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ZHU Shijie
Very little is known of Zhu Shijie's life. The main primary sources are the prefaces to his two extant works; and the supplement to the Chouren zhuan: Biographies of mathematicians and astronomers, compiled by Ruan Yuan in the 18th century.
Sources in English include articles by Ho Peng Yoke, E.M. Konantz and Lam Lay Yong
We do not even know when he was born or died. We know only that his two extant works were published in 1299 and 1303, in the first years of the Yuan dynasty. According to the prefaces, he was a teacher who travelled about the region of Yanjing, and to whom students flocked in large numbers.
Only two works by Zhu Shijie are extant:
Suanxue qimeng | Ëã ѧ Æô ÃÉ | Introduction to computation (1299) |
Siyuan yujian | ËÄ Ôª Óñ ¼ø | The jade mirror of the four unknowns (1303) |
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This page last revised: 18th December, 2000