Biography of Feng Kang

宁肯 / 汤涛Zhejiang Education Publishing House · ChinaAug 2025

Rating 4.2
Word count
190K words
Chapters
49
ISBN
9787553698496

Tags

General Biography Discipline FoundationPortrait GalleryFate and FortuneComplex HumanityPatriotismScientific SpiritDocumentary NarrativeSocial Observation

Summary

Mr. Feng Kang (1920–1993) was a highly important mathematician and applied and computational mathematician in the history of modern Chinese mathematics. He was a pioneer and founder of scientific and engineering computing in China and is known as the father of Chinese computational mathematics. In December 2019, the writer Ning Ken and the mathematician Tang Tao co-published Feng Kang: A Biography, the first work of book length (374 pages, 265,000 characters) to review Feng Kang's life and assess his scientific career, largely remedying the previous scattered and unsystematic state of academic research on Feng Kang and his contributions. Ning Ken is a prominent contemporary Chinese writer who has served as vice chairman of the Beijing Writers Association, executive deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine October, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese Writers Association, and a visiting professor at Beijing International Studies University. His works are known for profound character portrayal and a distinctive narrative style and have won numerous major literary awards, including: the 7th Lu Xun Literary Prize; the 2nd Lao She Literary Award; the 4th Lao She Literary Award; the 1st Shi Nai'an Literary Prize; the 1st Sun Li Prose Prize Biennial Award; the 1st Hong Kong "Dream of the Red Chamber Award"; the 19th Baihua Literary Prize; a nomination for the 8th Mao Dun Literature Prize; a nomination for the 1st American Newman Literary Prize; the 4th People's Literature Novel Biennial Award; an honorary writer of Dangdai; the Excellence Award for Literary and Artistic Works for the 60th Anniversary of the Founding of New China; a 2017 China Good Book; the 2017 October Literary Award; the overall champion of the 2nd Dangdai Literary Rally; and inclusion by Asia Weekly among "the 20 most influential writers in Chinese-language literature over 20 years." In addition, Ning Ken's works have been translated into multiple languages, including Czech, English, French, and Italian, and have attracted wide international attention.

Editor's review

Feng Kang was a major founder of computational mathematics and applied mathematics in China, but this book is more than a biography of a scientist. In over 300,000 characters, it places Feng Kang's academic career back in the context of twentieth-century Chinese scientific development, presenting both his personal choices and perseverance and the process by which computational mathematics took root and took shape as a discipline in China. Written jointly by a writer and a mathematician, the book achieves a certain balance between narrative readability and professional accuracy: the subject's experiences have detail and warmth, while explanations of his scientific contributions are kept as concrete as possible. For general readers, it can serve as an entry point for understanding the institutionalization of modern science in China; for specialist readers, the book's assessment of Feng Kang's scientific career and its organization of materials help remedy the previously scattered state of research. Readers should attend to the historical conditions and disciplinary context in which the biographee worked and avoid reading the biography merely as a story of individual striving.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Begin with the table of contents and preface to understand the book's time span and sources.
  2. Slow down when reading chapters on scientific contributions, using the notes to understand the background.
  3. Compare the biographee's experiences with major events in China's scientific and technological development of the same period to form a historical frame of reference.
  4. After finishing, outline a timeline of Feng Kang's academic career to reinforce the overall impression.

About the publisher

Zhejiang Education Publishing House China · Founded in 1983

Zhejiang Education Publishing House is a professional publisher focusing on educational publishing while also serving general readers and academic accumulation, with publications covering textbooks, educational readers, popular science, and academic works. Judging from the more than 1,000 titles in the database, the press places considerable emphasis on classics and traditional culture for general readers: modern literature includes Lao She's Camel Xiangzi, Lu Xun's Call to Arms and Wandering and Wild Grass, Xiao Hong's The Story of Hulan River, and Zhu Ziqing's Back View; classical poetry includes Three Hundred Tang Poems and selections from the "Good Chinese Poetry" series, such as the Chu Ci and Qing ci anthologies. Related authors include modern writers such as Lao She, Lu Xun, Xiao Hong, and Zhu Ziqing, as well as classical literature selectors and annotators such as Hengtang Tuishi, Jin Xingyao, Jin Kaicheng, and Qian Zhonglian. Common categories in the database also include social novels, classic works, prose and miscellaneous writings, popular science, and inspirational growth, reflecting a publishing orientation that balances educational service with the popularization of public culture.

