Chung Kai-lai belongs to the mathematical record as a figure whose results outlasted the problems that prompted them.
The record lists Chung Kai-lai as American mathematician (1917–2009).
Chung Kai-lai was born at Shanghai in 1917. His recorded nationality is China. He studied at Tsinghua University and Princeton University.
Twentieth-century mathematics became abstract and highly specialised, and its methods reached into physics, economics and computing.
His academic posts were held at University of California, Berkeley, Cornell University and University of Chicago.
The recorded fields of work are probability theory, mathematics and stochastic process.
Mathematics is the one discipline whose results, once proved, are never overturned.
That the work was done from China matters: mathematical training, institutions and the language of publication have never been evenly distributed.
Chung Kai-lai died in 2009, aged 92. The proofs remain, and a proof does not decay - which is the particular permanence mathematics offers.
Achievements
- Held posts at University of California, Berkeley, Cornell University and University of Chicago
- Fields: probability theory, mathematics and stochastic process
