Liu Lu, a 22-year-old mathematics genius, has been appointed professor and awarded 1 million yuan ($158,000) by the Changsha-based Central South University (CSU), Hunan Province, drawing suspicion and public criticism. Liu has not even earned his bachelor's degree yet, but plans to get his diploma later this spring.

At a press conference Tuesday, CSU said it will hire Liu, also known in the press as Liu Jiayi, making him the youngest professor in China. It will also recommend Liu as a candidate for the National Youth Scheme, whose membership is limited to 1,000 people.

Liu, who entered CSU as a freshman in 2008, found a way to successfully crack the Seetapun Enigma, a notoriously difficult mathematical problem, in 2010, successfully proving a negative answer to the open question.

Liu, now a senior student majoring in applied mathematics, submitted his findings to the Journal of Symbolic Logic, an authoritative international academic journal. He won praise from its editor-in-chief, Denis Hirschfeldt, an expert in mathematical logic and professor at the University of Chicago in the US.

However, upon hearing about CSU's decision, many respected mathematicians and education experts called the hiring of such a young mathematician as professor ridiculous.

Tang Tao, a professor in the mathematics department at Hong Kong Baptist University, said that the media and academic fields should put Liu's appointment into perspective. According to a report by the website of China National Radio, Tang feels that some financial rewards are necessary but anything more than that, including his newfound fame, may act as a burden upon the young man's academic career.

"His age is not a problem, the key is his capability in academia. It is not uncommon to promote math geniuses in other countries," Xiong Bingqi, a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, told the Global Times yesterday.

But he also expressed his concern. "We should not give our attention to the individual. What we should focus on is the environment of academia,  which is not healthy in China now," he continued. "A plant cannot flourish on bad soil."

Wang Hongcai, head of the Education Theory Institute of Xiamen University, echoed Xiong's view. "It is not suitable to give a 22-year-old a job as a professor, a position which requires responsibility and rich experience," he said. "He should probably take this position after a few years' experience in teaching."

Global Times