various dimensional combinations, which provided a mathematical foundation for elastic composite structures. He also worked on reducing elliptic PDEs to boundary integral equations, which led to the development of the natural boundary element method, now regarded as one of three main boundary element methods. Since 1978 he had given lectures and seminars on finite elements and natural boundary elements in more than ten universities and institutes in France, Italy, Japan and United States. From 1984 Feng changed his research field from elliptic PDEs to dynamical systems such as Hamiltonian systems and wave equations. He proposed symplectic algorithms for Hamiltonian systems. Such algorithms preserve the symplectic geometric structure of Hamiltonian systems. He led a research group which worked on symplectic algorithms for solving Hamiltonian systems with finite and infinite dimensions, and also on dynamical systems with Lie algebraic structures, such as contact systems and source-free systems. Since these algorithms make use of the corresponding geometry and the underlying Lie algebras and Lie groups, they are superior to conventional algorithms in long term tracking and qualitative simulation in many practical applications, such as celestial mechanics and molecular dynamics. References . External links About Feng Kang 1920 births 1993 deaths 20th-century Chinese mathematicians Educators from Nanjing Mathematicians from Jiangsu Members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Nanjing University alumni National Central University alumni Scientists from Nanjing Academic staff of Tsinghua University Chinese expatriates in the Soviet Union