Chen Jingrun

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Chen Jingrun
Born	May 22, 1933
Died	March 19, 1996
Fields	Mathematics
Known for	Chen theorem

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This is a Chinese name; the family name is Chen.

Chen Jingrun (traditional Chinese: 陳景潤; simplified Chinese: 陈景润; pinyin: Chén Jǐngrùn; Wade-Giles: Ch'en Chingjun, May 22, 1933–March 19, 1996) was a Chinese mathematician who made significant contributions to number theory. Chen is ranked as one of the leading mathematicians in the twentieth century and one of China's most influential mathematicians in history.

1 Personal life
2 Research
3 Commemorations
4 Works
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Personal life

Chen was the third son in a large family from Fuzhou, Fujian, China. His father was a postal worker. Chen Jingrun graduated from the Mathematics Department of Xiamen University in 1953. His advisor at Chinese Academy of Sciences was Hua Luogeng.

[edit] Research

His work on the twin prime conjecture, Waring's problem, Goldbach's conjecture and Legendre's conjecture led to progress in analytic number theory. In a 1966 paper he proved what is now called Chen's theorem: every sufficiently large even number can be written as the sum of either two primes, or a prime and a semiprime (the product of two primes) — e.g., 100 = 23 + 7·11.

[edit] Commemorations

Chen's statue in Xiamen University, China.

The Asteroid 7681 Chenjingrun was named after him.

In 1999, China issued an 80-cent postage stamp, titled The Best Result of Goldbach Conjecture, with a silhouette of Chen and the inequality:

$P_x(1, 2) \ge \frac{0.67xC_x}{(\log x)^2}.$

Several statues in China have been built in memory of Chen. At Xiamen University, the names of Chen and four other mathematicians—Dirichlet, Jutila, Linnik, and Pan—are inscribed in the marble slab behind Chen's statue (see image).

[edit] Works

J.-R. Chen, On the representation of a large even integer as the sum of a prime and a product of at most two primes, Sci. Sinica 16 (1973), 157–176.
Chen, J.R, "On the representation of a large even integer as the sum of a prime and the product of at most two primes". [Chinese] J. Kexue Tongbao 17 (1966), 385–386.