Wei-Liang Chow

Wei - Liang Chow, Chinese周 炜 良/周 炜 良, Pinyin Zhou Weiliang; ( Born October 1, 1911 in Shanghai, † August 10 1995 in Baltimore ) was a Chinese- American mathematician who worked on algebraic geometry.

Chow was sent by his family to a school in the United States (before he received private lessons ). He attended school in Wilmore, Kentucky and studied at the University of Kentucky and then at the University of Chicago, where in 1931 he received his bachelors degree in 1932 and his master's degree in mathematics. He studied afterwards ( after a short detour to Göttingen) Bartel Leendert van in Leipzig in der Waerden, who was leading him to algebraic geometry, then dominated by the Italian school of Francesco Severi. He lived from 1934 in Hamburg, where he heard in Emil Artin, as Shiing - Shen Chern. In 1936 he received his doctorate in Leipzig ( The geometric theory of algebraic functions for arbitrary perfect body ). In 1936 he married Margot Victor, whom he met in Hamburg. From September 1936 he was a professor at Nanjing University in China. During the Japanese occupation he went from Nanjing to Shanghai. He published some little work, but was able to resume his mathematical activity until after the war in 1946, when he taught at the Tung- Chi University in Shanghai. Through the mediation of Chern he was in 1947 at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. From 1948 he was an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University, where he became professor in 1950. In 1977, he went there to retire. 1955 to 1965 he was chairman of the mathematics department and initiated at this time a very active school of algebraic geometry in which also Andre Weil and Oscar Zariski were regular guests. The group, among others belonged Jun- Ichi Igusa and Shreeram Abhyankar.

Chow led in working with van der Waerden to algebraic geometry. IX. ( Mathematische Annalen 1937) Chow coordinates. In 1949 he proved the theorem of Chow: Every compact analytic manifold in projective space is an algebraic variety. In 1956 he led in a work published in the Annals of Mathematics, the Chow ring of algebraic cycles of a non- singular projective algebraic variety one, the algebraic - geometric counterpart to the ring Kohomologieklassen a topological manifold.

1953 to 1977 he was editor of the American Journal of Mathematics.

Chow was also stamp collectors and published a book on Shanghai stamps.

Writings

• The geometric theory of algebraic functions for arbitrary perfect body. Mathematische Annalen, Bd.114, 1937, S.655.
• Simple topological proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra. Bd.116, 1939.
• About the multiplicity of intersections of hypersurfaces. Mathematische Annalen Bd.116, 1939.
• With van der Waerden: For algebraic geometry. IX. About associated forms and algebraic systems of algebraic varieties. Mathematische Annalen, Bd.113, 1937.