Published : 2025-04-30
On April 30, 1984, the renowned Chinese mathematician Professor Hua Luogeng (華羅庚), or Loo-Keng Hua, officially accepted the title of Foreign Member granted by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of the U.S.
The awarding ceremony was held at the main building of the NAS.
At the ceremony, Dr. Frank Press, President of the NAS, praised Professor Hua Luogeng for his outstanding contributions to the field of mathematics. He emphasised that despite being self-taught, Professor Hua has spread his knowledge to tens of thousands of people.
After the ceremony, Professor Hua stated that receiving this title was not only an honour for him personally but also an honour for the Chinese people. He also said he would continue to work hard to promote exchanges and cooperation between China and the United States in the field of science.
Professor Hua was elected as a Foreign Member of the NAS in 1982, making him the first Chinese scientist to receive this honorary title in the 120-year history of the NAS.
Professor Hua Luogeng is the founder and pioneer of research in many areas such as Chinese analytical number theory, classical groups, matrix geometry, automorphic functions theory, and the theory of functions of several complex variables.
Behind this world-renowned mathematician lies a history of self-taught success.
In 1922, after graduating from elementary school at the age of 12, Hua Luogeng entered Jintan County Elementary Middle School (now Jiangsu Hua Luogeng High School).
After graduating, he attended Shanghai Zhonghua Vocational School, but he had to drop out due to inability to afford tuition fees. He returned home to help his father manage a grocery store.
Despite dropping out, 15-year-old Hua Luogeng continued to self-study his favourite subject of mathematics. In the end, he managed to complete all high school and early college-level math courses in five years through self-study.
Subsequently, Hua began submitting articles to academic journals. In 1930, his paper titled The Reason Why Su Jiaju's Method for Solving Quintic Equations is Invalid was published in the Shanghai journal Science, which caused a sensation in the mathematical community. This also earned him Tsinghua University's favour.
In 1931, Hua Luogeng gained recognition from Xiong Qinglai (熊慶來) and officially became an assistant in the Mathematics Department at Tsinghua University.
During this period, Hua self-studied four languages: English, French, German, and Japanese, and published three papers in overseas Chinese newspapers. Later, he was sent by Tsinghua to further his studies at the University of Cambridge in the UK.
Upon returning to China, Hua Luogeng continued to shine in the field of mathematics, accumulating fruitful research results over the years.
His famous academic paper Theory of Functions of Several Complex Variables on Typical Domains has a pioneering significance in the field of mathematics and won him the First Class Prize of Chinese National Science Award in 1957. His research results were named "Hua's Theorem" by the international mathematical community.
Hua Luogeng left behind 200 academic papers and 10 monographs, eight of which were translated and published abroad, some designated as classic mathematical works of the century. He also wrote more than 10 popular science books.
Due to his excellent achievements in scientific research, he was successively elected as a Foreign Member of the NAS, a member of the Third World Academy of Sciences, and awarded honorary doctorates by the Université de Lorraine in France, the University of Illinois in the United States, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
He was also elected as an academician of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Germany. His name has been included in the annals of internationally renowned scientists.
