Third Annotation and Thesis Statement

10/25/08

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/inmemoriam/shiingshenchern.htm


This article gives a main detailed biography of Chern's life, he only had one day of elementary education, and four years at middle high school, at aged 15, he skippe two greades to enter the Nankai University, and how he opened his eyes to the grand vistas in geometry. And three major decisions in the period 1934 to 1943 that shaped the rest of his life.

This article references primary and secondary source, including the picture of Chern's and this article was created after Chern was passed away.

Thesis Statement

Shiing Shen Chern who was a Chinese American mathematician. In 1934, he earned a chance to study aborad, and he chose to went to Europe instead of U.S, and then in 1936, use a postdoctoral fellowship for study in Europe to study with Elie Cartan in Paris. Later in 1943, he made one of his most important disicion in his life to go to visit the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at Princeton. Chern, who had made a big improvement in geometry, that he made a major discovery, namely, an intrinsic proof of the n-dimensional Gauss-Bonnet theorem. This important proof was the forerunner of other invariants which bear his name, Chern classes, Chern-Weil homomorphism and Chern-Simons invariants, which have become essential tools not only in differential geometry but in other areas of mathematics such as topology and algebraic geometry and also mathematical physics. A large part of modern algebraic geometry would not exist without Chern classes. Chern's efforts on geometry made scientist take a big step toward the world.

Second Annotation

10/24/08

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=869ADDF818FB552D066D1FF56B0E39B7.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=441323

This website informed me that Shiing Shen Chern was born on October 26th, 1911 in JiaXin, in china, and died in 2004. His father works for government. He first shows his mathematical ability by doing all the exercises in classical English textbooks on algebra and trigonometry when he was in his middle school, and he later became really interesting in the Sun's subject, projective differential geometry, he works hard. At Tsinghua, he met his wife Shih-Ning, the daughter of a professor.

This website help me to recongnized a brief summarize of Chern's life.


This is a secondary source, because this website was not created by Shiing Shen Chern's lifetime.

First Annotation

10/24/08

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_quantum_mechanics

This website introduced the basic definition of Quantum Mechanics, it helps me to understanding the meaning of it, which is a physical science dealing with the behavior of matter and energy on the scale of atoms and subatomic particles or waves. And it spends a century of experimentation and applied science, to made quantum mechanical theory been proven to be very successful and practical.

This website is a secondary source, because it was created after Chern was died.

Topic Selection Post

I choose Shiing Shen Chern for my NHD Project this year, who was a Chinese American mathematician from Tianjin, one of the leaders in differential geometry of the twentieth century.

This person is important to history because without his efforts, we can not prove the String Theory. Math is a major tool for studying science. And because of his efforts on math, we finally solve the problems between Einstein's theory and quantum mechanics which we are not sure which one is true, because these two theory were against each other.

For this week, I will work on his efforts to the world's math for more find details, and look for some websites or bookes about his career.

Service Learning

From the meeting, I know that I'll be teaching Chinese with my friend LinFeng in the library, and other people will teach the ESL student English. Maybe next time we will going to visit the senior, and our group had some goal need to accomplish. I know it would be a fun time for every of us to enjoy with other people for help them, and I will do my best. But the problem is that Mr, Todd said LinFeng and I could stay with the other people, and sometimes we could help translate to them in case some students just being study English, I am not sure I could help them, because my own English is not good, but, anyway I will learn morn during this program. For the coming weeks, I will go on line to search some information about teaching Chinese, it's time to enjoy myself of helping people.

The First Service Learning Meeting

In the last Service Learning Meeting. we had made a plan about the service. It is shows below.


Where to go:

Chinese Culture Center

Go to people's house

McColl Elementary School


People we help to:

Old man or children.

whoever need help


What we help:

Teaching Chinese and English


In the next meeting, I want to suggest, we could also made some information for them to learning the language. Sometimes visit the old man, and talk to them, because they are always lonely. Or have a party for them.

Service Learning

In the Service Learning, I was interested in the Chinese teaching. We could teach some children whether their parents or they want to learn. To me, the Service Learning is important, because we could help people during the service, and there would be so many funs to help them.