DOCSLIB.ORG

The Discovery and Classification of Li Yan's Correspondence with Yoshio Mikami

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Discovery and Classification of Li Yan's Correspondence with Yoshio Mikami The Discovery and Classification of Li Yan’s Correspondence With Yoshio Mikami * Seisho YOSHIYAMA ＊＊ Abstract Yoshio Mikami and Li Yan are the pioneers of the study of mathematical history in East Asia. They were corresponding about the study of mathematical history from 1914 to 1937. Mr. Li wrote Mr. Mikami 45 letters for over these 23 years. Mr. Sadao Fuji‘i dicovered the letters before 2004, and published the list in “Mikami Yoshio’s Remaining Manuscripts Catalogue” in 2004. This discovery of Mr. Fuji‘i is very significant for researching the exchanging history of the study of mathematical history between China and Japan. Keywords: China, Japan, mathematics, history, correspondence. Introduction Li Yan and Yoshio Mikami are the pioneers of the study of mathematical history in East Asia. They have been corresponding for 23 years concerning the study of the East Asian history of mathematics. Li Yan’s letters to Yoshio Mikami were discovered by Mr. Sadao Fuji’i about nine years ago. Professor Han Qi and professor Zou Dahai classified and published them entitled “The Correspondences between Li Yan and Yan Dunjie”. I began classifying the correspondences because I was enlightened by their papers last year. Keywords : China, Japan, mathematics, history, correspondence. 1. Yoshio Mikami and the study of East Asian history of mathematics Yoshio Mikami [ 三上義夫, February 16,1875 - December 31,1950] was a historian of Asian science. He was born in Kotachi（which now belongs to Akitakata City）, Hiroshima Prefecture. In April of 1891, he transfered to the 2nd grade at the Chiba th ＊＊ This paper is based on the author’s presentation with the same title in The 5 International Symposium on Ancient Chinese Books and Records of Science and Technology, in Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, September 23-25, 2011. ＊＊ Aka: Qingxiang Wang, Faculty of Environmental and Information Sciences, Yokkaichi University. － 107 － Ordinary Junior High School after finishing his elementary school education. At the same time, he also started studying at the Tokyo School of Mathematics and the National School of English in 1892. In 1896, he entered the 2nd Sendai High School, left the school several months later due to his eye disease. And then he was admitted to an elective course in the Department of Philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University as a special student（a non-regular student） in October of 1911. He went on to the Graduate School of Philosophy at the same university in October of 1914（until 1919）. Mr. Mikami was entrusted with surveying the Japanese history of mathematics by the Imperial Academy（the Current Japan Academy） from 1908 to 1915. He was elected to be a commissioner of the international committee for the history of science in 1929. This was the first Asian commissioner in the committee. He was an instructor at the Tokyo School of Physics（ the forerunner of Tokyo University of Science） from 1933 to 1944. Mr. Mikami recieved a doctral degree of science from Tohoku University in 1949, however he died of a stroke on December 31 the next year. He was given a posthumous Buddhist name “Immortal Education Master of Science” [ 理学院教導義仙居士 , Rigakuin kyodo gisen kyoshi]. Mr. Mikami began researching the history of mathematics in 1905. This year, the United States’ mathematician George Bruce Halsted（November 23,1853 - March 16,1922） asked Mikami to write a paper to introduce the Japanese history of mathemetics. But at the time, there was just Toshisada Endo’s “Big Japanese History of Mathematics”（1896） as books concerning Japanese history of mathematics. So Mr. Mikami decided to study Japanese history of mathematics himself. Mikami’s first academic paper is “Another Proof and Extension of Euler’s Theorem on Angles, Edges and Areas of Polyhedrons” in 1902. In 1905, he published his first academic paper on the history of science entitled “A Chinese Theorem on Geometry”. In 1913, he published his first book in the English language, entitled “The Development of Mathematics in China and Japan”（Leipzig, January 1913）. He published more than two hundred papers or books which included 35 papers and 3 books in both English and German language until his death in 1950. 