Download or read book Reviving Ancient Chinese Mathematics written by Jiri Hudecek and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-07-25 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twentieth-century China has been caught between a desire to increase its wealth and power in line with other advanced nations, which, by implication, means copying their institutions, practices and values, whilst simultaneously seeking to preserve China’s independence and historically formed identity. Over time, Chinese philosophers, writers, artists and politicians have all sought to reconcile these goals and this book shows how this search for a Chinese way penetrated even the most central, least contested area of modernity: science. Reviving Ancient Chinese Mathematics is a study of the life of one of modern China’s most admired scientific figures, the mathematician Wu Wen-Tsun. Negotiating the conflict between progress and tradition, he found a path that not only ensured his political and personal survival, but which also brought him renown as a mathematician of international status who claimed that he stood outside the dominant western tradition of mathematics. Wu Wen-Tsun’s story highlights crucial developments and contradictions in twentieth -century China, the significance of which extends far beyond the field of mathematics. On one hand lies the appeal of radical scientific modernity, "mechanisation" in all its forms, and competitiveness within the international scientific community. On the other is an anxiety to preserve national traditions and make them part of the modernisation project. Moreover, Wu’s intellectual development also reflects the complex relationship between science and Maoist ideology, because his turn to history was powered by his internalisation of certain aspects of Maoist ideology, including its utilitarian philosophy of science. This book traces how Wu managed to combine political success and international scientific eminence, a story that has wider implications for a new century of increasing Chinese activity in the sciences. As such, it will be of great interest to students and scholars of Chinese history, the history of science and the history and philosophy of mathematics.
Download or read book Reviving Ancient Chinese Mathematics written by Jiří Hudeček and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twentieth-century China has been caught between a desire to increase its wealth and power in line with other advanced nations, which, by implication, means copying their institutions, practices and values, whilst simultaneously seeking to preserve China's independence and historically formed identity. Over time, Chinese philosophers, writers, artists and politicians have all sought to reconcile these goals and this book shows how this search for a Chinese way penetrated even the most central, least contested area of modernity: science. Reviving Ancient Chinese Mathematics is a study of the life of one of modern China's most admired scientific figures, the mathematician Wu Wen-Tsun. Negotiating the conflict between progress and tradition, he found a path that not only ensured his political and personal survival, but which also brought him renown as a mathematician of international status who claimed that he stood outside the dominant western tradition of mathematics. Wu Wen-Tsun's story highlights crucial developments and contradictions in twentieth -century China, the significance of which extends far beyond the field of mathematics. On one hand lies the appeal of radical scientific modernity, "mechanisation" in all its forms, and competitiveness within the international scientific community. On the other is an anxiety to preserve national traditions and make them part of the modernisation project. Moreover, Wu's intellectual development also reflects the complex relationship between science and Maoist ideology, because his turn to history was powered by his internalisation of certain aspects of Maoist ideology, including its utilitarian philosophy of science. This book traces how Wu managed to combine political success and international scientific eminence, a story that has wider implications for a new century of increasing Chinese activity in the sciences. As such, it will be of great interest to students and scholars of Chinese history, the history of science and the history and philosophy of mathematics.
Download or read book A History of Chinese Mathematics written by Jean-Claude Martzloff and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-08-17 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is made up of two parts, the first devoted to general, historical and cultural background, and the second to the development of each subdiscipline that together comprise Chinese mathematics. The book is uniquely accessible, both as a topical reference work, and also as an overview that can be read and reread at many levels of sophistication by both sinologists and mathematicians alike.
