Born in Hexian County, Anhui Province in 1962, he graduated from the Department of Mathematics of Sun Yat-sen University in 1983, and went to study in the United States after receiving a master's degree in mathematics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1986. He received a doctorate from Columbia University in 1991 and became a professor at this school in 1996, which proved the worldwide puzzle Bogomolov's conjecture in the same year. In 1997, the Gross-Chakia formula was first popularized in the whole real domain in the world. In 1998, he was invited to give a 45-minute lecture at the World Congress of Mathematicians held in Berlin, Germany. In the same year, he won the Morningside Mathematics Gold Award for rewarding outstanding Chinese mathematicians around the world. At present, efforts are being made to prove ABC conjecture.

In p>1962, Zhang Shouwu was born in Wuxing Dafan Village, Xibu Town, Hexian County, Anhui Province. He was the third child in his family, with two younger sisters. His family was very poor. Besides farming, his parents also made a living by fishing and raising ducks. When he was a child, he liked music very much, and his physique was particularly poor. His parents bought him an erhu, hoping that he would join the propaganda team of the production team one day and not have to do farm work. But he didn't learn erhu after all.

"When I was in the first or second grade of primary school, I knew that I could calculate things faster than others." He said, "My father is very clever. Although he hasn't read any books, he often tells me how much this fish is a catty after he comes back from fishing every day. I do the math with my pen. With his experience, our results are only a few cents apart, so at that time, I was very curious about the math." When Zhang Shouwu was 7 years old, he enrolled in the primary school in the village, but after two days, he went home. Because his mother said that his sister and cousin were unattended, he stayed at home for one year, taking his sister and brother. The next year, I found that no one at home put ducks, so I went home to put ducks after signing up. When the exam was coming, my mother asked him to take the exam. He said, "How can I take the exam without studying?" Zhang Shouwu and his 9-year-old elder brother went to the same school, and his elder brother taught him. As a result, he "barely passed the exam", which made him more interested in self-study. In the fourth grade of primary school, he wanted to be a mathematician, but the teacher didn't like him at that time because he was always "absent from class or late".

in p>1976, Zhang Shouwu got into Shili junior high school and became more interested in mathematics, but he spent most of his time herding ducks in the fields. His brother borrowed geometry and algebra from the educated youth in the village for him to learn. In less than a year, Zhang Shou Wu finished learning these two books, and he was able to master and apply the knowledge in them skillfully. In the second day of junior high school, he began to delve into high school mathematics. The physics teacher thought he was very talented in mathematics, so he introduced textbooks and theoretical books about high school mathematics to him.

He didn't go to school formally until the third grade of junior high school, because at that time, he began to take the senior high school entrance examination, which means that he had to pass the exam when he was promoted to junior high school, unlike his brother, who was recommended to go to school. At that time, more than 1 people in the village took the exam, and five people were admitted to Hexian No.1 Middle School, the best high school in the county. He was one of them. Although he was the last one, it was "of course a good thing".

Zhang Shouwu began to study regularly in high school, but he found it boring. "In the past, I studied to read whatever I missed, but after high school, I studied for the college entrance examination." He said, "in high school, I have to make up Chinese, English and everything." I now find that all the things I made up at that time have been forgotten, and what I remember is what I read on the ridge. "

In his freshman year of high school, he became obsessed with mathematics. His brother entrusted someone to bring him some advanced mathematics from Hefei University of Technology, and he began to teach himself advanced mathematics. In a math contest, others used skills to answer questions, but he used calculus taught by himself. The teacher found that the answers were all right, but he didn't know how to correct his paper, so he had to let him do it himself. The teacher said to him, "You probably don't have to take math class." In high school, Zhang Shouwu was really good at math, but he failed in the college entrance examination.

"Because I don't usually eat a lot of breakfast, my family told me to eat more during the college entrance examination. As a result, I ate too much that day, and I was sleepy when I sat in the examination room. At that time, the perfect score for mathematics was 1, and the additional questions were 2. I quickly finished the previous questions, but I found that one of them was extremely difficult and the additional questions were easy. I came out in an hour for the three-hour exam and had a pair of questions with the teacher. He said, "This price is too high, and 2 points will be gone. I got 79 points, and because the official score is less than 8 points, the score of additional questions can't be counted. "

On the contrary, he did very well in the chemistry exam. "This is a funny thing. I don't know anything about chemistry. I haven't done any experiments. I spent a week memorizing chemistry, but I got 96 points." He really likes mathematics, and he filled in the department of mathematics in his college volunteer. At this time, he found that there was little hope for the department of mathematics in a good university, so he decided not to go to college and wanted to pass the self-study exam for graduate students at home.

An uncle in Zhang Shouwu was very nervous after hearing the news, so he rode a buffalo for two kilometers to his house and earnestly advised him, "There are five children at home, you are the third child, and you have two sisters, and the family is extremely poor. If you don't study, in case you don't pass the exam next year ..." He promised to go to college, and my uncle asked him what he wanted. He said he would buy a math manual.

