Wen-tsun Wu, Chinese mathematician (Shanghai 12 May 1919 – Beijing 07 May 2017)

ACHIEVEMENTS

Discovered Wu classes and Wu formulas (1950)

Introduced the notion of imbedding classes

Introduced immersion and isotopic classes

Discovered Adem-Wu relations (1952) independently

Discovered a general constructive method of with non-homotopic topological invariants of polyhedra (1953)

Gave a criterion for the planarity of linear graphs in the form of solvability of some system of linear equations on mod 2 coefficients

Gave methods of actually imbedding an imbeddable graphs in the plane

Discovered a simple computational method of defining generalized Chern classes and Chern numbers of an algebraic variety with arbitrary singularities via composite Grassmannians (1965)

Established a method for solving algebraic and differential equations by transforming an equation system in the general form to equation systems in triangular form known as Ritt-Wu zero decomposition theorem

Established formulae to express Stiefel-Whitney class by Wu classes and the relations among them

Gave a new criterion for imbedding of a planner diagram

Suggested Cartan’s formula 

With Jiahe Jiang introduced the concept of essential equilibrium of games (1962)  

Eponym of Wu method of characteristic set (1977) and Wu method for solving multivariate polynomial equations (1970s)

HONORS

Invited Speaker, International Congress of Mathematicians (1958 & 1986)

Herbrand Award (1997)

Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences (2006)

See http://www.sigsam.org/bulletin/articles/156/WuBiography.pdf