The Suàn shù shū, “Writings on reckoning”: Rewriting the history of early Chinese mathematics in the light of an excavated manuscript

The Suàn shù shū is an ancient Chinese collection of writings on mathematics approximately 7000 characters in length, written on 190 bamboo strips, recovered from a tomb that appears to have been closed in 186 B.C. This anonymous collection is not a single coherent book, but is made up of approximately 69 independent sections of text, which appear to have been assembled from a variety of sources. Problems treated range from elementary calculations with fractions to applications of the Rule of False Position and finding the volumes of various solid shapes. The Suàn shù shū is now the earliest datable extensive Chinese material on mathematics. This paper discusses its relation to ancient works known through scribal transmission, such as the so-called “Nine Chapters,” Jiuˇ zhāng suàn shù, which is first mentioned in connection with events around A.D. 100, but may have been compiled about a century earlier. It is proposed that the evolution of Chinese mathematical literature in the centuries that separate these two texts may be understood through comparison with what is known to have taken place during that time in another area of Chinese technical literature, that of medicine.Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide