Japanese Scholars’ Research On The History Of Chinese Mathematics In The First Half Of The 20th Century

In the first half of the 20 th century, Japanese scholars had a relatively high level in studying the history of Chinese mathematics. Both their understanding of the content and innovations for the methodology had a leading position in the science community of East Asia and even the world. This paper chose four Japanese scholars as research objects: Yoshio Mikami, Tsuruichi Hayashi, Matsusabro Fujiwara and Kinnosuke Ogura. By studying their research and major achievements, the author would dealt with the influence and profound significance brought by their research on the history of Chinese mathematics.On the basis of the predecessors’ work and the source literatures, this paper used documentary research method, case study method, comparative approach and multi-disciplinary method to interpret the four scholars’ major theses and works on the history of Chinese mathematics.This paper included six chapters. Chapter One was the introduction. It showed the research purposes and significance, research problems, literature review, research methods and innovation points of the paper. Chapter Two dealt with Yoshio Mikami’s research on the history of Chinese mathematics. By introducing his representative works The Development of Mathematics in China and Japan and The Characteristics of Chinese Mathematics, on the basis of his research on Liu Hui’s annotations for The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art, Tianyuan method, Siyuan method and Zhaocha method of the Song Yuan dynasties, Cyclotomy and Astronomers’ Biography of the Qing Dynesty and so on, and in contrast to Chinese scholars’ findings, this paper analyzed Yoshio Mikami’s achievements: 1. He had made groundbreaking contributions to introducing the history of Chinese mathematics to the world. 2. He had redressed western scholars’ biases on Chinese mathematics and wrong perspectives about “west-centrism” in the history of science. 3. He had played a leading role of research on Chinese mathematics. 4. He had deeply realized that Japanese mathematics came from Chinese mathematics and thoroughly studied the relations between them. 5. He had put forward that it was important to study the history of mathematics from the perspective of history of culture and also put it into his practice. Chapter Three mainly described T. Hayashi and M. Fujiwara’s research on the history of Chinese mathematics, which investigated T. Hayashi’s research on Hubeizhuishu and π, the etymologies of the words “geometry” and “algebra” and Chinese prime numbers and expressed that T. Hayashi mainly used modern mathematics to introduce the achievements of Chinese mathematics. Besides, it compared the achievements of Chinese mathematics with that of Japan and western countries and then came to a conclusion that T. Hayashi’s research proceeded from the perspective of a mathematician. M. Fujiwara studied the equation solutions in Yanghui Suanfa and Suanfa Tongsong and historical materials about mathematics in the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties. His achievements were mainly reflected as follows: 1. His collating for ancient books and records on Chinese mathematics, especially for the mathematical historical data in the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties. He discovered the Newly-Engraved Nine Chapters Encyclopedia for Enlightenment and Newly-Engraved Kowloon Easy Algorithms which had never been known before. 2. His explanations for algorithms in Chinese mathematics with modern mathematics. Chapter Four concerned Kinnosuke Ogura’s study on the history of Chinese mathematics. It analyzed his three essays: The Peculiarities of Chinese Mathematics, The Sociality of Chinese Mathematics and The Mathematical Globalization and Industrial Revolution in the Far East. Ogura paid much attention to the sociality of mathematics and his vision was much broader than his Chinese counterparts because his research involves not only the mathematical knowledge, but also its cultural background and social history. Chapter Five mainly probed into the Japanese scholars’ research methods. Yoshio Mikami studied the history of Chinese mathematics from the perspective of internal history and Japanese mathematics from the perspective of cultural history. T. Hayashi and M. Fujiwara also studied the history of Chinese mathematics from the perspective of internal history. Influenced by Yoshio Mikami, Kinnosuke Ogura developed the research method and studied the history of Chinese mathematics from the perspective of social history. Yoshio Mikami and Kinnosuke Ogura’s innovation on methodology had a far-reaching impact on the research of the history of mathematics in the world. The last chapter is the conclusion. It summarized the motivation, achievements and deficiencies, as well as Chinese scholars’ exchanges with Japanese scholars and their influences. The major conclusions were as follows:1. After Meiji Restoration, Japan government decided to abandon Japanese mathematics and learn the western mathematics. Therefore, the Japanese mathematics declined day by day. Under this circumstance, mathematical historian Yoshio Mikami, mathematicans T. Hayashi and M. Fujiwara and mathematical educationist Kinnosuke Ogura began to study Japanese mathematics for the purpose of protecting traditional national culture to some extent. Their had different knowledge structures caused their different perspectives and methods of research.2. Their modern research on the history of Chinese mathematics had been provided initiative character, and their perspectives of cultural or social history was a kind of methodological innovation of the domain of the history of science and technology, which had profound significance in the historiography of science.3. They had a good command of mathematics and relatively good abilities to interpret Chinese literatures and they published essays on the history of mathematics with western languages, all of which contributed a lot to promoting the research and spreading it across the world.4. They exchanged with Chinese scholars, thus propelling the research on the history of Chinese mathematics. Their research had profound and lasting impact on both Chinese and Japanese scholars.