Zhu Shijie

Zhu Shijie (Chinese朱世杰/朱世杰, Pinyin Zhū Shijie, Chu Shih- Chieh W.-G.; * 1260 in Yan -shan, † 1320 ) was one of the most important Chinese mathematician.

Little is known about his life, but two of his mathematical works have survived. Introduction to the study of mathematics (算 学 启蒙, Suanxue Qimeng ) from 1299 is a basic textbook of mathematics. Zhu treated about 260 problems from the fields of arithmetic and algebra. The book also showed how to measure different two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional body. The Chinese original was lost; However, it has been used in Japan and Korea as a textbook. A Chinese version of the book in 1839 reconstructed from a Korean translation.

Zhu's second book, The Precious Mirror of the Four Elements (四 元 玉 鉴, Siyuan yujian ) dating from 1303, is his most important work. With this book, Zhu brought the Chinese algebra to the highest level. It includes an explanation of his method of the four elements that can be used to represent algebraic equations with four unknowns. Zhu also how to find square roots and expanded the understanding of rows and consequences explained. At the beginning of the book there is a picture showing the today known as Pascal's triangle representation of the binomial coefficients.

The book Siyuan yujian also contains a conversion method for solving polynomial equations of degree 4, which Zhu fa fan called and William George Horner and Paolo Ruffini discovered 500 years later again in Europe.

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