"The People's Mathematician": Hua Luogeng's best "preferred"
On the 110th anniversary of Hualao’s birth, revisit the historical significance and era value of Hua Luogeng’s spirit
【Editor's Note】:
People today do not understand why Hua Luogeng is called "the people's mathematician"?
Many years ago, his foreign colleagues didn't understand why Hua Luogeng had to promote Chinese mathematics instead of his own mathematics?
Why does a genius mathematician have to switch from theoretical research to applied mathematics?
On November 12, a series of activities for the 110th anniversary of Hua Luogeng’s birthday was held in his hometown, Jintan District, Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province. More than 20 academicians from the Ministry of Education of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Mathematics and Application and other units came to Jintan to relive The historical significance and time value of Hua Luogeng spirit.
0.618, the golden ratio, a classic concept combining mathematics and aesthetics.
From the Parthenon in ancient Greece to the Terracotta Warriors and Horses in China, many of the pinnacles of aesthetics have verified this rule.
What is less known is that there is also a "0.618" in the field of science and industry, that is, the "0.618 law."
This is a typical optimization method, which can find the most reasonable process conditions through a small number of trials.
Practice has proved that to solve the same problem, 16 tests with the "0.618 method" can achieve the effect of the commonly used enumeration method for 2500 tests.
What is "preferred"?
Probably no one has a better understanding than the mathematician Hua Luogeng.
He faced major choices again and again throughout his life, and he also defined his life in the "optimizations" again and again.
Old Hua is here, there is a solution
In the 1960s and 1970s, there was a period of "Hua Luogeng fever".
Wherever Hua Luogeng goes, there will always be many people coming to attend classes, including universities, scientific research institutes, the frontline of workers and farmers, and factories and mines.
It is said that when some new products are being sampled and developed, workers will even silently say "Hua Luogeng blessing".
When Suo Guangming met Hua Luogeng for the first time, he had just been out of school for less than a year.
She is an electric welder in the drilling and construction team of Daqing Oilfield, with a junior high school education.
That year, Hua Luogeng went to Daqing Oilfield to make a report on promoting the "double method" (optimization method, overall planning method), "When I heard the name of a mathematician, a question immediately appeared in my mind: How can a mathematician’s method be heard by me as a junior high school student? Do you understand?"
At the scene, Suo Guangming found that he not only understood and learned well, but also used it in the welding process.
The content of Hua Luogeng's report was to introduce the "0.618 method."
In class, the comrade in charge of the demonstration took out a piece of paper, and drew a scale from 100 degrees to 200 degrees on the paper, and selected different points respectively. The first test point is 162 degrees, the second test point is 138 degrees, two Compare the numbers, leave the good ones, cut the bad ones... Repeated experiments to prove the results.
"There are many process parameters that affect welding efficiency and quality, such as voltage, current, electrode material, method and angle of transportation, etc. It is not easy to grasp. The advantage of Hua Luogeng’s method is that it can find suitable process parameters as soon as possible, and effectively improve welding. Quality and efficiency." Suo Guangming said.
The "0.618 method" helped her solve the problem of welding process and also helped her grow into a technical expert. The first-line "little apprentice" later grew into a senior engineer.
In order to benefit more workers, in 1965, Hua Luogeng turned the esoteric principles of mathematics into the simplest, easy-to-understand and easy-to-operate "dual methods", and wrote a pamphlet "Plain Talks and Supplements in Coordinating Methods" which was almost entirely in vernacular.
At the same time, Hua Luogeng personally went to more than 20 provinces for training and promotion.
In the winter of 1977, at the Datongkouquan station in Shanxi, 1 million tons of coal could not be shipped out, but the coal shortage problem in Beijing became more and more serious.
Hua Luogeng temporarily set up an experimental team in Datong, Shanxi, to solve the three queuing problems of water supply, ash removal, and coal loading with an overall plan. The transportation capacity increased by 20% on that day.
When the experiment was over, the capacity doubled.
"A mathematician can give lectures directly to front-line workers, and the workers can understand and solve problems immediately." said Chi Hong, chairman of the China Optimum Method and Economic Mathematics Research Association, who had worked with Hua Luogeng as an assistant.
Hua Luogeng used the vernacular of "boiling water to make tea and drinking" when explaining to the workers what the overall planning method is.
Wherever he went, Hua Luogeng couldn't do without crutches.
Since he was disabled with his left leg, he had to draw a big circle with his left leg before walking, and then take a small step with his right leg. This strenuous step was called "circle and tangent movement."
The "double method" is the "crutch" that Hua Luogeng created for the workers. Wherever he went, the projects that entered the dead end took a turn for the better, and the stagnant projects made progress.
