bar over a numeral, meaning to multiply by 1,000. Thus, 8,000 would be VIII—equal
to our Hindu-Arabic number 8—with a bar over the entire Roman numeral.
OTHER CULTURES
AND EARLY MATHEMATICS
What did the Chineseadd to the study of mathematics?
Despite the attention the Greeks have received concerning the development of mathe-
matics, the Chinese were by no means uninterested in it. About the year 200 BCE, the
Chinese developed place value notation, and 100 years later they began to use negative
numbers. By the turn of the millennium and a few centuries beyond, they were using
decimal fractions (even for the value of “pi” [π]) and the first magic squares (for more
information about math puzzles, see “Recreational Math”). By the time European cul-
tures had begun to decline—from about 530 to 1000 CE—the Chinese were contribut-
ing not only to the field of mathematics, but also to the study of magnetism, mechani-
cal clocks, physical laws, and astronomy.
What is the most famous Chinese mathematics book?
The Jiuzhang suanshu,or Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art,is the most
famous mathematical book to come out of ancient China. This book dominated math-
ematical development for more than 1,500 years, with contributions by numerous
Chinese scholars such as Xu Yue (c. 160–c. 227), though his contributions were lost.
It contains 246 problems meant to provide methods to solve everyday questions con-
cerning engineering, trade, taxation, and surveying. 21
HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS
What was the “House of Wisdom”?
A
round 786, the fifth Caliph of the Abbasid Dynasty began with Caliph Harun
al-Rashid, a leader who encouraged learning, including the translation of
many major Greek treatises into Arabic, such as Euclid’s Elements. Al-Ma’mun
(786–833), the next Caliph, was even more interested in scholarship, creating
the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, one of several scientific centers in the Islamic
Empire. Here, too, Greek works such as Galen’s medical writings and Ptolemy’s
astronomical treatises were translated, not by language experts ignorant of
mathematics, but by scientists and mathematicians such as Al-Kindi (801–873),
Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khuwarizmi (see below), and the famous translator
Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809–873).