mathematics

Qiang Du

Qiang Du is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Qiang Du rather than just read about it. In short: Qiang Du (Chinese: 杜强), the Fu Foundation Professor of Applied Mathematics at Columbia University, is a Chinese mathematician and computational scientist. Prior to moving to Columbia, he was the Verne M.

Key takeaways

Qiang Du belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Qiang Du to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Qiang Du from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Qiang Du (Chinese: 杜强), the Fu Foundation Professor of Applied Mathematics at Columbia University, is a Chinese mathematician and computational scientist. Prior to moving to Columbia, he was the Verne M. Willaman Professor of Mathematics at Pennsylvania State University affiliated with the Pennsylvania State University Department of Mathematics and Materials Sciences.

Education After completing his BS degree at University of Science and Technology of China in 1983, Du earned his Ph.D. degree from Carnegie Mellon University in 1988. His thesis was written under the direction of Max D. Gunzburger.

Selected publications His two most often cited papers are

Du, Qiang; Faber, Vance; Gunzburger, Max (1999). "Centroidal Voronoi Tessellations: Applications and Algorithms". SIAM Review. 41 (4). Society for Industrial & Applied Mathematics (SIAM): 637–676. Bibcode:1999SIAMR..41..637D. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.407.146. doi:10.1137/s0036144599352836. ISSN 0036-1445. {{cite journal}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |citeseerx= (help) Du, Qiang; Gunzburger, Max D.; Peterson, Janet S. (1992). "Analysis and Approximation of the Ginzburg–Landau Model of Superconductivity". SIAM Review. 34 (1). Society for Industrial & Applied Mathematics (SIAM): 54–81. doi:10.1137/1034003. ISSN 0036-1445.

Students and post-doctorates As of June 2018, 17 students had completed their Ph.D. degrees under Du's supervision. He had also supported 10 post-doctorates.

Recognition Du was elected a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 2013 for "contributions to applied and computational mathematics with applications in material science, computational geometry, and biology." In 2017 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society in the 2020 Class, for "contributions to applied and computational mathematics with applications in materials science, computational geometry, and biology".

References

External links Qiang Du at the Mathematics Genealogy Project Qiang Du's home page at Columbia University Qiang Du's home page at Penn State

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Qiang Du

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Qiang Du claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Qiang Du before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Qiang Du ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Qiang Du

In research: Qiang Du appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Qiang Du in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Qiang Du is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 20th-century American mathematicians, 21st-century American mathematicians, Chinese emigrants to the United States, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Qiang Du outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Qiang Du in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Qiang Du means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Qiang Du out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Qiang Du in simple terms?

Why does Qiang Du matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Qiang Du?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Qiang Du.