In 2019, renowned mathematician Sun Bingyong was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at the age of 42. Fast forward to August 16th of this year, he was awarded the 2024 Future Science Prize in the field of Mathematics and Computer Science for his outstanding contributions to the representation theory of Lie groups.
A Mathematician from the Countryside
Born in November 1976 in Sunjia Village, Liuheng Shuangtang Community, Putuo District, Zhoushan City, Zhejiang Province, Sun Bingyong and his twin brother, Sun Binqiang, grew up in a simple farmer’s family. They were both lauded for their intelligence and academic excellence from a young age.
Sun Bingyong demonstrated an exceptional talent for mathematics even in his early education. By the time he was in elementary school, he had already mastered the math curriculum of junior high. During high school, he won the champion title in the Zhejiang Province Mathematical Olympiad with a perfect score.
Selected for the science experimental class at Tsinghua University Affiliated High School, Sun Bingyong surprisingly gave up the opportunity to be recommended to Tsinghua or Peking University. Instead, he chose to attend Zhejiang University in his hometown province. His twin brother, Sun Binqiang, was also admitted to Zhejiang University the same year.
During his time at Zhejiang University, Sun Bingyong received significant guidance from the department chair, Chen Shuping, who introduced him to renowned mathematician Li Jian-shu and recommended him to participate in a series of Lie group courses organized by several prominent mathematicians at the University of Hong Kong.
After completing his undergraduate degree in 1999, Sun Bingyong went to the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology for his Ph.D., supervised by Professor Li Jian-shu. Following his Ph.D. graduation in 2004, he conducted postdoctoral research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology before returning to China to join the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
In 2020, the year after being elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Sun Bingyong returned to his alma mater, Zhejiang University, where he currently serves as a professor and doctoral supervisor at the Advanced Institute for Mathematics.
From the Zhejiang University website, it is evident that Sun Bingyong has been focusing on the representation theory of Lie groups and automorphic forms for many years. In this field, he has achieved a series of significant results, including establishing the single-valued property of classical Lie group representations, co-completing the final proof of two basic conjectures in the theta correspondence theory, and proving the non-vanishing conjecture at infinity for Rankin-Selberg convolutions. These pioneering contributions earned him the 2024 Future Science Prize in Mathematics and Computer Science.
Embracing Failure in Research
The general public often views mathematics as a mysterious science, and many are curious about how mathematicians conduct their research. Sun Bingyong explains that a piece of paper, a pen, and a blackboard are his essential tools.
“A significant part of a mathematician’s time is spent learning, as they must first understand what others have thought of before they can make further progress,” he says.
Regarding whether mathematicians should focus on their strengths or弥补 their weaknesses, Sun Bingyong advocates for leveraging strengths.
“In engineering research, you might need to address weaknesses to avoid bottlenecks. However, mathematics is more about pure theory and open-ended content, and it’s not necessary to excel in every direction,” he states.
Sun Bingyong also maintains his own pace in scientific research, believing in the principle of taking time to refine work. Even under significant research pressure, he remains calm and composed, not worrying about others achieving results before him.
This mindset is more related to his natural temperament, he believes.
“I’ve always been a slowpoke, taking my time with things and not paying much attention to short-term功利istic goals,” he says.
He also sees the benefit in others achieving results before him.
“If someone else solves a problem first, it’s as if they’ve pushed the research forward for me. You can then build on their work or find another problem to tackle. Mathematics is a vast theoretical system that requires contributions from everyone,” he adds.
For researchers in fundamental fields like mathematics, having the patience to endure long periods of research is crucial. However, encountering significant setbacks or what some might call “darkest moments” is inevitable.
Sun Bingyong, however, does not see it that way.
“I don’t think we have any darkest moments. Failures are definitely there, but in research, you mostly get feedback on failures, and occasionally, you achieve a success. If you accumulate these small successes, you eventually get a big success
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