Classroom teaching is the most important teaching link, and Jiang Lifu is unique in this respect. The light in the classroom comes from the left. In addition to writing formulas or drawing on the blackboard, he always stands in the left front of the classroom, leaving the blackboard open for students to explain, so that students can use their eyes and ears and their hands and brains. When he writes or draws on the blackboard, he won't interrupt the explanation. Even every mathematical symbol is written and read, and there is never a dumb field. He pays great attention to saving space on the blackboard, and only writes formulas and a few nouns, names and drawings. The blackboard books and drawings are neat and concise. When cleaning the blackboard, always keep the formulas that need to be quoted. When drawing, he usually draws by hand. Only when the figure must be very accurate, such as the complex figure in projective geometry, does he use a ruler and always makes the intersection point fall within the blackboard. He used colored chalk, systematically but not excessively, and represented different objects with different colors. He sometimes has teaching materials for lectures. When there are no teaching materials, he often only writes a brief outline on one or two waste calendars. But he always leaves textbooks or outlines to explain, and textbooks and outlines only serve as memos.
Jiang Lifu's classroom teaching method requires the speaker to have a thorough control of the teaching content, to be highly focused and to have a solid logical reasoning ability; Its advantage is that it can drive students to concentrate, synchronize with the teacher's thinking and achieve the best teaching effect. He often combines geometric intuition with strict formal reasoning to make the content lively. He speaks slowly and clearly, and the listener doesn't feel tired. The benefits of this kind of teaching are far beyond the knowledge of this course. In Jiang Lifu's case, they can get rigorous training in logical thinking and logical expression, especially the ability to solve problems.
Jiang Lifu's hard work has yielded fruitful results. Among his early students, outstanding mathematicians such as Liu Jinnian, Shen Youcheng, Wu Daren, Sun Yat-sen appeared. As an important pioneer of modern higher mathematics education in China, Jiang Lifu's achievements are indelible.
Another work that Jiang Lifu devoted a lot of energy and lasted for a long time was the examination and approval of mathematical terms. In fact, what Jiang Lifu examined and approved, although limited to the most basic terms in pure mathematics, has formed the basis of the whole mathematical terms today.
Jiang Lifu knew that the quality of teaching mainly depends on the level of teachers; It is particularly important to find outstanding talents among young people and let them shoulder heavy responsibilities and grow up in their work. Jiang Lifu's strong recommendation to Su is a typical example of this view.
Jiang Lifu is well aware of the importance of books and materials to the development of mathematical research. At the beginning of the establishment of the Institute of Mathematics, he repeatedly emphasized this point and made every effort to accumulate it. Jiang Lifu has always attached great importance to the translation of foreign textbooks and monographs, because he has a high level of mathematics and a solid literacy in Chinese and foreign languages. Under his leadership, the Chinese translation of mathematics books is of high quality. Jiang Lifu actively advocated the international exchange of mathematics. In addition to encouraging students to study abroad and translate excellent foreign mathematics books, he also urged foreign mathematicians to give lectures in China. In order to make China mathematics enter the mainstream of the world mathematics as soon as possible, Jiang Lifu always tries his best to fund young scholars to study or visit abroad, among which China's visit to the Soviet Union and the United States is the most praised.
Jiang Lifu's academic career began with the study of synthetic geometry. Since the 1940s, Jiang Lifu's research topic has been mainly the geometry of circular elements and spherical elements, and he has gradually sorted out a set of new methods with the second-order symmetric square matrix as the circular coordinate and the second-order Hermite square matrix as the spherical coordinate.
Jiang Lifu was indifferent to fame and fortune all his life, honest and self-controlled. At the beginning of the establishment of the Institute of Mathematics of Academia Sinica, he resolutely returned the generous salary of the director of the establishment office, and suggested that "both the director and the secretary should hold unpaid honorary posts, and the rest of the clerks should be simple, and all the saved funds should be used to buy books." 1950, he also handed over a little-known foreign exchange balance of the Institute of Mathematics of Academia Sinica to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Jiang Lifu put academic research on hold for a long time because he has been engaged in the pioneering and leading work of Chinese mathematics education and research. As early as 1926, when he was teaching at Xiamen University, he once said, "In recent years, I have devoted all my energy to teaching and teaching students, and I will continue to teach myself." However, in the long half century, he always taught people first and then "taught himself". When he was in Sun Yat-sen University, he was old, but he made up lessons for students at night, rain or shine. /kloc-in the winter of 0/955, he fainted in a lecture due to myocardial infarction. Since then, the school no longer arranged his classroom teaching, but he soon hung up the blackboard at home, organized discussion classes, studied while reading with young and middle-aged teachers, graduate students and senior teachers, and engaged in the translation of mathematics books until the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
After liberation, Jiang Lifu not only continued to engage in teaching and scientific research activities within the school, but also held leading positions in scientific organizations such as science associations, popular science, science associations and mathematical societies.
Jiang Lifu is open-minded and upright. He always attaches importance to the development of mathematics in China, regardless of personal fame and fortune, and spares no effort to cultivate and support mathematics talents, which is highly praised by academic circles.
1February 3, 978, Jiang Lifu died of heart failure. And left a will, giving more than 100 precious books to Sun Yat-sen University.
Throughout Jiang Lifu's life, although there are not many academic works, his extensive and outstanding contributions to modern mathematics in China will go down in history forever.