Math experts show new stamp is sum total of excellence

Wang Yusheng, a mathematician in his 80s, remembers that, after he enrolled in the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1978, he would often spend half of his monthly allowance on collecting postage stamps, and sometimes wait outside post offices very early in the morning for newly issued stamps.

He was excited to share his interest in and lifelong commitment to both math and stamps at the launch ceremony of a collection of four themed stamps recently in Beijing.

He was joined by Gu Yunuo, a student in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, who runs a social network account working out math problems. The two conducted a dialogue on why learning math matters.

They are enthralled by the minimalist beauty of math formulas and also the mysteriousness, which are both visualized in the newly issued stamps.

The four stamps, issued by China Post, each depict pi the mathematical constant, the Pythagorean theorem, Euler's formula and the Mobius strip. China Post has also developed several games that require math equations to solve on its WeChat account.