Download or read book Fleeting Footsteps written by Lay Yong Lam and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2004 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hindu-Arabic numeral system (1, 2, 3, ...) is one of mankind's greatest achievements and one of its most commonly used inventions. How did it originate? Those who have written about the numeral system have hypothesized that it originated in India; however, there is little evidence to support this claim. This book provides considerable evidence to show that the Hindu-Arabic numeral system, despite its commonly accepted name, has its origins in the Chinese rod numeral system. This system was widely used in China from antiquity till the 16th century. It was used by officials, astronomers, traders and others to perform addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and other arithmetic operations, and also used by mathematicians to develop arithmetic and algebra. Based on this system, numerous mathematical treatises were written. Sun Zi suanjing (The Mathematical Classic of Sun Zi), written around 400 A.D., is the earliest existing work to have a description of the rod numerals and their operations. With this treatise as a central reference, the first part of the book discusses the development of arithmetic and the beginnings of algebra in ancient China and, on the basis of this knowledge, advances the thesis that the Hindu-Arabic numeral system has its origins in the rod numeral system. Part Two gives a complete translation of Sun Zi suanjing. In this revised edition, Lam Lay Yong has included an edited text of her plenary lecture entitled "Ancient Chinese Mathematics and Its Influence on World Mathematics", which was delivered at the International Congress of Mathematicians, Beijing 2002, after she received the prestigious Kenneth O. May Medal conferred by the International Commission on the History of Mathematics. This should serve as a useful and easy-to-comprehend introduction to the book.
Download or read book The Sea Island Mathematical Manual Surveying and Mathematics in Ancient China written by and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An annotated translation and analysis of the Haidao Suanjing, a Chinese mathematical classic composed by Liu Hui in A.D. 263. All ancient societies practiced the art of land surveying. In fact, tradition tells us that geometry--land measure--had its origins in such surveying. However, an examination of early Western literature reveals few records concerning the practical uses of geometry and mathematics in the tasks of surveying. Recent research into the content and origins of early Chinese mathematics is beginning to reveal the existence of strong traditions and interest in the methodologies and applications of land survey. It is from these Chinese sources that a clearer picture of how people adapted mathematics and geometry to the needs of surveying emerges. The Haidao Suanjing, or Sea Island Mathematical Manual, is one of the "Ten Classics" of traditional Chinese mathematics, and its contents demonstrate the high standards of theoretical and mathematical sophistication present in early Chinese surveying theory. The Haidao established the mathematical procedures for much of East Asian surveying activity for the next one thousand years. The contents of the Haidao also testify to the ability of the Chinese to systematize mathematics and hint at the use of proof in Chinese mathematics, a concept usually associated with Greek mathematical thought. Frank Swetz provides an analysis of the Haidao's surveying problems. In particular, he details surveying techniques and undertakes a mathematical exposition of the Chinese chong cha solution procedures. The Haidao is a testimony to the ingenuity and skill of China's early surveyors and its author, Liu Hui. This study complements and extends the findings of Swetz's previous book, Was Pythagoras Chinese? An Examination of Right Triangle Theory in Ancient China
Download or read book Anachronisms in the History of Mathematics written by Niccolò Guicciardini and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-22 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The controversial matters surrounding the notion of anachronism are difficult ones: they have been broached by literary and art critics, by philosophers, as well as by historians of science. This book adopts a bottom-up approach to the many problems concerning anachronism in the history of mathematics. Some of the leading scholars in the field of history of mathematics reflect on the applicability of present-day mathematical language, concepts, standards, disciplinary boundaries, indeed notions of mathematics itself, to well-chosen historical case studies belonging to the mathematics of the past, in European and non-European cultures. A detailed introduction describes the key themes and binds the various chapters together. The interdisciplinary and transcultural approach adopted allows this volume to cover topics important for history of mathematics, history of the physical sciences, history of science, philosophy of mathematics, history of philosophy, methodology of history, non-European science, and the transmission of mathematical knowledge across cultures.
Download or read book Was Pythagoras Chinese written by Frank J. Swetz and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 1977 with total page 109 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Empty And The Full The Li Ye And The Way Of Mathematics Geometrical Procedures By Section Of Areas written by Charlotte-v Pollet and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2020-03-20 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During Song (960 to 1279) and Yuan (1279 to 1368) dynasties, China experienced a peak in high-level algebraic investigation through the works of famous mathematicians such as Qin Jiushao, Zhu Shijie, Yang Hui and Li Ye. Among these is Li Ye's short treatise on a curious ancient geometrical procedure: The Development of Pieces of Areas According to the Collection Augmenting the Ancient Knowledge (Yigu yanduan). The aim of this monography is to contradict traditional scholarship which has long discredited the importance of Li Ye's treatise, considering it a mere popular handbook. The author aims to show that Li Ye's work actually epitomizes a completely new aspect of ancient Chinese mathematics: a crossroad between algebra, geometry, and combinatorics containing elements reminiscent of the Book of Changes (Yi Jing). As well as Li Ye used field measurement as pretext for investigations on quadratic equations and Changes, the present study uses Li Ye's small treatise as pretext for philosophical investigations on link between mathematics and their history. The real topic of the study is the exploration of another expression of proof and generality in Chinese mathematics. This book not only completes the edition of Li Ye's works and presents new features of Chinese mathematics, but also fills a gap in the translation of Chinese mathematics treatises.It is the first book entirely dedicated to the diagrammatic practice of algebra in the history of Chinese mathematics. This practice is more important than expected. While being a monograph, the book is short and detailed enough to be used by students in class. It can also be used as an entry door to the research field of history of Chinese mathematics.