2. About Mr. Mikami’s remaining manuscripts concerning the history of science After putting his manuscripts concerning the history of science in Shinichi Oya’s keeping, Mr. Mikami evacuated from Tokyo to his hometown Kotachi in Hiroshima on May 18, 1945. By the way, it was September 6, 1945 when the atomic bombing happened in Hiroshima, but fortunately he was safe. Shinichi Oya(1907-1991) was a professor at Fuji Junior College in Tokyo, he had been a － 108 － student at Tokyo School of Physics, where Mr. Mikami had been an instructor. After Oya’s death, Mikami’s remaining manuscripts were entrusted to Mr. Sadao Fuji’i to classify them by the Kinki Society for the Study of Mathematical History in Japan in March, 2001. So Mr. Fuji’i recieved 26 cardboard boxes of Mikami’s remaining manuscripts. Of course, they were just a part of what Mikami put in Oya’s keeping. It is said that a part of them was carried into the library at Fuji Junior College（current Tokyo Fuji University）by Mr. Oya, and a part of them was sold to a second hand bookstore with Oya’s book collection. So it is convinced that what Mr. Fuji’i recieved is most of Mikami’s remaining manuscripts. 3. The discovery of Li Yan’s correspondences with Yoshio Mikami by Mr. Sadao Fuji’i Mr. Sadao Fuji’i was born on March 30,1932, in Dalian City, China as a Japanese. Lyushun Institue of Technology was closed down on September of 1945 when Fuji’i was a college student there, then returned to Japan. Later he went to Kyoto University, graduated in the Department of Metallurgy, Faculty of Engineering in 1951. He had been a math and science teacher at High schools in Hiroshima Prefecture for 30 years. Studying how to read archives was the catalyst for him to study the history of mathematics. He began classifying Mikami’s remaining manuscripts in 2001, and then edited “Mikami Yoshio’s Remaining Manuscripts Catalogue” in 2004. The Catalogue included the list of Li Yan’s correspondences with Yoshio Mikami. 4. The classification of Li Yan’s correspondences by Seisho Yoshiyama I first met Mr. Sadao Fuji’i just after I read a book on Wajuro Hodoji in 1986 when I was a student at the Graduate School of Science, the University of Tokyo. The book was edited by Mr. Fuji’i. I noticed that there was a list of Li Yan’s Correspondence With Yoshio Mikami in it as soon as I Got “Mikami Yoahio’s Remaining Manuscripts Catalogue” from Mr. Fuji’i in 2004. In September of 2006, I went to the Kota Branch Office of the Education Committee, Akitakata City in Hiroshima Prefecture, to take a closer look into the correspondences. I began classifying the correspondences in 2010 after knowing that professor Han Qi and professor Zou Dahai classified and published them entitled “The Correspondences Between Li Yan and Yan Dunjie”. By now, I have almost finished inputting them to print files, except several Chinese characters that I have not understood yet. I also noticed several things concerning Li Yan’s correspondence with Yoshio Mikami. （1） Mr. Li Yan [ 李 儼 ]（1892-1963） started to correspond with Yoshio Mikami in 1914, － 109 － but stopped in 1937. Namely, he had corresponded with Mr. Mikami for 23 years, in which time he wrote Mr. Mikami 45 letters. The details are as follows. Years Number of letters 1914 2 1915 2 1916 5 1917 5 1918 4 1919 1 1920 5 1921 0 1922 1 1923 0 1924 0 1925 2 1926 0 1927 1 1928 0 1929 0 1930 5 1931 6 1932 1 1933 0 1934 1 1935 1 1936 1 1937 2 （2） The corresponding between Mr. Li and Mr. Mikami seemed to begin with Mr. Li’s letter to Mr. Mikami in 1914（the postmark on the envelope is September 17,1914）. In 1914, after reading Mr. Mikami’s paper on a journal “The World of Mathematics”, Mr. Li wrote to Mr. Mikami to introduce Japanese researchers and discuss the study of mathematical history with each other. （3） Mr. Li’s last letter to Mr. Mikami was on October 24, 1937. On July 7 of this year, “Lugou-Qiao”event related “China-Japan war” occurred in Beijing. It is probably due to this event that the corresponding stopped between Mr. Li and Mr. Mikami. － 110 － （4） It is believed that Mr. Li was influenced by Mr. Mikami in the study of mathematical history. Actually, the following things are clear. In 1905, Mr. Mikami began researching the history of mathematics. He published his first academic paper on the history of science entitled “A Chinese Theorem on Geometry” in the same year. In 1913, Mr. Mikami published his first book in the English language, entitled “The Development of Mathematics in China and Japan”. Mr. Li tried to translate this book into Chinese language. In 1913, Mr. Li decided to study the history of Chinese mathematics after he read a Japanese researcher’s paper concerning the history of Chinese mathematics. This was probably one of Mr. Mikami’s papers. 5. Conclusion： The perspectives on the study of Li Yan’s correspondences with Yoshio Mikami Yoshio Mikami and Li Yan are the pioneers of the study of mathematical history in East Asia. They were corresponding about the study of mathematics from 1914 to 1937. Mr. Li wrote Mr. Mikami 45 letters for over these 23 years. Mr.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A History of Japanese Mathematics
