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Holly Chik

World-leading Vietnamese mathematician Ngo Bao Chau has said his decision to leave the US was not just the result of the worsening academic environment there, but also a vision to transform Asia into the next global powerhouse for maths and science.
Ngo, the first Vietnamese recipient of the prestigious Fields Medal, will join the University of Hong Kong in June.
“I want Asia to be the next America or the next Europe [as] a place where science and mathematics strive,” he said in an interview on the university’s campus.
“I believe that Asia and China … have a unique opportunity to grow to be one of the [top] places in science and mathematics. I am really eager to participate in that.”
Ngo, who has been teaching at the University of Chicago since 2010, said “many things that I do not like” were happening in the United States.
“American universities have been great institutions where knowledge, discovery and scholarship are cherished. It has been like that for 400 years,” he said.
“People are meant to be well-treated regardless of their race as long as they espouse this vision in scholarship and knowledge. But disheartening things have been happening for visas, for students.”
Ngo, who initially studied in France and spent nearly two decades as a researcher and teacher there, added: “I would rather be in a place where I don’t have to deal with or to hear about things that I do not like.”
He is best known for his ingenious proof of the Langlands Programme, a grand unified theory of mathematics proposed in 1967 and described by HKU as “one of mathematics’ most ambitious theoretical frameworks”.
HKU, which has been actively recruiting top-tier international talent, said Ngo’s decision to join its mathematics department as chair professor was a “defining moment”.
Ngo, who was born in Hanoi in 1972, said he aspired to foster bonds among mathematicians across Asia. “Mathematicians do much better when they have organic bonds. In any human endeavour there is collaboration and competition … but in mathematics, collaboration is much greater than competition,” he said.
“I really want to be part of the new development of mathematics and science in Asia, and I want Hong Kong to be the connecting dot of Asian mathematics – China, India, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore and so on.”
He described Hong Kong as a “great place for that”, adding it was also accessible for colleagues from Europe and America.
“What was lacking [in Asia] is just a critical mass of senior mathematicians who can give time to be devoted to training students,” he said.
“But China and Asia have huge potential because anywhere in the world in universities, many of the best students are from China.”


He said a lot of high-powered teaching and research could be done using nothing more than a blackboard and chalk, and “you don’t need a lot of machines [or] supercomputers”.
But he said he did not believe it “can be done in isolation” and international collaboration was important in allowing mathematicians to network and collaborate.
“New ideas come from exchanging ideas between colleagues, between peers and also between teacher and students,” he added.
“Exchanges – sometimes confrontations of ideas in a very peaceful way – drive us more to the edge of knowledge and give us the drive to go beyond that.”
Ngo also said longer-term appointments that did not require researchers to reapply for their jobs every two to three years allowed time and freedom for bright young researchers to pursue ambitious projects.
“The current system in China but also across the world is pushing very hard for KPIs [key performance indicators] to produce a certain number of papers every year to survive in academia,” he said.
But he warned that while KPIs might work in mid-level universities, the elites should be pursuing quality over quantity.
“Of course, pressure is good to a certain extent ... but it doesn’t push you to produce quality work or pursue ambitious plans because you just want to produce a paper every three months. [It is] not possible in mathematics to break through if you do that,” he said.
“That is something that we need to learn from the French system,” he said, pointing to his postdoctoral supervisor, who asked him not to write “bad papers”.
After spending most of his academic life in the West, he said it was the right time to return to Asia to be closer to his parents and roots, and because he missed the “Asian vibe” that he found in Hong Kong.
“Hong Kong has always been the place where the East meets West and it has tremendous opportunities to play that role,” he said. “In Hong Kong and China in general, there is a real thirst to develop mathematics and science,” he said, adding that Chinese students he mentored were “happy to work hard”.
Looking ahead to his new chapter, Ngo plans to continue his research in pure maths and work with students and young researchers in looking for ways to connect representation theory and number theory.

“The reason why I have been immersed deeply in mathematics is because I feel very fortunate to have received this intellectual heritage from back to antiquity. As mathematicians, we have the honour and duty to put some old stone in the beautiful garden, keep it clean, preserve it and transmit it to younger generations,” he said.
He also said he did “not see how it is possible” for artificial intelligence to replace mathematicians, whose work involves deep thinking and numerous layers of logic that were beyond the capabilities of the technology.
He expressed concern about “hasty implementation of AI” in schools, saying: “I really don’t want the first ‘people’ that children interact with to be AI [considering] the consequences for their development.”
“It needs to be thought out and very deliberate, not just large-scale experimentation that would lead to disaster.”


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Science

Things ‘I do not like’ drove me to quit US for Hong Kong: top mathematician Ngo Bao Chau

Ngo Bao Chau says he wants to help turn Asia into a powerhouse of maths and science. Photo: Handout

Ngo Bao Chau will join the University of Hong Kong in June. Photo: Handout

China’s award-winning mathematician Wan Daqing leaves California for Chongqing

Wan Daqing, winner of China’s highest mathematics prize, returned to China to take up his new role in December. Photo: Handout

Wan Daqing has joined Chongqing University’s mathematics department. Photo: Handout

Wan Daqing and Chongqing Communist Party committee secretary Yuan Jiajun exchange new year greetings in February. Photo: Handout

Sichuan University’s graduate maths class of 1982, with Wan Daqing in the back row, second from left. Photo: Handout

Vietnam’s legendary maths genius Ngo Bao Chau to join University of Hong Kong

Ngo Bao Chau made history in 2010 as the first Vietnamese recipient of the prestigious Fields Medal, regarded as the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Photo: Handout

News

China

The academic also says he is motivated by his vision to make Asia an intellectual powerhouse for science and learning


The academic also says he is motivated by his vision to make Asia an intellectual powerhouse for science and learning.


United States

Hong Kong

Vietnam

University of Chicago

Things ‘I do not like’ drove me to quit US for Hong Kong: top mathematician Ngo Bao Chau

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The academic also says he is motivated by his vision to make Asia an intellectual powerhouse for science and learning

The academic also says he is motivated by his vision to make Asia an intellectual powerhouse for science and learning