1979年,当时在普林斯顿高等研究所任职的数学家丘成桐访问中国,并提请当时的政府官员允许他去探望一下他的出生地汕头——坐落在广东省的一个山区城镇。开始他们拒绝了这个请求。后来又经过不少周折,终于有人驾车带着丘博士驶上一条新造好的泥路,穿越农田,来到了他的家乡。当地 In 1979, a mathematician named Yau Cheng-ting, who was then at the Princeton Institute of Higher Education, visited China and asked the then government officials to allow him to visit Shantou, where he was born, in a mountainous town in Guangdong Province. At first they rejected the request. Later, after a lot of twists and turns, finally someone drove with Dr. Yau onto a newly built mud road and across farm land to his hometown. local