On March 23^rd, SUSTech welcomed the renowned scholar Yan Jia’an to give a lecture entitled “My mind in Science and Art”, which took place in the Lecture Hall 110 in the library and was attended by our students and professors. The lecture was overseen by SUSTech Vice-president Tang Tao.

Professor Yan discussed various topics and referenced many famous historical quotes and works, such as Laozi’s philosophy and Zhuangzi’s aesthetics concepts based on the idea: “Truth is simple, real beauty is unpolished”. He went on to discuss the art of Su Shi, Wang Anshi and Zhu Da, and compared them to Poincare’s conjecture, Fermat’s last theorem, Euler’s formula and various other mathematical concepts to shed light on the science of natural beauty.

When Science meets Art – Searching for Truth and Beauty in Creation

Talking about the shared points between art and science, Professor Yan pointed out: “In the end, science and art share the same goal: to understand and find truth and beauty”. With the help of visualisation and aesthetic intuition, outstanding scientists manage to put forward theories and conjectures, which allow significant progress to be made in their field of study. Paul Dirac – an expert in mathematical symmetry – used this method to put forward the idea of his anti-particle theory to explain the phenomenon of negative energy. This led him to win the Nobel Prize of Physics in 1933.

Professor Yan also highlighted the importance of artistic education, underlining that the two fields share a common boundary and help each other to develop, quoting the famous Chinese writer and historian Wang Guowei’s “Renjian Cihua”.

The benefits of teaching art at SUSTech

On the topic of education goals of the university, Professor Yan explained that he believes it is more important to develop the students’ abilities rather than simply imparting knowledge. According to him, “Aesthetic and art education can not only improve people’s artistic sense, it can also benefit scientific research”. He underlined the importance for SUSTech to develop courses focusing on art, claiming that “Those who are unable to appreciate art cannot fully appreciate the beauty of the world”

To conclude the lecture, Professor Yan displayed examples of his own poetry and calligraphy which inspired the SUSTech students to compose their own quatrain poem.

Biography:

Professor Yan graduated from the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Science and Technology of China in 1964, and was elected academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999. His main areas of expertise include random analysis and financial mathematics research, and made significant breakthroughs in the fields of probability theory, martingale theory, stochastic process, and white noise analysis. His work has been rewarded multiple times including being awarded the National Natural Science Award, the He Liang He Li Foundation Science and Technology Progress Award, the Hua Luogeng Mathematics Award , and being invited to the 24th International Mathematician Conference to present a 45 minutes report.

Contribution by: Student News reporter Luo Qingyun, Chen Yinhua, Photo: Xu Wan Yu