A Sip of Mathematics History

Wang Yuan places great emphasis on the history of mathematics. His research in this field started from 1985 and major publications include The Goldbach Conjecture and Hua Loo-Keng: A Biography, the former came as a systematic review of the available papers on the conjecture while the latter offered a vivid account of the career and life of Hua Loo-Keng, the most important mathematician of contemporary China. Hua Loo-Keng: A Biography has been translated into English and published by Springer as its one and only publication on a Chinese mathematician’s life story. This chapter explains why and how Wang Yuan conducted both of the above-mentioned research and his understanding therein, offering Wang Yuan’s thoughts on mathematics history.