Farewell to an outstanding Vietnamese mathematical talent, a son of Nghe An

Professor Dr. Vu Quoc Phong lies in bed fighting against terminal cancer. Despite the pain of his illness, he always smiles at his friends, colleagues, and relatives when they come to visit. Holding his skinny hand, everyone feels sorry for a Vietnamese mathematical talent, because the day he leaves this world is counted in seconds, in minutes.

And, he passed away on the fateful day of August 27th of the lunar calendar (At Mui) in the infinite sorrow of hundreds of students of Ohio University (USA) and staff, professors, mathematicians (Vietnam Institute of Mathematics), along with family, friends and relatives.

Professor, Doctor of Science Vu Quoc Phong

Associate Professor, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Institute of Mathematics Nguyen Viet Dung shared that Vu Quoc Phong chose mathematics and mathematics chose him. Throughout his life, from his teenage years until his last moments, he was passionate and attached to mathematics. He always chose difficult and thorny research topics and achieved many valuable results in Functional Analysis, Operator Theory, Semigroup Theory...

“He is the author of nearly 70 articles published in prestigious specialized journals. His research results have been cited and used in many articles and dozens of books published worldwide. He has been invited to review dozens of prestigious scientific journals in the world. With his passion, dedication, perseverance, and talent, he has achieved many successes in the field of mathematics. He is a leading mathematician in Vietnam,” Associate Professor Dung affirmed.

Born in the countryside of Nghe An, in a studious family. Vu Quoc Phong had an innate talent for mathematics since childhood. Graduated from high school with excellent academic results, Vu Quoc Phong was sent by the Government to study at the Soviet Union. He graduated from Kharkov University with an excellent red diploma. He was asked by the school to stay as a transfer student and successfully defended his PhD thesis at Kharkov University. He returned to Vietnam and worked at the Vietnam Institute of Mathematics.

Just a few years later, he was sent by the Vietnam Institute of Mathematics to be a senior intern in the Soviet Union and in 1987, he successfully defended his PhD thesis in Mathematics - Physics at the Kiev Institute of Mathematics. From here, many prestigious universities in the world invited him to be a visiting professor in Germany, France, Japan, the United States, Hong Kong... Many mathematical research institutes in the US, Europe, and the NASA Space Center still preserve many of his mathematical research papers. And, in 1999, he became a professor of mathematics at Ohio University.

Despite his success at the top, he always had a simple lifestyle, devoted to his work and was responsible for helping students with talent in mathematics. He was assigned many important responsibilities by Ohio University: Dean of the Graduate School, Chairman of the Admissions Committee, and the school's teacher promotion exam. He was the designer of online courses for Ohio University and several other American universities and the author of many distance lectures.

Professor Vu Quoc Phong with his family

Having devoted his whole life to mathematics, Vu Quoc Phong has always been concerned about the Vietnamese Mathematics industry. Therefore, during summer and winter breaks, he always returned home to attend mathematics conferences. He taught at universities across the country, collaborated closely with the Vietnam Institute of Mathematics, and was the link that helped Vietnamese students and postgraduates to come to the Mathematics Department of Ohio University.

The last days of July. The terrible cancer was tormenting him. Professor - Doctor of Science Vu Quoc Phong still taught students. His last lesson was not about equal functions, not about constants, not about derivatives, but about human morality, about terrible diseases that modern medicine could not cure. His voice was weak, but his eyes were still full of determination...

On the West Coast of the United States, when mentioning “Mr. Phong”, both Vietnamese and Western students admire him. The lecture halls are always packed every time he teaches. Even in the past few months, when he was undergoing major surgeries, his online teaching schedule was always eagerly awaited by students. It is not just because Professor Phong has extensive knowledge, but because he instills in students a feeling of “craving to learn”, “wanting to learn” and “learning to the end”.

And even when lying sick, that skinny hand still held the pencil, scribbling ideas on the blank page. …

He passed away at the age of 62 with many unfinished plans. According to him, Vietnam needs to change its thinking about higher education, stop procrastinating, need to have specific, appropriate steps and improve the quality of higher education.

Farewell! An outstanding mathematical talent of Vietnam./.

According to Vietnamnet