The Culture of Liu Hui’s Time


As a Chinese mathematician, Liu Hui has done great contribution to the development of the ancient mathematics. However, there was little information about the culture of the period he lived in. Therefore, in this post, I am going to share some information regarding the culture of the Three Kingdoms period when Liu Hui was living.

Liu Hui was born in the state of Cao Wei, which was one of the three major parts of China at that time. It was a period of time that civil wars broke out now and then because there are so many different parties that wanted to take over the control of the country. On top of that, the relationships among the three major states were not stable either. Each state has the desire to invade the rest two and union the whole China into one hand. However, despite the instability of the society, there were a lot of development in cultural aspects such as philosophy, religions, literature and science technology etc. The two greatest mathematicians at that time was Liu Hui and Zu Congzhi. Literature and art were also advanced greatly during this period of time. It was very prevalent to study and promote poems and literature. For instance, Cao Cao, the early ruler of the state of Cao Wei, was not only an excellent politician and military general but also a great poet with many master pieces left. In the philosophy area, there were many different idea exchanges as well. There were two major schools in philosophy. One party was idealism represented by “Metaphysics” and the other party was materialism represented by “God extinction theory”. Also Taoism and Confucianism are the two main religions in Cao Wei area.

That period of time was the other period of social change after the Warring States. It had significant impact to the generations after. It was the time that idea exchanges were promoted, and culture and art developments were booming. Although people were still suffering a lot because of the wars. However, in general, that period was historical moment that the many developments in science, technology, art and culture were witnessed. It has left a precious wealth for the people in the generations after. In this kind of special time where science was promoted, it is possible that Liu Hui’s passion of mathematics has a certain connection to the overall academic background in that period of time.

1.  Liu Hui Retrieved March 16 2018 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Hui
2. Cao Wei Retrieved March 16 2018 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao_Wei


Comments

  1. Jane KeiserApril 5, 2018 at 2:56 PM

    Some suggestions: " has done great contribution" to "has greatly contributed to"
    "Each state has the desire to invade the rest two and union the whole China into one hand. " to "Each state had the desire to overtake the other two and unify the entire area into one region.""
    "there were a lot " to "there was a lot of development"
    "mathematicians at that time was" to "mathematicians at that time were"
    "It was very prevalent" to "It was very typical"
    "master pieces left" to "masterpieces still remaining"

    It was not a very smooth read, but the ideas shared in this post are very important and helped describe the culture in which he lived.

    ReplyDelete

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