Download or read book Chinese Mathematics written by Yan Li and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents a record of mathematical developments in China over a period of more than 2000 years. It goes into greater detail than ever previously available in English. Because the emphasis in Chinese mathematics is on algorithms rather than proofs, readers will find results such as Bezout's theorem and Horner's method appearing in a very different context from the familiar tradition of Euclidean deductive geometry. The Chinese always preferred algebraic methods, and by the 13th century A.D. they were the best algebraists in the world. The original Chinese point of view is retained by the translators. They have supplemented the text with short explanatory comments and references to all relevant reference sources available in the West. An extensive bibliography is included, creating a work which will appeal to general readers interested in Chinese history as well as historians of mathematics.
Download or read book Chinese Mathematics History written by Zhi Dao and published by DeepLogic. This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book provides highlights on the key concepts and trends of evolution in Chinese Mathematics History, as one of the series of books of “China Classified Histories”.
Download or read book The Ambitious Horse written by Lawrence W. Swienciki and published by . This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Best Writing on Mathematics 2015 written by Mircea Pitici and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-12 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year's finest writing on mathematics from around the world This annual anthology brings together the year's finest mathematics writing from around the world. Featuring promising new voices alongside some of the foremost names in the field, The Best Writing on Mathematics 2015 makes available to a wide audience many articles not easily found anywhere else—and you don’t need to be a mathematician to enjoy them. These writings offer surprising insights into the nature, meaning, and practice of mathematics today. They delve into the history, philosophy, teaching, and everyday occurrences of math, and take readers behind the scenes of today’s hottest mathematical debates. Here David Hand explains why we should actually expect unlikely coincidences to happen; Arthur Benjamin and Ethan Brown unveil techniques for improvising custom-made magic number squares; Dana Mackenzie describes how mathematicians are making essential contributions to the development of synthetic biology; Steven Strogatz tells us why it’s worth writing about math for people who are alienated from it; Lisa Rougetet traces the earliest written descriptions of Nim, a popular game of mathematical strategy; Scott Aaronson looks at the unexpected implications of testing numbers for randomness; and much, much more. In addition to presenting the year’s most memorable writings on mathematics, this must-have anthology includes a bibliography of other notable writings and an introduction by the editor, Mircea Pitici. This book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in where math has taken us—and where it is headed.
Download or read book Death in Beijing written by Daniel Asen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-07-28 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this innovative and engaging history of homicide investigation in Republican Beijing, Daniel Asen explores the transformation of ideas about death in China in the first half of the twentieth century. In this period, those who died violently or under suspicious circumstances constituted a particularly important population of the dead, subject to new claims by police, legal and medical professionals, and a newspaper industry intent on covering urban fatality in sensational detail. Asen examines the process through which imperial China's old tradition of forensic science came to serve the needs of a changing state and society under these dramatically new circumstances. This is a story of the unexpected outcomes and contingencies of modernity, presenting new perspectives on China's transition from empire to modern nation state, competing visions of science and expertise, and the ways in which the meanings of death and dead bodies changed amid China's modern transformation.