    A HISTORY OF JAPANESE MATHEMATICS BY DAVID EUGENE SMITH AND YOSHIO MIKAMI CHICAGO THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 1914 , Printed by W. Drugulin, Leipzig PREFACE Although for nearly a century the greatest mathematical classics of India have been known to western scholars, and several of the more important works of the Arabs for even longer, the mathematics of China and Japan has been closed to all European and American students until very recently. Even now we have not a single translation of a Chinese treatise upon the subject, and it is only within the last dozen years that the contributions of the native Japanese school have become known in the West even by name. At the second International Congress of Mathematicians, held at Paris in 1900, Professor Fujisawa of the Imperial University of Tokio gave a brief address upon Mathematics of the old Japanese School, and this may be taken as the first contribution to the history of mathematics made by a native of that country in a European language. The next effort of this kind showed itself in occasional articles by Baron Kikuchi, as in the Niemv Archief voor Wiskunde, some of which were based upon his contributions in Japanese to one of the scientific journals of Tokio. But -the only serious attempt made up to the present time to present a well-ordered history of the subject in a European language is to be found in the very commendable papers by T. Hayashi, of the Imperial University at Sendai. The most important of these have appeared in the Nieuw Archief voor Wiskunde, and to them the authors are much indebted.
    [Show full text]
  • A Comparison of the Spread of the English Translation of Euclidean Geometry in 19Th Century China and Japan†
    A Comparison of the Spread of the English Translation of Euclidean Geometry in 19th Century China and Japan† ∗ ∗∗ SARINA and Ying WANG Abstract In this paper, the authors compare the similarities and differences in the understanding and acceptance of Western geometry during the transformation of mathematics in China and Japan from the traditional mathematics model to the Western one. First, it starts with a detailed introduction to Euclidean geometry as it spread to the late Qing dynasty during the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century. Second, it compares the translations of Chinese and Japanese versions of Euclidian geometry and discusses the history of Western mathematics when it was introduced into the two countries. Third, we compare the relationship between the source books introduced into China and Japan, analyze their impact on the West, and offer reasons as to why the translators chose those particular source books in China and Japan. Finally, this paper ends with a discussion of the concrete influence of the Chinese and Japanese versions in spreading Western geometry and the transformation from the traditional mathematics model to the Western one. Key words: Euclidean geometry, Henry Billingsley, Robert Simson, late Qing dynasty, Meiji era 1. Introduction The famous ancient Greek geometer, Euclid, was the founder of Western mathemat- ics. In the 17th century, Euclidean geometry spread with the Jesuits to China, Japan, and other Asian countries. During the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) and Xu Guangqi (1562–1633) jointly translated Jihe Yuanben, which comprised the first volumes of Euclidean geometry in the East.
    [Show full text]
  • Mathematics, Art, and the Politics of Value in Twentieth-Century United States
    The Subjects of Modernism: Mathematics, Art, and the Politics of Value in Twentieth-Century United States by Clare Seungyoon Kim Bachelor of Arts Brown University, 2011 Submitted to the Program in Science, Technology and Society In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology September 2019 © 2019 Clare Kim. All Rights Reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter created. Signature of Author: Signatureredacted History, Anthr and Sc'nce, Technology and Society Signature redacted- August 23, 2019 Certified by: David Kaiser Germeshausen Professor of the History of the History of Science, STS Professor, Department of Physics Thesis Supervisor Certified by: Sianature redacted Christopher Capozzola MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OFTECHNOLOGY Professor of History C-) Thesis Committee Member OCT 032019 LIBRARIES 1 Signature redacted Certified by: Stefan Helmreich Elting E. Morison Professor of Anthropology Signature redacted Thesis Committee Member Accepted by: Tanalis Padilla Associate Professor, History Director of Graduate Studies, History, Anthropology, and STS Signature redacted Accepted by: Jennifer S. Light Professor of Science, Technology, and Society Professor of Urban Studies and Planning Department Head, Program in Science, Technology, & Society 2 The Subjects of Modernism Mathematics, Art, and the Politics of Value in Twentieth-Century United States By Clare Kim Submitted to the Program in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society on September 6, 2019 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society.
