
It was a golden opportunity for academic exchange when Chinese mathematician Hong Wang, a contender for a top award, gave lectures at universities in Beijing last month, but instead her overseas experience and use of English made her an unexpected victim of rising nationalism in China.The 34-year-old mathematician earned global attention last year when a paper she co-authored solved the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture – a century-old problem in geometric measure theory.The study, with...