This book is an autobiographical interview with Chinese Academician Yuan Wang on his experience in mathematical research. In the book Wang's way of studying Goldbach conjecture is revealed in detail from motivation to method; Wang's approach and viewpoint of doing applied mathematics are described by the research cases of his applying number theoretic method to numerical integration and mathematical statistics. Wang's work on algebraic number theory is traced back in a separate chapter. The book ends with two chapters which introduce Wang's interest in history of mathematics and his hobbies outside of mathematical research and show how a mathematician can in the same time be a historical and popular science writer and, in particular, a well-received calligrapher. The book is intended for undergraduate and graduate students studying number theory and its applications, researchers who are willing to learn from the experience of an established mathematician, as well as math amateurs and general audience who are interested in Wang's life story.

Autorentext

Prof. Yuan Wang graduated from the Mathematics Department, Zhejiang University, China in 1952, and since then he has been with the Institute of Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS), and was elected as an academician of the CAS in 1980. His research field is analytic number theory especially the Goldbach conjecture, Diophantine analysis, number theoretic method in numerical analysis and statistics, and has published twelve books and more than eighty papers. He is also the author of a biography of the legend Chinese mathematician Hua Loo-Keng and many popular mathematics works. He was formerly Director of the Institute of Mathematics of the CAS and President of the Chinese Mathematical Society. Prof. Wenlin Li graduated from the Mathematics Department, China University of Science and Technology in 1965. He has been a researcher of the Institute of Mathematics, CAS since 1965, and became professor in 1989. His research field is history of mathematics, and published over seventy papers in leading periodicals and five books in Chinese. He was elected as a member in large of IMU for the International Commission of History of Mathematics (2002-2005). Dr. Jing Yang received her Ph.D. degree in Mathematics from the Academy of Mathematics and System Science, CAS, Beijing, in 2006. Since July 2010, Dr. Yang has been in the Department of Basic Courses, Beijing Union University as an Associate Professor. Dr. Yang focuses on the research of history of modern mathematics. Dr. Yang has translated 3 books from English to Chinese.