Dr. Chengshan Xiao’s Academic Ancestors
- Erhard Weigel
- Gottfried Leibniz
- Jacob Bernoulli
- Johann Bernoulli
- Leonhard Euler
- Joseph Lagrange1
- Jean Baptiste Fourier2
- Gustav Dirichlet (1827)
- Rudolf Lipschitz (1853)
- Felix Klein (1868)
- Carl Louis Lindemann (1873)
- Arnold Sommerfeld (1891)
- Ernst Guillemin (1926)
- Robert M. Fano (1947)
- Charles A. Desoer (1953)
- Robert W. Newcomb (1960)
- Brian D. O. Anderson (1966)
- Peter J. Moylan (1972)
- David J. Hill (1976)
- Chengshan Xiao (1997)
1: Wikipedia states that Lagrange’s “academic advisor” (in what sense is unclear if there was no dissertation) was Leonhard Euler, the inventor of graph theory (in his famous solution to the Königsberg bridges problem; according to Barabási this initiated the subject of networks!), whose advisor was Johann Bernoulli; the line continues back as Jacob Bernoulli (his brother), Gottfried Leibniz (the co-inventor of calculus seems to have done two theses in philosophy and law), Erhard Weigel (mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, 1625-1699) where the line seems to end.
2: From http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Fourier.html: “Later in 1794 Fourier was nominated to study at the École Normale in Paris. This institution had been set up for training teachers and it was intended to serve as a model for other teacher-training schools. The school opened in January 1795 and Fourier was certainly the ablest of the pupils whose abilities ranged widely. He was taught by Lagrange, who Fourier described as the first among European men of science, and also by Laplace, who Fourier rated less highly, ……. In 1797 he succeeded Lagrange in being appointed to the chair of analysis and mechanics. … he does not appear to have undertaken original research during this time……Fourier was elected to the Académie des Sciences in 1817. … the Académie published his prize-winning essay Théorie analytique de la chaleur in 1822.” This is referred to as a book elsewhere and probably post-dates his thesis.
Special thanks to Prof. David Hill for providing the above information in early 2007.
Special note: Dr. Chengshan Xiao is on the 65th generation of the Xiao family, details are omitted here.