19世紀中國傳統(tǒng)數(shù)學(xué)的西傳.pdf

1、In the17<'th>and18<'th>century,information on mathematics of ancient China was exclusively drawn from the relevant writings of the catholic missionaries,who knew nothing but the Gou Gu theorem incorporated in Zhou Bi,whi

2、ch was erroneously dated in 1100 B.C.Misunderstandings could be found no less frequently in the western publications on China.This state continued in the first half of the 19<'th>century.Ignorant of the history of Chines

3、e mathematics,J.F.Davis,authority on sinology at that time,assered that the Chinese know nothing about the place value of numbers and they have no algebra.Though more about Chinese mathematics was known to the westerners

4、 in the 19<'th>century than in the17<'th>and 18<'th>century,their knowledge of this subject was still limited.Some attainments in Chinese mathematics,such as those in The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art,one of the

5、most important mathematical classic im China ,Liuhui's cyclotomic rule.Zu Chongzhi's famous fractional value of π,Zugeng's derivation of the volume of a sphere,etc.,were unknown to them.Completely ignorant of the work of

6、 the Chinese mathematician of the3<'rd>century,some French mathematicians of the 19<'th>century made elementary study on π,but couldn't rediscover Liu's remarkable acceleration method,which is equivalent to that of Richa

7、rdson's linear extrapolation pubished in 1910.The original Chinese mathematical works and relevant research literatures being extremely scarce,the transmission of traditional Chinese mathematics in the West in the 19<'th

8、>century was not smooth at all.In the first half of the 20<'th>century,despite of the publication of Y.Mikami's The Development of Mathematics in China and Japan,the transmission was impeded by suspicion,derogation and p

9、rejudice of such western historians as L.Van Hée,G.Loria.G.Vacca,etc.The history of the transmission of traditional Chinese mathematics tells us that it couldn't be properly appreciated and valued rhrough second-hand lit