关于中国古算术语“开方”的几个问题

Some Issues on the Terms about “kaifang” in Ancient Chinese Mathematics

在中国古代,开方远比乘方逆运算的范围要广,实际上是对一元二次及以上方程求数值解,它是传统数学中的一个重要门类。文章梳理了"开方"及其分类术语的历史源流与含义,考察了一些辞书对"开方"等术语的解释,并对其中不准确的解释进行了纠正。

The term “ kafang”（开方）is an important branch of mathematics in ancient China. Its meaning is much wider than the inverse operation of power. In fact,it refers to the methods and operations of finding positive roots of an equation with one unknown of 2 or higher degree. This paper discusses the origin and development of the term “ kaifang” and the related terms,analyzes their historical meanings,examines the explanations of these terms in some modern dictionaries,and corrects some statements of the expla-nations which are not in conlor^nity with historical facts.