Chia-Chiao Lin facts for kids

Chia-Chiao Lin (Chinese: 林家翹; born July 7, 1916 – died January 13, 2013) was a very smart mathematician. He was born in China and later became an American citizen. He was known for his important work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Lin made big discoveries in how liquids and gases move. This is called hydrodynamic stability and turbulent flow. He also contributed to mathematics and astrophysics, which is the study of space and stars.

About Chia-Chiao Lin

Early Life and Education

Chia-Chiao Lin was born in Beijing, China. His family came from a place called Fuzhou. In 1937, he finished his studies in physics at National Tsinghua University in Beijing.

After graduating, he worked as a teaching assistant at Tsinghua University. In 1939, Lin won a special scholarship. It was called the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship. This scholarship was meant to help him study in the United Kingdom.

However, because of World War II, plans changed. Lin and other students were sent to North America by ship. But their ship had to stop in Kobe, Japan. All the students had to go back to China.

Studying in North America

In 1940, Lin finally made it to Canada. He studied at the University of Toronto and earned his master's degree in 1941.

Then, Lin moved to the United States. He continued his studies at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). In 1944, he earned his PhD. His teacher was a famous scientist named Theodore von Kármán. Lin's PhD work helped solve a problem about how fluids flow smoothly or become unstable. This was a problem that even Werner Heisenberg had studied.

Teaching and Research Career

Lin taught at Caltech from 1943 to 1945. He also taught at Brown University from 1945 to 1947.

In 1947, Lin joined the teachers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He became a full professor at MIT in 1953. In 1963, he was given the special title of "Institute Professor" at MIT. This is a very high honor.

From 1972 to 1974, he was the President of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. This is a group for people who use math to solve real-world problems. Lin retired from MIT in 1987.

Later Life

In 2002, Lin moved back to China. He helped start a new center at Tsinghua University. It was called the Zhou Pei-Yuan Center for Applied Mathematics. He passed away in Beijing in 2013 when he was 96 years old.

Awards and Honors

Chia-Chiao Lin received many important awards during his life. These awards recognized his amazing work in mathematics and science:

• The first Fluid Dynamics Prize from the American Physical Society (1979)
• The 1976 NAS Award in Applied Mathematics and Numerical Analysis
• The 1975 Timoshenko Medal
• The 1973 Otto Laporte Award
• Caltech's Distinguished Alumni Award

Lin was also a member of several important science groups. These included the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was also a member of the American Philosophical Society. He was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1958, he became an Academician of Academia Sinica. In 1994, he became a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.