{"id":176291,"date":"2025-11-12T06:45:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T06:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/176291\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T06:45:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T06:45:09","slug":"rising-star-mathematician-wu-meng-returns-to-china-from-finland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/176291\/","title":{"rendered":"Rising star mathematician Wu Meng returns to China from Finland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In the 1960s, mathematician Hillel Furstenberg proposed a conjecture: that a number cannot appear \u201csimple and highly regular\u201d under two \u201cindependent\u201d rulers simultaneously.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Put simply, if a number is written in a binary system \u2013 using only two digits or elements to represent a quantity \u2013 its sequence is relatively regular and simple.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In contrast, when rewriting that number in ternary \u2013 using three elements as its base \u2013 its sequence will almost certainly become relatively more complex and different in structure.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The conjecture seems intuitively obvious, yet for half a century the part relating to intersecting sets went unproven.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">That changed in 2019 when Chinese mathematician Wu Meng, then an associate professor at the University of Oulu, one of Finland\u2019s largest universities, solved the problem.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Wu obtained his PhD from the University of Picardy Jules Verne in France in 2013. Photo: Handout\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/aac57ecc-9b57-47ca-9cbb-a366f5437e91_0ca9518e.jpg\" title=\"Wu obtained his PhD from the University of Picardy Jules Verne in France in 2013. Photo: Handout\"\/>Wu obtained his PhD from the University of Picardy Jules Verne in France in 2013. Photo: Handout<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Afterwards, Wu published \u201cA Proof of Furstenberg\u2019s Conjecture on the Intersections of \u00d7p and \u00d7q Invariant Sets\u201d in Annals of Mathematics, a top journal. The work earned him the 2023 International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians (ICCM) Best Paper Award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the 1960s, mathematician Hillel Furstenberg proposed a conjecture: that a number cannot appear \u201csimple and highly regular\u201d&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[100186,100193,381,100189,100187,100191,18,2427,100192,100188,100194,100197,19,100190,100195,17,19453,82,67011,100185,100196],"class_list":{"0":"post-176291","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-abel-and-wolf-prize","9":"tag-annals-of-mathematics","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-chinese-mathematician","12":"tag-department-of-fundamental-mathematics","13":"tag-einstein-institute-of-mathematics","14":"tag-eire","15":"tag-finland","16":"tag-frontiers-of-science-award","17":"tag-furstenbergs-conjecture","18":"tag-hillel-furstenberg","19":"tag-hunan-university","20":"tag-ie","21":"tag-international-congress-of-basic-sciences","22":"tag-international-congress-of-chinese-mathematiciansiccm","23":"tag-ireland","24":"tag-south-china-morning-post","25":"tag-technology","26":"tag-university-of-oulu","27":"tag-university-of-picardie","28":"tag-wu-meng"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}