Short stories about math

In China, the origin of mathematics can also be traced back to ancient times. During the Western Zhou Dynasty (11th to 8th centuries BC), "mathematics", as one of the "six arts" (rituals, music, archery, the Imperial Court, calligraphy and mathematics) that the disciples of the aristocracy were required to learn, had already formed a specialized academic discipline, and some of the knowledge became part of China's two earliest handed down mathematical works --Some of the knowledge later became part of the two earliest Chinese mathematical works to be handed down, the Zhou Split Mathematical Scriptures and the Nine Chapters of the Mathematical Art.

The Zhou Split Calculations is also an astronomical work, the author of which is unknown, and the date of its composition is believed to be no later than the 2nd century BC. The main mathematical aspects of the Split Calculus include the hook-and-stock theorem, the operation of fractions, and the art of measurement.

This article does not give a proof of the collinearity theorem, but the "collinearity circle and square diagram" in Zhao Shuang's note to the book contains the earliest proof of the collinearity theorem known in ancient China so far. Zhao Shuang (赵爽), with the character Junqing (君卿), whose life is unknown, lived around the Three Kingdoms period of the Later Han Dynasty (the first half of the third century A.D.). The "Chou Shu Round Square Diagram" says that in just over 500 words, it summarizes the major achievements of Chou Shu arithmetic in the entire Han Dynasty.

The Nine Chapters of Arithmetic is the most important mathematical classic in ancient China, and has had a profound influence on the development of ancient Chinese mathematics. According to Liu Hui's "Preface to the Notes on the Nine Chapters of the Mathematical Art", the Nine Chapters were developed from the Zhou Dynasty's "Nine Numbers" and supplemented by the Western Han Dynasty's Zhang Cang, Geng Shouchang, and others. In recent years, the discovery of bamboo slips in the early Han Dynasty tomb of Zhangjiashan in Hubei Province, "the book of math" (unearthed in 1984), some of the contents are similar to the "nine chapters of arithmetic". It can be assumed that the Nine Chapters of the Art of Arithmetic was compiled and revised by many scholars over a long period of time from the pre-Qin Dynasty, and finally became a book in about the middle of the Western Han Dynasty (the first century B.C.).

"Nine chapters of arithmetic" in the form of the art of the rate of example, the whole book *** collection of 246 mathematical problems, divided into nine chapters (① square field, ② corn, ③ decline points, ④ less wide, ⑤ business work, ⑥ uniform loss, ⑦ surplus and deficit, ⑧ equation, ⑨ hook and strand). Nine Chapters of Arithmetic" contains the mathematical achievements are rich and multi-faceted, the most famous such as fractional algorithms, double managed to ("surplus and deficit" art), open method, linear system of equations eliminating the solution ("equations") and the introduction of negative numbers ("positive and negative"). "Positive and Negative Technique"), etc., all of which are of world significance.

"Sun Tzu's Book of Arithmetic" China was the first country in the world to adopt the decimal value system of notation, the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period has been widely used in the chips, that is, strictly followed the decimal value system. The only information about the counting chip method is contained in Sun Tzu's "The Book of Reckoning". Sun Tzu's book of three volumes, the author's name is not known, the date of completion of the book is about the fourth century A.D. The first volume of the book is a systematic introduction to the law of arithmetic, and the second volume of the famous "I do not know the number of things," also known as the "Sun Tzu problem" questions.