Eugenia Cheng facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Eugenia Cheng
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Cheng at the Phi Beta Kappa Society (En)Lightning Talks Chicago in 2016
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| Born |
Eugenia Loh-Gene Cheng
1 August 1976 Hampshire, England
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| Education | Roedean School | ||||||||||
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge (BA, PhD) | ||||||||||
| Known for | How to Bake Pi | ||||||||||
| Scientific career | |||||||||||
| Fields | Category theory Popular mathematics |
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| Thesis | Higher-dimensional category theory : opetopic foundations (2002) | ||||||||||
| Doctoral advisor | Martin Hyland | ||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 鄭樂雋 | ||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 郑乐隽 | ||||||||||
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Eugenia Loh-Gene Cheng is a British mathematician, teacher, and concert pianist. She is known for making math fun and easy to understand. She often uses ideas from cooking and baking to explain tricky math concepts. Eugenia wants to help people who feel scared of math. She works as a scientist-in-residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Eugenia Cheng was born in Hampshire, England, in 1976. When she was one year old, her family moved to Sussex. Her family originally came from Hong Kong.
Eugenia became interested in math at a young age. Her mother helped make math a fun part of everyday life for her. She went to Roedean School. Later, she studied math at the University of Cambridge. She earned both her bachelor's degree and her PhD from Cambridge.
Career and Research
Since 2020, Eugenia Cheng has been a scientist-in-residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. There, she teaches math to students who are studying art. Before this, she taught at other universities. These included the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, the University of Sheffield, and the University of Chicago.
She has written many research papers about her special area of math, called category theory.
Math and Baking
Eugenia Cheng's main math interest is category theory. She writes about this topic for everyone, not just mathematicians. She often uses ideas from baking to explain it. Her goal is to help people stop being afraid of math.
In her book, How to Bake Pi, each chapter starts with a dessert recipe. This shows how math and cooking use similar methods and ideas. The book was very popular and has been translated into other languages.
Eugenia has also written other fun papers. Some titles include On the perfect quantity of cream for a scone and On the perfect size for a pizza. She also makes videos online where she talks about math in a fun way. She even explored math using Lego in one of her talks!
Other Writing
Eugenia's second book is called Beyond Infinity. This book explains set theory to people who are not math experts. She uses stories and examples, like Cantor's diagonal argument and Zeno's paradoxes. This book was nominated for a science book award in 2017.
In 2018, she published her third book, The Art of Logic in an Illogical World. In this book, she looks at real-world topics using ideas from logic. She talks about things like same-sex marriage and white privilege. She also explains math ideas like Russell's paradox and Euclid's axioms.
Eugenia also writes a column for The Wall Street Journal called Everyday Math. In this column, she writes about topics like probability theory and how to solve a Rubik's Cube.
Music
Eugenia Cheng is also a talented pianist. She specializes in a type of classical singing called lieder and art song. She has won awards for her music, including the Sheila Mossman Memorial Award.
She has performed in many concerts in Chicago. She played famous pieces like Schwanengesang and Winterreise. She also performed with singers at various events.
In 2013, Eugenia started the Liederstube in Chicago. It's a place where people can enjoy classical music in a cozy and friendly setting. The Liederstube is a non-profit organization.
Media Appearances
Eugenia Cheng has appeared on several TV and radio shows. In 2015, she was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. She made a mille-feuille pastry with Stephen Colbert to show how exponentials work.
She has also been interviewed on radio shows like The Morning Shift on Chicago's Public Radio station WBEZ. In 2018, she was interviewed by Jim Al-Khalili for The Life Scientific on BBC Radio 4. She also appeared on the WGBH podcast Innovation Hub.
Books
- How to Bake Pi (2015)
- Beyond Infinity (2017)
- The Art of Logic in an Illogical World (2018)
- X+Y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender (2020)
- The Joy of Abstraction: An Exploration of Math, Category Theory, and Life (2022)
Recognition
Eugenia Cheng is featured in a special deck of playing cards. These cards highlight important women mathematicians. They were published by the Association of Women in Mathematics.
Images for kids
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Cheng at the Phi Beta Kappa Society (En)Lightning Talks Chicago in 2016
See also
In Spanish: Eugenia Cheng para niños