To know the truth by being poor, but to practice the truth.
Under his leadership, the team of scientific and technological workers who research and promote the "dual method" has been growing.
At the beginning of the 1960s, the only participants involved were him and a few students. In 1972, a "double method" team was formed. In 1977, the Chinese Academy of Sciences established the "Applied Mathematics Research Promotion Office"; in 1981, "China's optimization method and economics The "Mathematics Research Association" was formally established, and local branches were also established. The promotion of the "double method" has been further guaranteed, and it has become an important force in serving the national economy.
Extraordinary by talent, great by choice
What made an accomplished mathematician choose to step out of his study and move toward the front line during the critical period of his academic career?
When the reporter asked this question to Hua Luogeng's family, friends, and students, many people gave similar answers-this is Hua Luogeng's choice, and this is what he would do.
In the early 20th century, there was a "Qianshengtai" grocery store east of Qinghe Bridge in Jintan. The owner Hua Ruidong was shrewd and thrifty since he was a child.
After Hua Luogeng was born on November 12, 1910, his family financial resources were limited. After graduating from junior high school, he did not go to high school. Instead, he passed the accounting major of the China Business Vocational School in Shanghai, the "Junior High School Graduation Diploma"-this is also his lifetime highest education.
Because of his talent, Hua Luogeng's mathematical life is extremely dramatic.
In 1930, the paper "The Reason Why the Solution of the Quintic Equation of Su Jiaju's Algebra Cannot Be Found" written by self-taught Hua Luogeng was published in Shanghai "Science" magazine, which attracted the attention of Xiong Qinglai, director of the Department of Mathematics of Tsinghua University.
In the autumn of 1931, Tsinghua University specially invited Hua Luogeng to Tsinghua University as an assistant in the Department of Mathematics.
After entering Tsinghua University, he completed the mathematics course in two years, taught himself English, French and German, and published several papers in authoritative foreign journals.
In the winter of 1933, Tsinghua University specially appointed him as a teaching assistant.
In 1936, Hua Luogeng went to the University of Cambridge, England to study seven or eight subjects at a very fast speed. Within two years, he wrote more than ten papers on the "Hua Lin problem", "other benefits" and "odd Goldbach problems". It has been published in magazines in Britain, the Soviet Union, France, and Germany.
In 1982, Hua Luogeng became the first Chinese academician of the US National Academy of Sciences...
If it is said that mathematics talent determines that his life is destined to take an unusual path, and the choice of life at an important point determines that he is not just a mathematician.
In 1937, when the Anti-Japanese War broke out, Hua Luogeng immediately decided to abandon his studies in Cambridge and return to China as soon as possible.
"It's not uncommon for people from the East to have a doctorate degree from Cambridge University. You are the first one!" At that time, Professor Heilbrunn of Cambridge University expressed his surprise.
Hua Luogeng gave the answer frankly: "I came to Cambridge University to study, not for a degree."
In 1938, Hua Luogeng joined the Southwest United University formed by Tsinghua University, Peking University and Nankai University. Hua Luogeng came to Kunming.
During the day, he dragged his sick leg to class with his classmates; at night, he immersed himself in the dim lamp.
It was under such difficult conditions that he completed his first mathematics masterpiece "Theory of Prime Numbers".
After the founding of New China, in 1950, Hua Luogeng chose to return to China as soon as possible.
In February 1950, he wrote "An Open Letter to All Chinese Students Studying in the United States" on his way home.
In this open letter of more than 2,000 words, he passionately called: "In order to choose the truth, we should go back; for the country and the nation, we should go back; in order to serve the people, we should go back..." "Friends!" Liang Although the garden is good, it's not a hometown for a long time.' Come home!"
In that year, more than 1,000 American students including Hua Luogeng, Zhu Guangya, Deng Jiaxian, and Ye Duzheng broke through numerous obstacles and rushed to New China, and many joined the Communist Party of China.
In 1937 and 1950, he gave up the favorable conditions twice, and Hua Luogeng resolutely chose to return to the embrace of the motherland.
In the face of studying and solving practical problems in the study, he chose to go to the front line to help the workers and peasants and write thesis all over the motherland...
Hua Luogeng often said that science knows no borders, but scientists have a motherland.
The determination to serve the country is the deepest spiritual background of Hua Luogeng, and it is also the spiritual soul of Chinese scientists.
In his later years, Hua Luogeng ran around the world to give lectures and exchanges regardless of his old age and frailty, uttering the sound of Chinese mathematics studies and research, until he fell to the three-foot podium after a sudden illness.
What is the best choice?
Science and technology are productive forces, and the mental workers who serve socialism are part of the working people.
This was an important statement made at the National Science and Technology Conference in 1978.
