Great Scientists and Statesmen

I may not be a mathematics student or have a knack for mathematics, but I am actually interested in mathematics and mathematicians. I once borrowed a book from a library in my campus titled "Men of Mathematics" and I was dazzled by the life of the greatest mathematicians. Also, I have a great interest in reading lives of great economists, scientists or philosophers, as well. This time I happened to read a life story of another great mathematician.

As I was trying to look for mathematics material (trying to learn some before my grad study, hopefully. :p ), I stumbled at department of math at Harvard and was pretty amazed finding out that its chair is Chinese, Dr. Shing-Tung Yau! I know that Chinese are widely known for their prodigious ability in math and science but it still bit my tongue.

As always, my great interest guided me to his story. I don’t want to give so much thought about his prodigious academic achievement, which is most notably for winning a Fields Medal in 1990, but I was much interested in his courage and determination to advance sciences in China. He still wants to come home every summer to his homeland to work and teach there. His objective is to attract bright Chinese students to study in the U.S.

In addition to academic drive, he has also been absorbed by political movement and interest. He even got the balls to challenge Chinese government regarding allegedly fraud committed by Beijing University. He said that if he was not a Fields Medalist, he would be dead by then.

By now, after the death of his teacher at Berkeley, Dr. Shiing-Shen Chern, he is now dubbed as the greatest living Chinese-born mathematician, or so called the Emperor of Chinese mathematics.

Yohanes Surya has pretty similar story with him. However, he is not as great as Dr. Yau, no widely known international prize in Physics. Anyway, I am awed by his great contribution to his efforts to advance sciences in Indonesia. To be honest, initially, I was and am skeptic with his efforts in Physics Olympiad projects, whose long-term goal is to produce Nobel prize winners from Indonesia.

He said that winning medals in IPho would boost Indonesian students to go to prestigious universities in the U.S. and work under supervision of previous Nobel Laurates which is likely to make them think like one and win the prize later. He forgot that Nobel prize winners are awarded for their long-term research not for their medals in competitions, yet I don't know for sure how many Nobel prize winners had won science competitions when they were younger. Yohanes Surya once said proudly that his students can solve very difficult problems within a few hours, whereas it took a Nobel prize winner years to solve. It is not comparable! His statement was misleading.

Anyway, I still look up at him as a Chinese-breed Indonesian that has strong determination to contribution for Indonesia, especially his founding Surya Institute to polish smart students from remote areas in Indonesia and sometimes it turns the dumb into brilliant ones. His contributions are even bigger and, therefore, deserve much more respect than other native Indonesian in advances in science.

Any conclusion? Unfortunately, I have no conclusion because this posting is not meant to conclude anything. I just hope that someday Indonesian students are swarming the best universities in the world and receive so much respect as their Chinese or Indian counterparts. Unlike others, I don’t hope they come back to Indonesia right after receiving their Ph.Ds but someday after they have become prominent scientists.