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. 指导委员会、编辑委员会成员名单
  3. 总序
  4. 引子
  5. 第一部 少年与病痛
  6. 第一章 逃亡
  7. 第二章 沙城
  8. 第三章 故土
  9. 第四章 少年
  10. 第五章 战争
  11. 第六章 病与方向
  12. 第二部 有限元与计算
  13. 第七章 陈省身与华罗庚
  14. 第八章 计算数学
  15. 第九章 三室
  16. 第十章 二十一基地
  17. 第十一章 两弹
  18. 第十二章 自杀
  19. 第十三章 刘家峡
  20. 第十四章 美丽的有限元
  21. 第十五章 风萧萧兮
  22. 第十六章 1019任务
  23. 第十七章 蛰伏期
  24. 第三部 学术与舞台
  25. 第十八章 春天
  26. 第十九章 飞鸟
  27. 第二十章 计算中心
  28. 第二十一章 世界舞台
  29. 第二十二章 反问题
  30. 第二十三章 紧急建议
  31. 第二十四章 自然边界元方法
  32. 第二十五章 萌芽辛算法
  33. 第二十六章 收获辛算法
  34. 第二十七章 国家奖
  35. 第二十八章 变迁
  36. 第四部 学派与传承
  37. 第二十九章 第一个博士
  38. 第三十章 小概率事件
  39. 第三十一章 隔代亲
  40. 第三十二章 国家重点实验室
  41. 第三十三章 草原上来的年轻人
  42. 第三十四章 窄门
  43. 第三十五章 关门弟子
  44. 第三十六章 陨落
  45. 第三十七章 冯康是谁
  46. 尾声
  47. 附录 冯康年表
  48. 后记
  49. 丛书出版后记

FAQ

How is Feng Kang positioned in the book? According to the materials, Feng Kang was an important mathematician and applied and computational mathematician in the history of modern Chinese mathematics, regarded as a pioneer and founder of scientific and engineering computing in China and known as the father of Chinese computational mathematics. The biography covers his life, reviews his experiences and assesses his scientific career, while also presenting the disciplinary development context of his time.
Does the book demand a high level of specialized mathematical knowledge? The book is mainly biographical narrative; professional content is explained but is not accessible to complete beginners. When it deals with contributions to computational mathematics, readers need some patience and basic concepts. Readers with weaker mathematical backgrounds can focus on the subject's experiences and the disciplinary context and need not scrutinize technical passages word by word; understanding their significance is enough.
What characterizes a biography written jointly by a writer and a mathematician? The materials indicate that Ning Ken is a writer and Tang Tao a mathematician; their collaboration gives the biography both the readability of personal narrative and the accuracy of scientific content. Readers can pay attention to how character portrayal and academic assessment connect, which helps in understanding the subject's choices and shows how a professional perspective supports the organization of biographical material.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

宁肯 Author

Ning Ken is a contemporary Chinese author. Public information about him is limited, and details such as his year of birth, native place and education are not clearly recorded. Judging from the sixteen works held in the collection, his writing spans full-length novels, biography, essays and modern poetry, showing considerable breadth in both subject matter and form. His representative works include the novels The Masked City, Heaven·Tibet, Three Trios and Crater, as well as the biography Feng Kang, along with works such as The Road Not Taken, Both Banks of a River and How to Become an Iron Tower. His novels tend to focus on the individual's situation in the city and in reality, and his narratives carry a spirit of exploration and reflection, while his essays and poetry show a sustained engagement with everyday experience and inner feeling. Overall, Ning Ken is a writer who moves among various literary forms and whose style keeps changing.

汤涛 Author

Tang Tao is an author about whom limited public information is available; all that is currently known is that three of his works have appeared, spanning the two broad categories of biography and industrial technology. In biography, he has written Feng Kang Zhuan and Qingliu in a Troubled Age: Wang Boqun and His Times. The former focuses on the life and scholarly path of the mathematician Feng Kang, while the latter centers on Wang Boqun and the changing circumstances of the era in which he lived, showing the author's sustained attention to individual lives and their historical contexts. In industrial technology, PLC Stepper and Servo from Beginner to Mastery is aimed at newcomers and practitioners in automation control and is a practical technical book. Judging from the existing works, Tang Tao's writing bridges the humanities and engineering: his biographies emphasize the careful arrangement of historical sources and personal trajectories, while his technical book stresses a gradual, accessible approach. Owing to the lack of biographical information, his background and writing career remain to be further documented.