Wei Dongyi
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Wei Dongyi | |
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| Born | 1992 (age 32–33) |
| Nationality | China |
| Other names | 韦神[1]、北大数学系扫地僧[1] |
| Education | |
| Awards |
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Wei Dongyi (Chinese: 韦东奕; born 1992 in Jinan, Shandong) is a Chinese mathematician who is currently serving as assistant professor and assistant researcher at the School of Mathematical Science in Peking University.
He has attracted attention on Chinese social media for his simple living style.[2][3] In 2021, he was called Peking University's "ugliest teacher" due to his unkempt appearance.[4]
Education
[edit]Wei Dongyi graduated from Attached Senior School of Shandong Normal University and began studying at Peking University in 2010, then earned his bachelor's degree in 2014 and PhD in 2018 under Tian Gang as his doctoral advisor. His research field includes partial differential equations and differential geometry.
In December 2019, Wei completed his post-doctoral work and became an assistant professor in the Mathematics Department of Peking University.[5]
Internet fame
[edit]Wei Dongyi became viral on the internet from a street interview in May 2021 when he was seen dressed in an unassuming manner, holding a large bottle of drinking water and a bag of mantou (steamed buns).[6] His appearance has led to netizens dubbing him the "sweeping monk" of Peking University.
A group of doctorate mathematicians had been struggling to build a mathematical model for months and called Wei Dongyi for help. He provided equations to alter their experiment which resulted in the mathematical model obtaining a 96% passing rate. The mathematicians wanted to pay the professor to show their gratitude, but he declined. "It’s unnecessary to pay me for such an easy problem," he said. Wei eventually asked for a recharge of his transport card as a form of compensation. [7][8]
Wei Dongyi is nicknamed “God Wei” (韦神) by Chinese netizens.
Selected academic works
[edit]- Wei Dongyi. "Regularity criterion to the axially symmetric Navier-Stokes equations". Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications. 435 (2016), no. 1, 402-413.
- Wendong Wang, Dongyi Wei, Zhifei Zhang. "Energy identity for approximate harmonic maps from surfaces to general targets", Journal of Functional Analysis. 272 (2017), 776-803.
- Wei Dongyi, Zhang Zhifei. "Global well-posedness of the MHD equations in a homogeneous magnetic field". Analysis & PDE . 10 (2017), no. 6, 1361-1406.
- Wei Dongyi, Zhang Zhifei, Zhao Weiren. "Linear inviscid damping for a class of monotone shear flow in Sobolev spaces". Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics. 71 (2018), no. 4, 617-687.
- Wei Dongyi, Zhang Zhifei, Zhao Weiren. "Linear inviscid damping and vorticity depletion for shear flows". Annals of PDE. 5 (2019), no. 1, Art. 3, 101 pp.
- Shao, Feng, Dongyi Wei, and Zhifei Zhang. “On Blow-up for the Supercritical Defocusing Nonlinear Wave Equation.” Forum of Mathematics, Pi 13 (2025): e15. https://doi.org/10.1017/fmp.2025.7.
References
[edit]- ^ a b "北大韦东奕领衔，最小27岁！这10人获颁2021达摩院青橙奖". 北京大学 (in Chinese (China)).
- ^ "北大回应"韦神"走红：青年学者需要安静的治学环境" (in Chinese (Singapore)). 联合早报. 2021-06-03.
- ^ Shuo, Zou (2021-06-11). "Unkempt math wizard has formula for fame". China Daily. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
- ^ "University's 'ugliest maths teacher' now an internet celebrity after awkward interview". South China Morning Post. 2021-06-02. Retrieved 2022-05-11.
- ^ "Math genius gains attention". newsen.pku.edu.cn. Retrieved 2023-01-15.
- ^ "University's 'ugliest maths teacher' now an internet celebrity after awkward interview". South China Morning Post. 2021-06-02. Retrieved 2023-01-15.
- ^ "Chinese math genius takes 1 night to solve problem that puzzled group of mathematicians for 4 months". news.yahoo.com. 11 May 2022. Retrieved 2023-01-15.
- ^ "Chinese maths genius 'God Wei' solves problem overnight that stumped PhDs for months". AsiaOne. 2022-05-11. Retrieved 2023-01-15.
