Gifts of a lifetime

A longtime friend and admirer shares his collected works of Xiong Bingming with the world with his donation to a Beijing museum. Lin Qi reports.

Yang Zhenning (Chen-Ning Franklin Yang), 94, and Xiong Bingming (Ping-Ming Hsiung, 1922-2002) knew each other since they were 7 years old.

Both their fathers were prominent mathematicians and professors at Tsinghua University in Beijing. The two families were neighbors for eight years.