Award-winning mathematician shares his thoughts on mathematics in the world

Ti Gong

Don Zagier, the new winner of Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award, stressed the importance of international exchange and cooperation in science in a recent interview in Shanghai.

Zagier shared this year's Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award with Benedict Gross, emeritus professor of mathematics at Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego, for their contrubutions to development of theoretical mathematics.

An emeritus member of the scientific community and former director of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics, Germany, Zagier contributed to the establishment of striking cases of the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture, which brought many applications to longstanding problems, and deeply influenced the development of number theory in recent decades.

Since he held positions in many countries, he has developed a strong interest in other cultures and languages, and his most important work has been in collaboration with others, facilitated by his international lifestyle.

"I retired from the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics, but I'm still a professor in Trieste, Italy. I have a visiting position every year in Russia and in Trieste, the famous International Centre for Theoretical Physics, and also a better collaboration with China.

"People from Germany, England, Italy, Russia, and China and other countries in mathematics and science exchanging ideas is extremely important for doing high-level research.

"The most important thing is not computers; it is people meeting other people and exchanging, and the more countries and cultures involved, the better it is.

"So to me, all of my life is doing that. I got at least two jobs in different countries at the same time, I spent all my life going between them.

"Actually the world is becoming more together, albeit for a very sad reason, but still it actually is improving internationalization of research. I certainly feel it's very important to develop."

Zagier is also recognized for his profound work on modular forms and special functions which resolve questions and problems in diverse areas ranging from topology and moduli spaces to geometry and mathematical physics.

"Number theory is very active for research. There are many, many new results every year. It is developing very much, and even though it is old, there are many applications.

"So, for instance, we know that when taking a taxi to a hotel using GPS, the taxi brings you right to the door. Twenty years ago, it was 500 meters away, very approximate.

"That improvement came from a program of number theory. Whenever you are using GPS, you are using number theory. When you use WeChat to pay for something, you are using number theory, because they are using prime numbers for security."

Zagier signed a contract with the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen two years ago. "So I'll come to China every year for at least five years.

"I want to give lectures and talk to students. I spoke to many young people there. They were very bright, very interested. I've no special advice as they are doing the right thing. My feeling is it's a very, very good improvement.

Zagier's first visit to China was for a lecture at the Academy of Sciences in Beijing and the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei in 1983, some 40 years ago.

"It is unbelievable the advances China has made in mathematics," he said. "The speed of increase is extremely impressive, and in another five to 10 years, it will be even higher. So mathematics research in China is very strong, especially because there is a lot of communication with the West, Europe, the US, and other countries.

"People spend years abroad and they come back. China has become part of the current mathematics world in a very short time."