Download or read book Osiris Volume 38 written by James Evans and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2023-07-18 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perceptively explores the shifting intersections between algorithmic systems and human practices in the modern era. How have algorithmic systems and human practices developed in tandem since 1800? This volume of Osiris deftly addresses the question, dispelling along the way the traditional notion of algorithmic “code” and human “craft” as natural opposites. Instead, algorithms and humans have always acted in concert, depending on each other to advance new knowledge and produce social consequences. By shining light on alternative computational imaginaries, Beyond Craft and Code opens fresh space in which to understand algorithmic diversity, its governance, and even its conservation. The volume contains essays by experts in fields extending from early modern arithmetic to contemporary robotics. Traversing a range of cases and arguments that connect politics, historical epistemology, aesthetics, and artificial intelligence, the contributors collectively propose a novel vocabulary of concepts with which to think about how the history of science can contribute to understanding today’s world. Ultimately, Beyond Craft and Code reconfigures the historiography of science and technology to suggest a new way to approach the questions posed by an algorithmic culture—not only improving our understanding of algorithmic pasts and futures but also unlocking our ability to better govern our present.
Download or read book Film and the Chinese Medical Humanities written by Vivienne Lo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-12-06 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Film and the Chinese Medical Humanities is the first book to reflect on the power of film in representing medical and health discourse in China in both the past and the present, as well as in shaping its future. Drawing on both feature and documentary films from mainland China, the chapters each engage with the field of medicine through the visual arts. They cover themes such as the history of doctors and their concepts of disease and therapies, understanding the patient experience of illness and death, and establishing empathy and compassion in medical practice, as well as the HIV/AIDs epidemic during the 1980s and 90s and changing attitudes towards disability. Inherently interdisciplinary in nature, the contributors therefore provide different perspectives from the fields of history, psychiatry, film studies, anthropology, linguistics, public health and occupational therapy, as they relate to China and people who identify as Chinese. Their combined approaches are united by a passion for improving the cross-cultural understanding of the body and ultimately healthcare itself. A key resource for educators in the Medical Humanities, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Chinese Studies and Film Studies as well as global health, medical anthropology and medical history.
Download or read book The Chinese Astronomical Bureau 1620 1850 written by Ping-Ying Chang and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-10-07 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a new insight into one of the most interesting and long-lived institutions known to historians of science, the Chinese imperial Astronomical Bureau, which for two millennia observed, recorded, interpreted and predicted the movements of the celestial bodies. Utilising archival material, such as the résumés written for imperial audiences and personnel administration records, the book traces the rise and fall of more than thirty hereditary families serving at the Astronomical Bureau from the late Ming period to the end of the Qing dynasty. The book also presents an in-depth view into the organisation and function of the Bureau and succinctly charts the impacts of historical developments during the Ming and Qing periods, including the Regency of Prince Dorgon, the influence of the Jesuits, the relationship between the Kangxi and Yongzheng emperors and the He family and the failure of the bureau to predict correctly the solar eclipse of 1730. Presenting a social history of the Qing Astronomical Bureau from the perspective of hereditary astronomer families, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of Chinese Imperial history, the history of science and Asian history.
Download or read book The Politics of Chinese Medicine Under Mongol Rule written by Reiko Shinno and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-22 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under the rule of the descendants of Chinggis Khan (1167-1227), China saw the development of a new culture in which medical practice came to be considered a highly respected occupation for elite men. During this period, further major steps were also taken towards the codification of medical knowledge and promotion of physicians’ social status. This book traces the history of the politics, institutions, and culture of medicine of China under Mongol rule, through the eyes of a successful South Chinese official Yuan Jue (1266-1327). As the first comprehensive monograph on history of medicine in China under the Mongols, it argues that this period was a separate moment in Chinese history, when a configuration of power different from that of previous and succeeding periods created its own medical culture. The Politics of Chinese Medicine under Mongol Rule emphasizes the impact of the political and institutional changes caused by the Mongols and their collaborators on the social and cultural history of medicine, which culminated in the medical theory of Zhu Zhenheng (1282–1358), still influential in East Asian medicine. Using a variety of Chinese-language sources including gazetteers, legal texts, biographies, poems, and medical texts, it analyses the roles of the Mongols and West and Central Asians as cultural brokers and also as unifiers of China. Further, it views North and South Chinese elites as agents of historical change rather than as victims of Mongol oppression. Underlining the complexity of the history of China under the Mongols and the significance of time and geography for the study of this history, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Chinese medical history, Chinese social and cultural history, and medieval global history.
