Shantao Liao, Chinese mathematician (Hengshan, Hunan Province 04 January 1920 – Beijing 06 June 1997)

Proposed the concepts of standard systems of differential equations and obstruction sets

Introduced the concepts of canonical differential equations and minimal distortion sets

Proved that there is always a fixed point under any periodic transformation in the four-dimensional Euclidean space

Introduced the symmetrization method of fibre bundles

Derived a formula for the secondary obstruction class in sphere bundles

Derived a formula for the relative extension and homology classification of the secondary obstruction class

First gave the correct proof of C’ closing lemma (1979)

Proposed some conjectures regarding characters and stability of certain systems

Introduced Liao lemma

An existence theorem for periodic orbits. Acta Sci. Natur. Univ. Pekinensis 1-20, 1979