Alumni Notes
Famous CKC Onitsha Alumnus:
Professor Chike Obi (Oku Nagba Ozalla)
Chike Obi was born on April 7, 1921 and married to Belinda Obi. His sons are Balogun Chike Obi and Mustapha Chike Obi. Chike Obi was educated at Christ the King College, Onitsha. Obi is an author, mathematic and politician. Besides his scholarly enterprise, Obi has been a political activist - with many publications on mathematics and the Nigerian political system.
In the course of his career, he was Dean, School of Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Lagos (1971-73); Chairman, Department of Mathematics (1971-77); acting dean, Faculty of Science (1981-82). He was made emeritus professor following his retirement from the University of Lagos. He is also a 1987 Gold Medalist of the University of Lagos. Shortly after retirement, he founded the Onitsha-based scientific institute the Nanna Institute for Scientific Studies, Onitsha.
A Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science, the world renowned mathematics scholar won the Ecklund Prize from the International Centre for Theoretical Physics for original work in Differential Equations, and pioneering works in mathematics in Africa. He had earned his doctoral degree in 1950, specialising in Non-linear Differential Equations at the Pembrooke College, University of Cambridge, England.
Chike Obi is a Nigerian mathematician who has made enormous contributions to mathematics. He has helped pioneer modern mathematics research in Nigeria. Obi's early research has dealt primarily with the question of whether or not periodic solutions exist for non-linear ordinary differential equations.
He successfully used the perturbation technique and much of his work has stimulated research throughout the world. In fact, much of his work has become classic literature, much like Isaac Newton and others. Recently Chike Obi shocked the world by announcing that without the aid of a computer, he had solved one of mathematics most complicated problems, Fermats Last Theorem.
Recently Chike Obi shocked the world by announcing that without the aid of a computer, he had solved one of mathematics most complicated problems, Fermats Last Theorem. Fermat was a 17th century mathematician who came of with the theorem xn+yn=zn; where x,y,z, and n are positive integers, has no solution if n is greater than two. Obi conducted his research on the problem at his office at the Nanna Institute of Scientific studies, based in Onitsha. Obi in his worked produced an elementary proof of the theorem. His work was placed in an international journal, and Nigeria and many other countries celebrated his work.
Favorite quotation: "The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the deepest root of all that is evil in the world." [TAG].