Zheng Shouyi

Zheng Shouyi the Chinese mathematician (1902-1996) who played a central role in introducing modern probability theory and random-process research to China and who served as a leading editor of the first Chinese mathematical dictionary and as an influential teacher.

Early Life and Education

Zheng Shouyi was born on 13 September 1902 in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, into a family that valued scholarship. He grew up in a period of rapid educational reform in China and received a modern schooling that included strong training in mathematics and the sciences.

He entered Nanjing Higher Normal School, later part of National Central University, and studied mathematics with distinction. After graduating in 1923 he taught for several years in secondary schools and colleges, where he developed both his mathematical knowledge and his ability to communicate difficult ideas to students.

In 1934 he went to Britain to pursue advanced study, entering University College London, where he worked under the statistician and eugenicist Karl Pearson and then under his successors in the department of applied statistics. He studied mathematical statistics and probability and was awarded his doctorate for research on statistical distributions and their applications.

Founding Probability Research in China

Zheng Shouyi returned to China in 1937, at the outbreak of war with Japan, and took up posts at several universities that were forced to relocate westward. Despite the disruption he continued to teach and research, and he devoted himself to establishing probability and mathematical statistics as serious subjects of study in a country where they had been little developed.

He wrote textbooks and lecture notes that introduced Chinese students to the theory of probability, to statistical inference and to stochastic processes. He insisted that the subject be taught rigorously, building from measure-theoretic foundations, and he set out systematically the results that had been developed by European and Russian mathematicians.

His scientific papers dealt with the limit theorems of probability, with the theory of queues and telephone traffic, and with the analysis of random phenomena in engineering and industry. He was among the first in China to recognise the practical importance of probability for telecommunications, quality control and the design of experiments.

Stochastic Processes and Applications

Zheng Shouyi became especially interested in stochastic processes, the mathematical description of systems that evolve randomly in time. He studied Poisson processes and their generalisations, which model the occurrence of random events such as telephone calls or radioactive decays, and he applied these ideas to problems of congestion and service.

He also worked on the theory of statistical estimation and on the mathematical treatment of random noise and of stationary series, subjects of growing importance in the engineering sciences. His careful expositions helped to bring the ideas of Fisher, Kolmogorov and other founders into the reach of Chinese researchers.

Throughout his career he emphasised the union of pure theory with concrete application. He encouraged his students to learn from problems in industry and in the natural sciences, and he argued that probability, more than any other branch of mathematics, grew out of and returned to the real world.

Scholarship and the Mathematical Dictionary

In addition to his research and teaching Zheng Shouyi undertook the arduous task of standardising Chinese mathematical terminology. He served as a chief editor of a comprehensive Chinese mathematical dictionary, a work that fixed the Chinese names of thousands of mathematical terms and made possible consistent teaching and translation.

The dictionary drew on the classical vocabulary of Chinese mathematics and on the modern terminology that had developed in Japan and in Europe, and it reconciled them into a coherent system. It became an indispensable reference for students, teachers and translators and shaped the language in which mathematics has been taught in China ever since.

He also translated and edited foreign mathematical works and wrote survey articles that kept Chinese readers informed of developments abroad. His bibliographic and editorial labours, though less celebrated than his research, were of lasting value to the Chinese mathematical community.

Teaching Career and Legacy

Zheng Shouyi taught at many institutions, including Zhejiang University, Nanjing University and Fudan University, and he was associated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences as a researcher and adviser. He was elected a member of the academy in 1955 and served in senior roles in the mathematical societies of the country.

His students went on to occupy important positions in universities and research institutes across China, and through them his approach to probability and statistics was carried into many fields. He was known as a patient and exacting teacher who placed the needs of his students above his own advancement.

He died on 25 October 1996 in Shanghai at the age of ninety-four. His name is associated with the establishment of probability and statistics as living disciplines in China, and the textbooks and reference works he produced are still consulted by those who study the random mathematics of the modern world.

See also

• Probability theory
• Stochastic process
• Mathematical statistics
• Chinese Academy of Sciences