Lin’s research interests cover a wide range of topics from
data analysis to
laws of conservation, from the elementary structure of the universe to mysteries of the family, from the laws underlying
civilizations to the natural endowments of man. Even so, most of his works appeared in the areas of
systems theory and applications,
mathematical and
systems modeling, and
foundations of mathematics.
Systems research Since mid 1980s, Lin studied the general theory of multi-relational systems under the influence of
George Jiří Klir,
Mihajlo D. Mesarovic, and Yasuhiko Takahara, and applied the theory to a diverse array of scientific areas, including
public health,
sociology,
materials science, and others. His work in this area was treated as representative of mathematical systems theory. Since 1995, in the name of the IIGSS, Lin has organized regular international and
national conferences on
systems research and applications.
Blown-up theory Continuing his works on the chaos of general
systems, starting in 1995, Lin joined hands with Shoucheng OuYang in establishing a theory about transitional changes naturally existing in evolutions of materials and events in the hope of producing more accurate
forecasts for disastrous
weather conditions. When Lin’s edited volume “Mystery of Nonlinearity and Lorenz’s Chaos” was published in 1998, Works along this line have been practically employed in day-to-day
weather forecasts of several stations in China.
Grey systems theory Starting in early 1997, Lin collaborated with
Sifeng Liu on their works of a new theory of
data analysis for partially known and partially unknown systems. This theory was initially founded by
Julong Deng of
Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, in 1982 with the publication of his paper “Control problems of grey systems,” in the international journal Systems and Control Letter, edited at the time by
Roger W. Brockett. In 2007, they founded the
Institute for Grey Systems Studies at
Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and started an
IEEE conference series, named “IEEE International Conference on Grey Systems and intelligent Services,” in 2007.
Crises in foundations of mathematics With an invitation from
Ronald Mickens in 1987, Lin, along with Wendell Holladay (
Vanderbilt University),
Saunders Mac Lane (
University of Chicago),
John Polkinghorne (Cambridge, UK), and others, expressed his opinions from the angle of systems research on
Nobel laureate
Eugene P. Wigner’s assertion about “the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics.” Continuing this work, Lin (with a colleague) addressed the problem of knowability of the physical world in 1997. Then in 2008 Lin guest edited a special volume of the international journal Kybernetes on the fourth crisis in the
foundations of mathematics along with technical explanations on why the 2nd and the 3rd crises were not resolved as believed in history.
The systemic yoyo model Continuing his joint works of 1998 and 2002, in 2008 Lin officially proposed a new
model, the systemic yoyo, for the
general system, hoping that this model could play a role in systems research as that of the points of
Euclidean spaces in modern science. It is found that this model can be readily applied to study structures and organizations from diverse areas.
Evolution science Based on his works in blown-up
theory,
predictions of disastrous weather conditions, and systems modeling, Lin, Shoucheng OuYang, and other members of their research center on blown-ups theory, studied why
modern science did not appear in China, why such theories as
calculus have become extremely successful, while predicting (near) zero probability disastrous weathers is still practically impossible. After pointing out the limitations of
modern science, Lin, along with colleagues, proposed how
post-modern science would look like after first addressing what
time is. In this article, all the references [2]–[11], [14], [16], [17] represent independent, third party, fact-checking sources. ==Publications==