A high-speed train journey and a visit to a university in Henan gave mathematician Marcelo Viana a view of both China’s long history and its present-day ambitions. In a column, he reflects on the province’s archaeological record, the country’s universities and a discussion with students about mathematics and artificial intelligence.
Viana travelled from Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei, to Xinxiang in Henan. The trip took 90 minutes. While he was on the station platform, another high-speed train passed on the adjacent track without slowing down. He said it was travelling at more than 300 km/h and had disappeared before he could take out his phone to record it.
Henan, with a population of more than 100 million and the Yellow River to its north, is often described as a cradle of Chinese civilization. Evidence of human settlement there dates back to 7000 BC. The archaeological site of Anyang has yielded the oldest known forms of Chinese writing, dating from between 1600 and 1000 BC. Viana notes, however, that historians generally recognize multiple centres of early Chinese civilization.
At Henan Normal University in Xinxiang, he saw a statue of Mao Zedong more than eight metres tall. Its raised arm and gaze toward the horizon appeared to point to the future, prompting Viana to wonder whether Mao could have anticipated the complexity of present-day China or approved of the outcome of the revolution he joined and later came to dominate.
Viana also describes China’s more than 50 “normal” universities, institutions that began as teacher-training schools and expanded their academic offerings. Hebei Normal University, where he had visited the previous week, is 124 years old and is seeking to strengthen its research standing in fields including mathematics and artificial intelligence. Most such universities are run by their provinces, though some have other forms of oversight.
At Henan Normal University’s School of Mathematics, Viana gave a lecture on mathematics and society. He discussed the social value of mathematical knowledge, its contribution to national development, and academia’s responsibility to share that knowledge and prepare professionals to apply it to society’s problems.
At first, he thought many students were paying more attention to their phones than to his presentation. He later realized they were using the devices to read a simultaneous Chinese translation because they were unsure they could follow his English. After the talk, students asked many questions, including about artificial intelligence and its effects on the field. Viana was also struck that most of the questions came from women, contrasting their participation with what he said he often sees among students in Brazil.
During the visit, his colleagues also took him to Shaolin Temple, a Buddhist martial arts centre founded in 495. Viana connected the visit with the television series “Kung Fu,” which he recalled as a major hit during his youth.
Sources: Folha Ciência.