Wei-Liang Chow

Wei-Liang Chow , Chinese 周煒良 / 周炜良 , Pinyin Zhōu Wěiliáng ; (Born October 1, 1911 in Shanghai ; † August 10, 1995 in Baltimore ) was a Chinese-American mathematician who dealt with algebraic geometry.

Chow was sent to the United States for schooling by his family (he previously received private tuition). He attended school in Wilmore, Kentucky and studied at the University of Kentucky and then at the University of Chicago , where he made his bachelor's degree in 1931 and his master's degree in 1932. He then studied (after a short detour to Göttingen ) in Leipzig with Bartel Leendert van der Waerden , who introduced him to algebraic geometry, at that time dominated by the Italian school around Francesco Severi . From 1934 he lived in Hamburg , where he heard from Emil Artin , as did Shiing-Shen Chern . In 1936 he received his doctorate in Leipzig ( The geometric theory of algebraic functions for any perfect body ). In 1936 he married Margot Victor, whom he met in Hamburg. From September 1936 he was a professor at the University of Nanjing in China. During the Japanese occupation, he went from Nanjing to Shanghai. He published a few more papers, but was only able to resume his mathematical work after the war in 1946 when he taught at Tung-Chi University in Shanghai. On the mediation of Chern he was from 1947 at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. From 1948 he was an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University , where he became a professor in 1950. In 1977 he retired there. From 1955 to 1965 he was chairman of the mathematics faculty and during this time headed a very active school of algebraic geometry, which André Weil and Oscar Zariski were also regular guests. The group included u. a. Jun-Ichi Igusa and Shreeram Abhyankar .

In his work with van der Waerden, Chow led to algebraic geometry. IX. (Mathematische Annalen 1937) Chow coordinates. In 1949 he proved Chow's theorem : Every compact analytic manifold in projective space is an algebraic variety. In 1956, in a paper in the Annals of Mathematics, he introduced the Chow ring of algebraic cycles of a non-singular projective algebraic variety, the algebro-geometric counterpart to the ring of cohomology classes of a topological manifold.

The Chow and Raschewski theorem in Sub-Riemannian geometry is named after him and Pjotr Konstantinowitsch Raschewski (1938). It also plays a role in geometric control theory. Given smooth vector fields on a connected manifold M. If the Lie commutators of the and their iterated in each point of M to the tangent span (Chow condition), then two points are connected by M through a curve according whose speed vector is a linear combination of is . ${\ displaystyle V_ {i}}$ ${\ displaystyle V_ {i}}$ ${\ displaystyle T_ {p} M}$ ${\ displaystyle V_ {i}}$

From 1953 to 1977 he was editor of the American Journal of Mathematics.

Chow was also a stamp collector and published a book on Shanghai stamps.

Fonts

SS Chern , VV Shokurov (Ed.): Collected papers of Wei-Liang Chow, World Scientific 2002
The geometric theory of algebraic functions for any perfect body. Mathematische Annalen, Vol. 114, 1937, p. 655.
Simple topological proof of the fundamental theorem of algebra. Vol. 116, 1939.
About the multiplicity of the intersections of hypersurfaces. Mathematische Annalen Vol. 116, 1939.
with van der Waerden: On algebraic geometry. IX. About assigned forms and algebraic systems of algebraic manifolds. Mathematische Annalen, Vol. 113, 1937.

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Chow On compact complex analytic varieties , American J. Math., Vol. 71, 1949, pp. 893-914
↑ Chow, On systems of linear partial differential equations of the first order, Mathematische Annalen, Volume 117, 1939, pp. 98-105
↑ Burago, Burago, Ivanov, A course in metric geometry, AMS 2001, p. 184

personal data
SURNAME	Chow, Wei-Liang
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	周炜良 (Chinese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Chinese-American mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH	October 1, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH	Shanghai
DATE OF DEATH	August 10, 1995
Place of death	Baltimore

[1] Chow On compact complex analytic varieties , American J. Math., Vol. 71, 1949, pp. 893-914

[2] Chow, On systems of linear partial differential equations of the first order, Mathematische Annalen, Volume 117, 1939, pp. 98-105

[3] Burago, Burago, Ivanov, A course in metric geometry, AMS 2001, p. 184