P. M. Pu

P. M. Pu (1910-1988) was a mathematician born in mainland China. We include brief biographical remarks for this pioneer of systolic geometry. The remarks are based on bibliographical reference below, p. 19.

Thesis under Loewner

The first name is spelled Bao Ming in the recently modified system of
transliteration. Pu received his Ph.D. at Syracuse University in 1950
under the supervision of Charles Loewner, resulting in the
publication of the http://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=48886 seminal paper containing both Pu's inequality for the real projective plane and Loewner's torus inequality. The listing at the website of the Mathematical Genealogy Project indicates that his first name, according to Syracuse University records, was FRANK.

Following Chiang Kai-shek's ouster from the mainland in 1949, there was apparently a wave of recalls of Chinese academics working in the West. One such case was Wu, Wen Tsün, a student of Cartan's in Paris, who one day disappeared from France without saying a word to anyone, according to eyewitness testimony by Marcel Berger.

Mainland

Pu may have also been forced to return to the mainland by the
communist authorities. He was professor at Sichuan University,
Chengdu. Perhaps because someone who had spent time in the West was
automatically suspect, Pu was unable to advise students for most of
his scientific career. According to the http://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1053259
official obituary (msn) (Chinese), he was finally granted the coveted status of boshi sheng dao shi (supervisor of graduate students) at the ripe age of 71, four years after the end of the infamous Cultural Revolution. Most of his later papers concern fuzzy topology.

Influence

According to Google Scholar, Pu's seminal article from 1952 is cited by as many as 87 mathematical works, a remarkably high score by mathematical standards.

Bibliography
* Katz, M. Systolic geometry and topology. With an appendix by J. Solomon. Mathematical Surveys and Monographs, volume 137. American Mathematical Society, 2007.

* Pu, P.M.: "Some inequalities in certain nonorientable Riemannian manifolds". Pacific Journal of Mathematics 2 (1952), 55-71.

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