The Development Of Mathematics In China And Japan

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.

Seki was a Japanese mathematician in the seventeenth century known for his outstanding achievements, including the elimination theory of systems of algebraic equations, which preceded the works of Étienne Bézout and Leonhard Euler by 80 years. Seki was a contemporary of Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, although there was apparently no direct interaction between them. The Mathematical Society of Japan and the History of Mathematics Society of Japan hosted the International Conference on History of Mathematics in Commemoration of the 300th Posthumous Anniversary of Seki in 2008. This book is the official record of the conference and includes supplements of collated texts of Seki's original writings with notes in English on these texts. Hikosaburo Komatsu (Professor emeritus, The University of Tokyo), one of the editors, is known for partial differential equations and hyperfunction theory, and for his study on the history of Japanese mathematics. He served as the President of the International Congress of Mathematicians Kyoto 1990.

Classic survey chronicles the development of the Japanese mathematics: use of the abacus; application of counting rods to algebra; Seki Kowa; the circle principle; Ajima Chokuyen; Wada Nei; more. 1914 edition. Includes 74 figures.

Mathematics and Science education have both grown in fertile directions in different geographic regions. Yet, the mainstream discourse in international handbooks does not lend voice to developments in cognition, curriculum, teacher development, assessment, policy and implementation of mathematics and science in many countries. Paradoxically, in spite of advances in information technology and the “flat earth” syndrome, old distinctions and biases between different groups of researcher’s persist. In addition limited accessibility to conferences and journals also contribute to this problem. The International Sourcebooks in Mathematics and Science Education focus on under-represented regions of the world and provides a platform for researchers to showcase their research and development in areas within mathematics and science education. The First Sourcebook on Asian Research in Mathematics Education: China, Korea, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia and India provides the first synthesized treatment of mathematics education that has both developed and is now prominently emerging in the Asian and South Asian world. The book is organized in sections coordinated by leaders in mathematics education in these countries and editorial teams for each country affiliated with them. The purpose of unique sourcebook is to both consolidate and survey the established body of research in these countries with findings that have influenced ongoing research agendas and informed practices in Europe, North America (and other countries) in addition to serving as a platform to showcase existing research that has shaped teacher education, curricula and policy in these Asian countries. The book will serve as a standard reference for mathematics education researchers, policy makers, practitioners and students both in and outside Asia, and complement the Nordic and NCTM perspectives.

Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries Japan was totally isolated from the West by imperial decree. During that time, a unique brand of homegrown mathematics flourished, one that was completely uninfluenced by developments in Western mathematics. People from all walks of life--samurai, farmers, and merchants--inscribed a wide variety of geometry problems on wooden tablets called sangaku and hung them in Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines throughout Japan. Sacred Mathematics is the first book published in the West to fully examine this tantalizing--and incredibly beautiful--mathematical tradition. Fukagawa Hidetoshi and Tony Rothman present for the first time in English excerpts from the travel diary of a nineteenth-century Japanese mathematician, Yamaguchi Kanzan, who journeyed on foot throughout Japan to collect temple geometry problems. The authors set this fascinating travel narrative--and almost everything else that is known about temple geometry--within the broader cultural and historical context of the period. They explain the sacred and devotional aspects of sangaku, and reveal how Japanese folk mathematicians discovered many well-known theorems independently of mathematicians in the West--and in some cases much earlier. The book is generously illustrated with photographs of the tablets and stunning artwork of the period. Then there are the geometry problems themselves, nearly two hundred of them, fully illustrated and ranging from the utterly simple to the virtually impossible. Solutions for most are provided. A unique book in every respect, Sacred Mathematics demonstrates how mathematical thinking can vary by culture yet transcend cultural and geographic boundaries.

V.1. A.N. v.2. O.Z. Apendices and indexes.