The Institute for the History of Natural Sciences in Beijing celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of its founding in 1957 with an international symposium devoted to“China and the World in the Global History of Science...The Institute for the History of Natural Sciences in Beijing celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of its founding in 1957 with an international symposium devoted to“China and the World in the Global History of Science and Technology.”2 This contribution to that symposium focuses on the roles that historians of mathematics,East and West,have played in bringing the importance of mathematics in China to the attention of the world at large.It concludes by discussing a controversy surrounding the diagram and purported“proof”given in the ancient mathematical classic,the Zhoubi suanjing周髀算經(Mathematical classic of Zhou’s gnomon),of the gou-gu theorem that appeared in volume 3 of Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China,published in 1959.展开更多
文摘The Institute for the History of Natural Sciences in Beijing celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of its founding in 1957 with an international symposium devoted to“China and the World in the Global History of Science and Technology.”2 This contribution to that symposium focuses on the roles that historians of mathematics,East and West,have played in bringing the importance of mathematics in China to the attention of the world at large.It concludes by discussing a controversy surrounding the diagram and purported“proof”given in the ancient mathematical classic,the Zhoubi suanjing周髀算經(Mathematical classic of Zhou’s gnomon),of the gou-gu theorem that appeared in volume 3 of Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China,published in 1959.
