Kunpeng Project
In the early morning of October 31, 1983, a life ran out of oil and died suddenly, like a comet crossing the sky.
The deceased, named Lu Jiaxi, died at the age of 48, and was an ordinary physics teacher at the No. 9 Middle School in Baotou City, Inner Mongolia. He did not leave any money behind, and when he was sorting through his relics, he found all kinds of Chinese and foreign literary masterpieces, original books in foreign languages, and reading materials that introduced the latest technology.
His death did not attract public attention, but caused an uproar in a narrow field of study. Wu Wenjun, Cheng Minde, Duan Xuefu, Xu Lizhi, Chen Jie, Zhang Dianzhou, Zhong Ji, Zhu Lie, Wei Wandi, Kang Qingde, Wu Lisheng, Chen Ziqi, Gu Tongxin, and Luo Jianjin all sighed.
The death of a physics teacher in a small middle school in a border city shook the entire mathematics community, which is really a bit incredible. Therefore, it is necessary to understand Lu Jiaxi's bumpy life and tragic encounters.
Back in England in 1850, Cockerman, the patriarch of a district of the Church of England, asked an interesting question in the annual journal "The Diary of a Lady and a Gentleman" (which really doesn't look like a scientific publication): A female teacher took her 15 girls for a walk every afternoon, and she divided the students into five groups of three and asked how to arrange them so that every two students would be in the same group one day a week. 」
The Cochman problem, which evolved from this small problem, has remained unresolved for more than 100 years. It wasn't until 100 years later that a Chinese Sun Zeying wrote a popular mathematical book "Interesting Introduction to Mathematical Methods", which introduced many interesting world-famous mathematical problems, and the Kokman problem was one of them.
In 1957, "Interesting Introduction to Mathematical Methods" was accidentally purchased by a young man with a wide range of interests and love to read - he was Lu Jiaxi.
It's hard to find out when Lu Jiaxi's interest in mathematics began, but at least at the age of 22, he already had an irrepressible urge to explore mathematics. For many days, this math problem aroused a sense of pleasure in his senses and understanding, and the whole person was so intoxicated that an idea sprouted in his heart to solve the problem of Coqueman.
At this time, he was just a junior high school graduate, working in a factory, but he had a lot of confidence.
Lu Jiaxi, who was born in 1935 in old Shanghai, was fortunate enough to finish elementary school, but his father died of illness when he was in his second year of junior high school. Lu Jiaxi, who had excellent grades, had to drop out of school and fend for himself.
In November 1951 after liberation, Lu Jiaxi bid farewell to his family, left Shanghai and went north, and was admitted to the statistical training class run by the Northeast Electric Appliance Industry Administration. During this time, he began to read extensively and self-study in several foreign languages.
In 1957, when he had the idea of overcoming the "Kokman problem," he realized that he was not well educated, and in the fall of the same year, he was admitted to the physics department of Jilin Normal University (now Northeast Normal University) to study Xi.
After graduating in 1961, he successively served as a physics teacher in the No. 24 Middle School and the No. 9 Middle School in Baotou City, Inner Mongolia. After that, he worked in Baotou until his death, with only one thought in his heart, to engage in mathematical research. His life, as Heidegger said, the existence of the body was only a passage through the study of mathematics, and for this reason, he burned and burned until the last moment.
In fact, in the year he graduated from university, he had already solved the "Cockman Problem", and he sent the "Construction Methods of the Cockman Series and the Steiner Series" to the Institute of Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the stone was lost. It was not until February 1963 that he received a reply from the Institute of Mathematics, in which he introduced some of the latest literature and hoped that he would verify it himself, and said that if the results were new, he could directly submit them to journals such as Acta Mathematica Sinica. Subsequently, he took advantage of the Spring Festival period to rewrite ** and sent it to the "Mathematical Bulletin" on March 12, and the reply was: Due to the length of the article and the mathematical tools used, it is recommended to submit to other journals. 」
For more than ten years, he worked hard, studied silently, got married and had daughters, and lived a difficult life, surrounded by disdain and incomprehension. The Chinese, who focus on practical tools, find it difficult to understand that he is obsessed with the "useless" abstract field of mathematics.
In 1979, with the help of his colleagues, Lu Jiaxi borrowed the "Combinatorics Magazine" published in the United States, but he was greeted by a bolt from the blue. It was only then that he learned that as early as 1971 – a full decade after his research – two Italian mathematicians had announced to the world that they had solved the Coqueman problem.
He felt unbelievable that he was the first person to solve this problem, but he was never recognized until he was won by the Italians!
This is reminiscent of an unsolved case in the history of mathematics, the discovery of calculus. As early as May 20, 1665, Newton had already discovered the basic concept of calculus. In 1669, Newton made a great breakthrough in the study of convective mathematics, but he did not choose to publish the results of his research, and only conducted internal research with a few good friends. In 1672, the German mathematician Leibniz began to study calculus, and in 1684, he published the first article on differentiation in human history, "A New Method for Finding Maximums and Tangents, It Also Applies to Fractions and Irrational Quantities, and Wonderful Types of Calculations of This New Method". Once published, it shook the European mathematical community and laid the framework for calculus. But then, British scholars accused Leibniz of plagiarizing Newton's work, and the controversy between the two sides has developed to this day, becoming the largest public case in the history of mathematics.