For the intellectuals of that era, this sentence is of great significance.
In the early days of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the country was poor and weak, and the industrial and agricultural standards were lagging behind. Many thorny production problems remained to be solved.
The "Cultural Revolution" that broke out in 1966 caused unprecedented damage to national scientific and technological work.
During the ten years of turmoil, Hua Luogeng was criticized and ransacked several times, and even precious research materials were stolen.
But it is also in that environment that Hua Luogeng is determined to use mathematics to serve the people, and embark on a path of Chinese-style applied mathematics.
For more than 20 years, the "dual methods" have been widely used in chemical, electronics, post and telecommunications, metallurgy, coal, petroleum, electric power, light industry, machinery manufacturing, transportation, grain and oil processing, construction and building materials, medicine and health, environmental protection, agriculture and other industries , Many beneficiaries.
Many units have adopted the "dual method" to select reasonable design parameters, process parameters, and make overall arrangements without increasing manpower, material resources, and financial resources, thereby improving their management level and achieving significant economic results.
For example, Jiangsu Province achieved more than 5,000 achievements in 1980. In half a year, it actually increased output value by more than 95 million yuan, saved more than 28 million yuan, saved 20.38 million kWh of electricity, saved 85,000 tons of coal, and saved more than 9,000 tons of oil.
Sichuan Province promoted the "dual approach", increasing production in five months and saving more than 200 million yuan in value.
Hu Yaobang once spoke highly of the "Fahrenheit Double Method" and said in a letter to Hua Luogeng: "For decades, what you have given people to understand the natural world has surpassed what the natural world has given you."
Lin Qun, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that what was even more shocking was his personal experience for the profound impact of the "double law".
Once, when he was taking a taxi in another place, when the driver learned that Lin Qun was doing mathematics, the driver said: "Oh, 0.618." This is exactly the golden section data popularized by Optimal Law.
Lin Qun was very surprised by a short sentence. It is remarkable that one person can share the wealth of mathematics with so many people.
As an educator, Hua Luogeng is equally eclectic in the education work of rewarding post-learning, and even likes to "work against" students.
Chen Jingrun, a young student, once put forward many suggestions for improvement in his "Theory of Prime Numbers" in the letter, which made him very happy.
Although some people say that Chen Jingrun has "quirks", Hua Luogeng doesn't mind, he urges Chen Jingrun to come to Beijing's highest mathematics school.
Another mathematics master started his academic career.
There is "family style" in family, "school style" in school, and "door style" in the same division.
Wang Yuan, a mathematician and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that he was influenced by his teacher Hua Luogeng and would never encourage scientific researchers to gain fame and fortune. He believed that scientists should maintain their original instincts of curiosity, truth-seeking, and innovative exploration.
He also encouraged today's education to break the framework and cultivate genuine innovative talents.
Technological innovation is a relay race for generations. Only by cultivating reserve talents can the scientific and technological cause last forever.
Zhou Xiangyu, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a researcher at the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that Mr. Hua Luogeng has always advocated "reading from thin to thick, and then from thick to thin" and should pay attention to popular science.
"I myself have read his popular science books "From Yang Hui's Triangle", "From Sun Tzu's Magical Arguments" and so on, which were deeply inspired."
Now, in Hua Luogeng’s hometown, the "Jintan County Junior High School" where Hua Luogeng attended has been renamed "Jiangsu Hua Luogeng Middle School".
"A major tradition for freshmen entering the school every year is to visit the Hua Luogeng Memorial Hall and relive the Hua Luogeng spirit." said the school’s deputy secretary of the party committee and principal Tan Ruijun. "In our school’s classrooms, students never talk about knowledge modules that can be solved independently. Rather, it encourages students to find problems in practice. The teacher's duty is to stimulate students' motivation to study, guide them to love thinking, and lay the foundation for creative problem solving."
What is the best choice?
The golden ratio in mathematics is to simplify the complex and quickly select the best to achieve the goal.
Put it on the scientist?
Scientists of that generation had simpler ideals. When the People’s Republic of China was founded, they chose to return home to serve the country; in the education work of rewarding and post-learning, they did not stick to one pattern to reduce talents; during the construction period, they chose to go out of the study and go to the front line to write papers. All over the motherland.
Hua Luogeng once said: "People have two shoulders, and I want to let both shoulders play a role. One shoulder carries the burden of'home delivery', and sends scientific knowledge and scientific methods to the workers and peasants; one shoulder serves as a'human ladder'. 'Let the younger generation take my shoulders to climb the higher mountain of science, and then let the young people put down the rope and pull me up to be a human ladder."
Standing with the people at all times and letting most people develop is the best choice.
(Reporter Jiang Fang)