| One of the most fascinating things about | | | | thinkers, and their most important work was |
| history is the amount of it that's been wiped | | | | the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art. |
| out - on purpose. For example, in the ninth | | | | This pivotal compilation illustrates the |
| century CE, the greatest library in the | | | | proper way to use geometry to build a |
| world, the Library of Alexandria, was burned | | | | structurally sound dwelling; it also shows |
| in an act of war, and ever since, history | | | | that Chinese mathematicians understood pi |
| buffs have kept themselves tantalized and | | | | (the seemingly-unending number by which we |
| amused by trying to guess the identity of | | | | calculate the circumference of a circle) and |
| some of those books we'll never see. From the | | | | various laws concerning right triangles. |
| burning of libraries to the destruction of | | | | Perhaps most strikingly, it uses Cavalieri's |
| presidential diaries today, the idea of the | | | | principle for figuring out the volume of a |
| lost book holds a certain romantic - albeit | | | | shape - but it does so more than a thousand |
| frustrating - appeal. | | | | years before Cavalieri came up with the idea. |
| | | | In other words, Chinese mathematicians |
| Folks who've studied the history of | | | | understood some geometrical ideas a good |
| mathematics have their own "lost library" to | | | | while before anyone in the West did. |
| wonder about - the treasure trove of early | | | | |
| Chinese mathematical treatises burned by the | | | | Elsewhere during the Han dynasty, other |
| order of Emperor Qin Shi Huang in 212 BCE. | | | | Chinese mathematicians were also "getting |
| | | | there first," including Jing Fang (78-37 |
| China has been on the leading edge of math | | | | BCE), a musical theorist who discovered |
| for nearly as long as civilization has | | | | principles of temperament that had to wait, |
| existed. Evidence of a highly developed | | | | in the West, until the seventeenth century. |
| number system has emerged from as far back as | | | | |
| the Shin Dynasty period - 1600 to 1046 years | | | | For a thousand years following the Han |
| before Christ. This early Chinese number | | | | dynasty, Chinese mathematicians continued to |
| system also includes decimals, a major | | | | yield great insights - all during a time when |
| intellectual breakthrough in itself. To write | | | | European mathematicians didn't, strictly |
| the number 260, for example, you'd write the | | | | speaking, exist. Chinese thinkers developed |
| number two, followed by the symbol for a | | | | such ideas as negative numbers (the brilliant |
| hundred, then six followed by the symbol for | | | | invention that helps us all keep our bank |
| ten - You get the idea. There's also evidence | | | | balances straight), the use of matrices to |
| that Chinese mathematicians had developed | | | | solve linear equations (an idea that |
| their own version of the abacus (an ancient | | | | continues to stump Western eleventh-graders |
| calculating machine that used rods with | | | | to this day), and elements of calculus and |
| movable counters) from a very early period. | | | | trigonometry. From prehistory to the middle |
| So whatever was contained in those burned | | | | ages, China produced some of the greatest |
| math books of 212 BCE, it was probably | | | | mathematical reasoning ever found. |
| significant work. | | | | |
| | | | Still - you wonder what further heights these |
| A handful of early Chinese mathematical works | | | | brilliant thinkers might have scaled if their |
| did survive this public purging (the reasons | | | | foundation hadn't been partially destroyed. |
| for which aren't clear). From as long ago as | | | | Just as playwrights and poets today lament |
| 1046 BCE, we have the I Ching, a favorite of | | | | the great tragedies and epics that were |
| '60s hippies and of mystics even today, and | | | | probably lost in the burning of the library |
| the Mo Jing, a compilation of geometry and | | | | of Alexandria, historians of human genius |
| physical science dating from around the fifth | | | | must wonder what wonderful insights fell |
| century BCE. These two survivors illustrate | | | | victim to the pride of Emperor Qin Shi Huang. |
| the high level of intellectualism and | | | | (His order, after all, only pertained to |
| imagination characteristic of ancient Chinese | | | | provinces of China that fell outside his own |
| math. | | | | state of Qin - so presumably, though we don't |
| | | | know for sure, he only wanted people from his |
| Writers during the Han dynasty period - a | | | | own part of China to be able to read for |
| four-hundred-year stretch of time that begins | | | | themselves.) On the other hand, maybe he did |
| in 202 BCE and extends to 220 CE - did their | | | | Chinese math a favor. By giving the Han |
| best to preserve and build upon what was | | | | dynasty mathematicians the impetus to save |
| known of math in China before the burning of | | | | and consolidate every scrap of mathematical |
| 212. The Han mathematicians were synthesists, | | | | lore still available, perhaps he lit another |
| putting together the best insights of ancient | | | | fire - one he never intended. |