The Contributions of Liu Hui in the Hisotry of Ancient Mathematics

As introduced in the last post, Liu Hui is of one the greatest ancient Chinese mathematicians who has created a lot of inspiring math theories. Liu contributed greatly to the science world in his times. And those theories he developed have even had great influences on the mathematicians after him.  

Liu Hui

In fact, regarding the master piece of Liu Hui, The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Arts, the scholars have found different editions. In the book The Chinese Roots of Linear Algebra (Roger Hart, 2011), the author has described in detail about the different versions of The Nine Chapters. Since back to the ancient times, the books were mainly written on the bamboo strips, there are chances that those strips would be ruined as time goes by. In the case of Liu Hui, part of his earliest commentary did not survive through time. And actually compare to the later version, there are some significant differences in some parts which have great impact in the final interpretation in solving some problems such as "excess and deficit". But in modern times, scholars usually refer Liu Hui as the “author” of this theory while adding Liu Chunfeng as the one who contributed some “sub commentary” since there were evidence proving Liu Chunfeng supervised the composition of The Nine Chapters.

Although it may be controversial whether or not Liu Hui completed some of his work with the help of others, the huge impact of his work on the scientists afterwards is undeniable. According to the book History And Philosophy of Science And Technology (Lorenzano, Rheinberger, Ortiz & Galles,2011) it was the inspirations from Liu’s previous work that Yu Xi discovered the precession of the equinoxes. And this discovery of Yu Xi was considered as a major advance in astronomy. Moreover, there were evidences shown that Liu Hui’s work even had influence on other math guru as great as him. It was mentioned that Liu Hui’s PI algorithm actually helped another famous ancient math master Zu Chongzhi (429-500) in completing his work regarding 12,288-gon.

Undoubtedly, the contribution of Liu Hui in the history of ancient Chinese mathematics development is significant. Without his innovative theories before, some of the great breakthroughs in science may have not occurred. The legacy that he created for the math science has not only benefited to the science evolution of the ancient times when he lived, but also contributed great value to the society centuries after.

Reference:

1. Hart, R. (2011). The Chinese Roots of Linear Algebra , pp. 30, 31. 
2. Liu Hui Retrived March 1, 2018 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Hui

3. Lorenzano, P., Rheinberger, H., Ortiz, E., & Galles, C. (2011). History And Philosophy of Science And Technology, III, pp. 60, 61.