Of course, the encounter between Lu Jiaxi and the Italian mathematician is not as good as that of Newton and Leibniz, but in essence, they are the same.
Individuals who are obsessed with scientific exploration, especially those who devote their lives to the completely abstract field of mathematics, do not seek fame and fortune, do not care about material life, and are not swayed by the vulgar values of the masses, but they regard the fruits of their intellectual explorations as treasures.
There is an element of intellectual competition here, but more importantly, the mental attention during the long-term indulgence is all focused on one's own research, and when the result of the painstaking pursuit is taken by others, the inner grief and frustration are indescribable.
However, this did not defeat Lu Jiaxi. In 1979, in an era when material conditions and knowledge materials were completely scarce, Lu Jiaxi single-handedly overcame another global problem with the Steiner series.
His research is hard and unusual, he has no supervisor, no contact with international peers, no communication with peers, and no way to know the current status of world-class research in this field. I usually teach middle school physics at school, and the daily teaching tasks are very heavy, and it is very difficult to consult materials, and I have to run a lot of libraries to find materials. But he did!
However, the ** he sent was once again lost in the sea and could not be published in China.
At this time, the god of luck patronized him. Professor Zhu Lie of Soochow University was deeply shocked after reading it, and forwarded the first draft to the famous American magazine "Combinatorics". Only a month later, the United States announced that it recognized Lu Jiaxi's academic achievements.
Lu Jiaxi shocked the Western mathematical community!
Mendelson, a professor at the University of Toronto, Canada, exclaimed: "This is one of the major achievements in portfolio design for more than 20 years. 」
In 1983, China invited Mendelssohn and Hao Di, experts in combinatorics mathematics, to give lectures in ChinaUnder the consternation of everyone, Lu Jiaxi's mathematical achievements finally surfaced, and this ordinary teacher who taught at Baotou Middle School became known.
In October of the same year, Lu Jiaxi was specially invited to attend the 4th China Mathematics Annual Conference held in Wuhan.
At the conference, he gave an academic presentation, met with Professor Mendelssohn, and discussed mathematical problems with Chen Jingrun. After the meeting, in order to return to school, he hurried back to Baotou by train on the same day.
This was the first and last mathematics annual meeting he attended. On the night he returned to Baotou, he suffered a heart attack and left his podium and his beloved science forever.
After Lu Jiaxi's death, until March 1989, his wife Zhang Shuqin attended the 1987 National Natural Science Award Presentation Conference held in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on behalf of Lu Jiaxi, and accepted the first prize of the National Natural Science Award, the highest honor in China's natural science community.
Lu Jiaxi seems to have made Joseph Needham's question, which has plagued China's poor history of scientific development, more solemn and unanswerable.
Not only because of his untimely death, but also because of his life of hardship and suffering and his passion for mathematical research, and the great achievements he made in this solitary contemplation, hit our hearts.
What's even more sad is that there may be more Lu Jiaxi who have a genius-like lively enterprising spirit in their respective fields, but they are suppressed by the cage of society and go through their lives in obscurity.
Not all gold shines, and it may be the norm in this land that pearls are cast or permanently separated from the realm of scientific research. Bureaucratic style and the Xi of seniority pervade many institutions, and the clear style of dedicated researchers is often rejected by more people who regard profit as a lifelong pursuit.
Know that a wise mind is more sensitive than others, that they do not allow their dignity and purity to be desecrated, and that they will naturally stay away from the land of right and wrong when they encounter injustice or slander. Lu Jiaxi is a warning of a past era, but what did his death come about?
We inevitably assume that if he could work in a mathematical research institute;If only he could work in his field for a few more decades;If his ** could be discovered by even one discerning person......Will the basic research of mathematics in China be different?And then the eggs.
As 2023 marks the 40th anniversary of Lu Jiaxi's death, let us pay tribute to this dedicated scientist. At this point, I would like to quote a passage from a ** article for the benefit of readers:
The man at the top of the pyramid of wisdom has the greatest contribution to all those below him, but he receives no additional reward from others for knowledge that adds value to his time, except for material rewards (which are often not even available in our land). The one at the bottom of the ladder rests on his laurels, suffering in ignorance, without contributing to the people above him, but reaping the benefits of those people. This is the 'competition' between the knowledgeable strong and the weak, and you are denigrating the strong for such an 'exploitation' way. 」
I hope that those souls who are keen to explore the physical world and wander alone on the vine of knowledge will be better off. May there be no jealousy, hatred, slander, and ruthless obstacles in life, so that all individuals can develop to the maximum, and may each field allow the talents that are most suitable for it to be brought into play.