When it comes to the achievements of ancient mathematics, many people must talk about ancient Greece and call it Europe, but in fact, ancient Chinese mathematics is not inferior, but the whole is beyond the West. Astronomy is the key driving force to promote the progress of ancient mathematics, and ancient Greece and Western astronomy inexplicably developed suddenly, ancient Chinese astronomy step by step, as early as the Time of Emperor Yao, there was a "visual time", the latest Shang Dynasty had a calendar, the Yuan Dynasty in the South China Sea, the North Sea were measured separately, in Kaifeng and the Western Regions were measured the time of occurrence of lunar eclipses, thus determining the longitude difference and latitude difference, so developed astronomy can not match it without advanced mathematics?
Chinese mathematics was very developed during the Song and Yuan dynasties, but for the mathematics of the Ming Dynasty, there was a view circulating, that is, "the arithmetic of the recent historical period, from the beginning of the Ming Dynasty to the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, was about 1367 AD to 1750, about 400 years before and after ... Folk arithmetic masters have succeeded no one, which is called the period of silence of Chinese arithmetic", "After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, many abacus readings written by merchants were published, and the high-level song and Yuan mathematics could only be lost, and the traditional mathematics of ancient China was almost lost in the Ming Dynasty." However, this was not the case, and there was also a little-known master in the Ming Dynasty, this person was named Wang Wensu.
During the Ming Dynasty, a great mathematician, Wang Wensu, appeared, leaving a 500,000-word mathematical monograph, "Treasure Book of Arithmetic", in which the achievements were dazzling:
The method of solving the higher-order equations predates Horner in the United Kingdom and Ruffini in Italy by more than 200 years.
In solving algebraic equations, it is more than 140 years ahead of Newton and Lafson.
For derivatives that appeared during the founding of calculus in the 17th century, he was the first to discover and use them in the 16th century.
The "Kaifang Origin Diagram" in the "Arithmetic Treasure Book" has unique characteristics of the ancient Chinese mathematical tradition, and similar figures in foreign countries are first found in the book "Integer Arithmetic" written by the French mathematician Stifier in 1544, which is 20 years later and incomplete than the "Arithmetic Treasure Book".
Until the Qing Dynasty, the Treasure Book of Arithmetic was unique in classical Chinese mathematical books, and can be called the best in the history of Chinese arithmetic.
As the first person in mathematics in the Ming and Qing dynasties, a world-class mathematical master, Wang Wensu, like the mathematical master Cheng Dawei (the father of the world tape measure) in the late Ming Dynasty, is a family of businessmen, the difference is that one is a Jin merchant and the other is a Huishang.
Wang Wensu was a native of Fenyang, Shanxi, born around the time of Chenghua in the Ming Dynasty, and when he was young, he followed his father Wang Lin to Raoyang, Hebei to do business, and then settled in Hebei. Perhaps, due to the fact that businessmen need to calculate frequently, Wang Wensu has been interested in mathematics since childhood.
During the Ming Dynasty, there were very few literati who emphasized the examination of science and the name of merit, learned literature and martial arts, and specialized in mathematics, and basically "those who could write poetry without hunting for meritorious names" learned it. For this phenomenon, Wang Wensu was distressed, he pointed out that mathematics is "under the whole world, between public and private, can not be lacking for a day", so in the book criticized the current social situation at that time, "The ancient sages are still important, how can ordinary people today ignore the end of the six arts?" He also wrote a poem: "If there is no first holy transmission here, it will be blurred from ancient times to the present!" Unfortunately, Wang Wensu is only a grain of dust in the world, and he can't shake the world's thoughts at all. As a result, Wang Wensu could only "find a mysterious reason in the middle of the burrow, and the spiritual platform had a little understanding of the mysterious machine", and he enjoyed it in the bitterness and enjoyment, and after thirty years of being lonely, he completed the 500,000-word monumental work of the ancients, "Arithmetic Treasure Book".
Due to the lack of social attention to mathematics, coupled with Wang Wensu's status as a businessman, Wang Wensu is little known, and there is almost no record of him in the history books, and the extant "Treasure Book of Arithmetic" "has not seen the bibliographies of collectors and public and private books for four hundred years, and during the Republic of China, the Beijing Library found a Lange manuscript in the old bookstore and was able to enter the collection." Fortunately in misfortune, otherwise our descendants would not have known that such a world-class mathematical master once existed in the Ming Dynasty.
Wang Wensu's mathematical achievements in the "Treasure Book of Arithmetic" can be seen from two aspects: domestic and international:
From a domestic point of view, Wang Wensu stood on the shoulders of giants such as Jia Xian, Yang Hui, Qin Jiushao, and Zhu Shijie, and further deepened many traditional mathematical problems, that is, "the subject techniques contained in the various books have been tested and deeply explored one by one, and the detailed discussion has been studied and deduced, and those who should be described have been described, those who are wrong have been changed, those who are complicated have been deleted, those who are lacking have been supplemented, those who are chaotic have been rationalized, and those who have been interrupted have continued." Compound multiplication and removal of sketches, positioning styles, opening of square performances, shortcuts into techniques, compiled into humble songs, notes with vulgar interpretations."
Among them, the study of the vertical and horizontal diagrams (now also known as the magic square) that study the arrangement and combination of numbers, such as the serial chart, the miaoluo diagram, the three-and-six variation chart, etc., is far more complex than that of Yang Hui of the Song Dynasty, the Cheng Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, and even until the Qing Dynasty, it is unique in the Classical Chinese mathematical books that we know, which can be called the most in the history of Chinese arithmetic.
Through the book "Arithmetic Treasure Book", we can see that the views circulating in the mathematical community are not accurate, the Tianyuan techniques of the Song and Yuan Dynasties have not been lost in the Ming Dynasty, the highly developed Chinese mathematics in the Song and Yuan Dynasties has not been completely interrupted, and the Ming Dynasty also has mathematical masters who have inherited the past and opened up the future, leaving a brilliant page in the history of mathematics in the world.
From an international point of view, Wang Wensu is far ahead of the world in solving higher-order equations, algebraic equations, inventing calculus derivatives, etc., of which Wang Wensu invented derivatives more than 100 years earlier than Europe.
Calculus is the dividing line between ancient Chinese and European mathematics, but the two premises of calculus are the concept of limits and the mutual relationship between integrals and differentiation, of which the concept of limits has appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and the Warring States Huishi has said that "one foot is one foot, half of the day is half, and the world is inexhaustible". Therefore, for Wang Wensu's discovery of derivatives, some modern scholars have regretted that "ancient Chinese mathematics has the excellent work of the first two stages of calculus, many of which are the key to the creation of calculus, and China has all the inherent conditions on the eve of the invention of calculus in the 17th century, and has approached the door of calculus", but unfortunately, due to the ming and qing environment, Europeans have walked ahead.
It is a pity that such a great mathematician was drowned in the smoke and clouds of history, so that the "Treasure Book of Arithmetic" "did not see the bibliography of collectors and public and private books in the past four hundred years", until the Republic of China period, some people found a manuscript in the used book market, so that the "Treasure Book of Arithmetic" reappeared in the sky, and Wang Wensu's achievements were known to the world. The past is over, and now that there is no shortage of great talents in the folk, we can only think about how not to let this tragedy repeat itself.