In p>198, Zhang Shouwu took a shoulder pole, a quilt made by his mother and a math manual in it, and a toolbox from another uncle who was a cobbler. He took the 22 yuan travel expenses funded by the county to Guangzhou by train and reported to the Chemistry Department of Sun Yat-sen University. The university surprised him. He said, "From the countryside to the city, this is the first time I have seen a train, taken a train, and visited a big city for the first time. I think the university is very good. Everyone thinks the food in the school is terrible, but I think the food in the school is the best, much better than the food at home. "

Zhang Shouwu was assigned to the chemistry department because of his good grades in chemistry, and his teacher liked him very much, but he was bent on learning mathematics. At this time, a classmate in the same dormitory also wanted to learn physics wholeheartedly, so the two of them spent all day in the dormitory, and finally came up with a trick: when the freshmen had a physical examination for two or three months, one pretended to be rhinitis and the other pretended to be color blind, so that they could not learn chemistry.

During the physical examination, the nurse showed Zhang Shouwu the color blindness examination atlas. From the first page to the last page, he said that he couldn't understand it. The nurse said angrily, "The last page is black and white, and there is no color at all. You are not color blind, but blind." He had to plead with her, saying that he really didn't want to learn chemistry, but only wanted to learn mathematics, thus becoming "color blind".

However, Zhang Shouwu scored only 79 points in the college entrance examination, which is the lowest score in the department of mathematics. He took the paper and explained the situation to the professor of the department of mathematics. "They accepted me, so I transferred to the department of mathematics." In the Department of Mathematics, Zhang Shouwu basically taught himself, mainly because he was delayed for half a semester in the Department of Chemistry, so the teacher of the Department of Mathematics gave him an unwritten policy: as long as he passed the exam, he could not take classes, hoping that he could catch up. But when he caught up quickly, the teachers forgot to withdraw this policy. As a result, he was the only one in the mathematics department who didn't need attendance in all classes, as long as he passed the exam. He said, "This actually gave me time for self-study."

In the first year of college, Zhang Shou Wu began to teach teachers. "This is particularly good luck, because when I took the advanced algebra test for the first time, there were two parts in the test paper, some of which were more abstract and some were more specific. Other students could make specific topics, but they couldn't make abstract topics. I was the only one who could make abstract topics and couldn't make specific topics. At this time, the teacher felt very strange and asked the teaching assistant to ask me what was going on. I said, I have never studied linear algebra before, only taught myself abstract algebra. The teacher also wanted to learn abstract algebra, but he didn't understand it, so he asked me to learn abstract algebra with him. He gave me a book, and after I learned it, I gave a report to the teachers. At that time, there were two associate professors listening, so the two of us started a discussion class in the first year of college. This is a very lucky thing for me, because at that time, not many college students had such an opportunity to give lectures to teachers, and they were able to learn things by themselves and then tell them to professors. This felt very different, and I learned quickly. "

influenced by Chen Jingrun's deeds, Zhang Shouwu was very interested in number theory. After he went to college, he found it difficult to further popularize Goldbach's conjecture with the methods of Hua Luogeng and Wang Yuan, and decided to focus on algebra, so he spent all his time in college studying algebra.

In his sophomore year, his math professor heard the concept of "homology algebra" from other places, and thought it was very important knowledge, but he couldn't understand it himself, so he asked Zhang Shou to learn martial arts before reporting. So, Zhang Shouwu borrowed a book on homology algebra from the library and began to learn it. But it was an English book. He had never studied English, so he had to translate the words into spoken English while holding a dictionary, then study and then make a report. "At this time, there were more than a dozen people sitting below, not only two teachers from the Department of Mathematics, but also teachers who came to Sun Yat-sen University for training. Most of those two and a half years were studying abstract algebra."

Zhang Shouwu's college life was particularly enjoyable. The only bad thing was that he failed a math exam. The reason is that he took the ordinary differential equation exam of Grade 79 in advance, and he got 75 points, so he asked the school to give him another chance to take the exam of his classmates in the same grade. In order to make the students in the class get good marks, he mimeographed the last exam questions and answers for everyone to learn. I didn't expect the two exams to be the same. As a result, all the students in the class got more than 9 points. The teacher was very angry after investigating the situation, and deducted his exam paper to 59 points. Although he got 1 points when he made up the exam, the record of failing was still there, which made him very nervous. Considering that it would affect the future distribution, he decided to advance it. So, he finished all the courses one year in advance.

