《几何原本》与中国现代初等几何学科的兴起

Jihe Yuanben and the Rise of the Modern Elementary Geometry Discipline in China

几何是中国传统数学和传统文化的固有词汇,伴随着《几何原本》的翻译与传播,"几何"变为一个数学专门术语。经过近300年演变,它作为几何学而成为中国数学学科的一个固定分支,这期间它曾经有几何学、数学、《几何原本》、测量学、形学等多重含义。几何学科兴起的动力主要来自西方数学文化,特别是《几何原本》确立了"几何"一词的典范意义。中国初等几何学科的兴起,见证了《几何原本》对中国数学分科思想的影响,对中国传统数学的近代化如分为算术、几何和代数等分支学科意义重大。

With the spreading of Element by Euclid, which was translated into Chinese, Jihe, an intrinsic vocabulary of traditional Chinese mathematics and culture, became a mathematical terminology with multiple meanings, like geometry, mathematics, Element, metrology and graphics. After developing for nearly 300 years, Jihe gradually became a terminology which refers to one of the Chinese mathematics disciplines, namely, geometry. As a discipline, geometry thrived with western mathematical culture being introduced to China, especially the academic meaning of ＂geometry＂ was established by Element. The rise of elementary geometry in China was a witness of great influence of Element for modernization of traditional Chinese mathematics. Meanwhile, Element was also a significance of arithmetic, geometry, algebra of elementary geometry in China.