with professional-personal ones to shape their decisions.The paper further uses their experiences to demonstrate the importance of transnational scientific interactions for the development of science in China,the US,and elsewhere in the twentieth century.

本文根据中美史料重建中国数学家陈省身和华罗庚在20世纪40年代访问美国普林斯顿高等研究院的经过,尤其是他们与该院两位著名数学家维布伦(Oswald Veblen)和外尔(Hermann Weyl)的交往。文章提出,陈省身和华罗庚在中美之间进行跨国迁移时,他们的动机和选择比现有研究所呈现出来的更加复杂和多面,而且是社会、政治因素与个人、专业考量交织在一起的结果。文章用他们的经历来论证跨国科学交流对中国、美国和其他地方20世纪科学发展的重要性。