When talking about college life, Zhang Shouwu said, "I was very happy in college. I always taught myself in a relaxed environment and communicated with teachers. At the university, my biggest gain is that I can speak the mathematics I have studied, and mathematics and language are unified. " In the summer vacation of 1982, Zhang Shouwu was going to apply for the postgraduate degree in the Institute of Mathematics of China Academy of Sciences. When reviewing, he didn't want to do standard exercises repeatedly. "I don't like to do technical things, but I like to do projects. I feel very interesting if I want to think about something for two or three days instead of one or two hours." He decided to read two books by George Polya, a mathematician from Stanford University in the United States: Problems and Theorems in Analysis, Volume I and Volume II.

In rural Anhui, he basked in rice and read Paulia's books. "This book is particularly difficult to read. Every exercise is like a small paper, and it takes a long time to make it." He said, "I took the exam in winter. I was really lucky. At that time, I took the public exam on analysis and algebra. Almost all the questions were in Paulia's book, and there was another question that was wrong. I corrected it and solved it again. I felt very satisfied."

When the university was about to graduate, a professor of mathematics from the University of Illinois in the United States visited Sun Yat-sen University. Zhang Shouwu's teacher wanted to recommend him to this professor, but the professor said, "You are too young to study this kind of algebra. It is outdated. You should study algebra and geometry. " In this way, Zhang Shouwu knew that he would study algebra and geometry in the future.

1983 was particularly important for Zhang Shouwu. The first thing was that he was admitted to the Graduate School of Mathematics of China Academy of Sciences. The second thing was that Academician Wang Yuan of the Institute of Mathematics had just returned from abroad and made a report in the Institute of Mathematics, introducing the proof of Mordel1's conjecture by gerd Faltings, a young German mathematician.

"The elder said this theorem was so beautiful that it only took more than 3 pages to prove it, but he couldn't understand any paragraph except the preface." This was a great shock to Zhang Shouwu. He said to Wang Yuan, "I want to read number theory with you. I will read this article. If I understand this article within three years, you will give me a degree." Wang Yuan said: "You see, I will give you a master's degree if I understand it."

But this article is really too difficult. While reading this article, Zhang Shouwu read Robin Hartshorne's standard algebraic geometry, which he bought at 2.9 yuan from a foreign language bookstore near Beijing's former Bayi Middle School. Three years have passed, and he has finished reading Hartson's book, but he still can't understand faltings's paper. When he graduated, he "fudged" a paper. He clearly remembers: "After the defense, the elder said that we couldn't understand a word you said, but considering that you have been in the office before 8 o'clock every day and worked hard, this master's degree will be given to you, and you will have to rely on real talents to learn in the future." In 1985, when Zhang Shouwu was still a graduate student, Professor Goldfeld from the Department of Mathematics of Columbia University visited the Institute of Mathematics, and Wang Yuan asked Zhang Shouwu to accompany him. When Goldfield gave a report, Zhang Shou Wu sat in the front row and kept helping him clean the blackboard. But when he accompanied him to the Forbidden City, Zhang Shouwu was extremely nervous, because he could not speak a word of everyday English except math, so he brought an English-Chinese dictionary.

After buying tickets in the Forbidden City, "I found my luck again. All the instructions in the Forbidden City are in English, so I don't need to say a word. I followed him, and then began to discuss mathematics and told him about faltings's paper. At this time, I found that he didn't understand algebra and geometry at all, but he was very interested in what I did. I asked him what I should read, and he said, you should read a book by Japanese mathematician Tomura Goro: Introduction to Arithmetic Theory of Automorphic Functions.

After Goldfield returned, Zhang Shouwu managed to find the book in the library, but failed to understand it. At this time, he began to apply for going abroad. The place he wants to go most is Princeton University, because faltings is there, but Wang Yuan wants him to go to Columbia University and Goldfield. Later, I don't know why, but all his application materials for Columbia University were lost. One day, Goldfield wrote to tell him that he had not received the materials and asked him if he would like to go to Colombia again. He said, "Yes."

As a result, Goldfield personally found an application form to fill in and asked someone to write a letter of recommendation. At this time, Wang Yuan happened to be in the United States. He said to Goldfield, "Zhang Shouwu is the best student in China." Zhang Shouwu scored 48 points in the TOEFL, when the full mark was 6 and the admission line was 55. He was afraid to send his TOEFL score. Some time later, he received an admission notice from Colombia. In September, 1986, Zhang Shouwu came to Columbia University. Goldfield suggested that he learn the form of self-restraint, and gave him an article to make a Gross-Zagier formula after reading it. It took him about two months to make it, and he said to Goldfield, "I can't make it. I won't do it with you. You recommend me to go to Princeton and do it with faltings." Goldfield said that he could do it without doing it, and wrote a letter of recommendation for him to go to Princeton.

To be prudent, Zhang Shouwu made a special trip to Princeton to meet faltings, and faltings agreed to give him half an hour. He was so happy that he wrote down and memorized all the English he wanted to speak. At the meeting, he said to faltings, "I admire you very much. I have read your articles and read many books." Half an hour arrived soon. faltings stood up and left without saying a word, Zhang Shouwu.