Late Imperial developments Chinese mathematics

after overthrow of yuan dynasty, china became suspicious of knowledge used. ming dynasty turned away math , physics in favor of botany , pharmacology.

at period, abacus first mentioned in second century bc alongside calculation rods (suan zi) came suan pan form , overtook counting rods , became preferred computing device. zhu zaiyu, prince of zheng invented equal temperament used 81 position abacus calculate square root , cubic root of 2 25 figure accuracy.

although switch counting rods abacus allowed reduced computation times, may have led stagnation , decline of chinese mathematics. pattern rich layout of counting rod numerals on counting boards inspired many chinese inventions in mathematics, such cross multiplication principle of fractions , methods solving linear equations. similarly, japanese mathematicians influenced counting rod numeral layout in definition of concept of matrix. however, during ming dynasty, mathematicians fascinated perfecting algorithms abacus. such, many works devoted abacus mathematics appeared in period; @ expense of new idea creation.

despite achievements of shen , guo s work in trigonometry, substantial work in chinese trigonometry not published again until 1607, dual publication of euclid s elements chinese official , astronomer xu guangqi (1562–1633) , italian jesuit matteo ricci (1552–1610).

a revival of mathematics in china began in late nineteenth century, when joseph edkins, alexander wylie , li shanlan translated works on astronomy, algebra , differential-integral calculus chinese, published london missionary press in shanghai.