    [Show full text]
  • 14Th International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia (Paris, 6-10 July 2015): Book of Abstracts Catherine Jami, Christopher Cullen, Sica Acapo
    14th International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia (Paris, 6-10 July 2015): Book of Abstracts Catherine Jami, Christopher Cullen, Sica Acapo To cite this version: Catherine Jami, Christopher Cullen, Sica Acapo. 14th International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia (Paris, 6-10 July 2015): Book of Abstracts. 2015, pp.2015-07. halshs-01220174 HAL Id: halshs-01220174 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01220174 Submitted on 25 Oct 2015 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. SOURCES, LOCALITY AND GLOBAL HISTORY: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE IN EAST ASIA BOOK OF ABSTRACTS 6-10 July 2015 EHESS, Paris 14TH ICHSEA PARTNERS & SPONSORS INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF EAST ASIAN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND MEDECINE GDR 3398 « Histoire des mathématiques » 14TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN EAST ASIA SOURCES, LOCALITY AND GLOBAL HISTORY: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE IN EAST ASIA BOOK OF ABSTRACTS Designed by Sica Acapo Edited by Catherine Jami & Christopher Cullen 6-10 July
    [Show full text]
  • Jiří Hudeček Introduction
    Reviews 73 Annick Horiuchi, Japanese Mathematics in the Edo Period (1600-1868), Basel: Birkhäuser 2010, xxvii+376 pp. Translated by Silke Wimmer-Zagier from the French original Les Mathématiques japonaises à l’époque d’Edo 1600-1868, Paris: Libraire Philosophique J. Vrin, 1994. Jiří Hudeček [Jiří Hudeček is a researcher at the International Sinological Centre of Charles University, Prague. He received his PhD from the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, for the thesis “You Fight Your Way, I Fight My Way: Wu Wen-Tsun and Traditional Chinese Mathematics.” Between 2007 and 2012, he was the first holder of the Soon-Young Kim Student- ship in the History of East Asian Science and Technology at the Needham Research Institute, Cambridge. Contact: [email protected]] Introduction We have become used to looking to French scholarship for profound and comprehensive studies of history of mathematics in East Asia. It should thus not come as a surprise that the Birkhäuser Science Network Historical Studies chose the work of a France-based scholar, Professor Annick Horiuchi from Université Paris 7-Diderot, to fill the gap in general knowledge about Japanese mathematics. Originally published in French in 1994, Prof. Horiuchi’s book was positively received by francophone historians of mathematics (Nagy 1995, Chemla 1996). Now it has been translated into English, without major updates, by Silke Wimmer-Zagier, with help from her husband, the mathematician Don Zagier. A gap of more than fifteen years does not make an English translation of her text superfluous. For a start, very little has been published on Japanese mathematics in English, and nothing of comparable scope and depth since Yoshio Mikami and David E.
    [Show full text]
  • Endo Toshisada, Founder of the History of Japanese Mathematics As a New Field of Study: a Defeated Fighter’S Footsteps from the Battle of Ueno in 1868
    四日市大学論集 第 32 巻 第 2 号 （The Journal of Yokkaichi University, Vol.32 No.2, 2020） Endo Toshisada, Founder of the History of Japanese Mathematics as a New Field of Study: A Defeated Fighter’s Footsteps from the Battle of Ueno in 1868 ＊ Seisho YOSHIYAMA Abstract: Endo Toshisada ( 遠藤利貞，1843-1915) was a warrior of the Kuwana Domain (around the present-day Kuwana City, Mie Prefecture), but also mathematics teacher. During the Meiji Restoration, he fought in the Battle of Ueno on the side of the “Shogitai” ( 彰義隊 ), resisting the Meiji government forces. He escaped from Edo (the present-day Tokyo), and returned to the Kuwana. In 1896, he published “A History of Mathematics of Great Japan”, this was the first book in the world on the history of Japanese mathematics. With it, Endo aspired to develop a new field of the history of traditional Japanese mathematics. Keywords: Wasan (traditional Japanese mathematics), Yozan (Western mathematics) Tokugawa Shogunate (Tokugawa Bakufu), Samurai (warrior), Domain (han), Domain warrior (hanshi), Domain school (Hankou) Introduction Endo Toshisada (1843-1915), was a warrior of the Kuwana Domain. In his early years, he received an education in Chinese literary classics, military arts and the traditional Japanese mathematics (Wasan), became a Wasan teacher. Immediately following the Meiji Restoration, he fought in the Battle of Ueno (in Edo, the present-day Tokyo) on the side of the Shogitai ( 彰義隊 , see below, section III-1) resisting the Meiji government forces. After the defeat of the Shogitai side, he managed to escape Edo and returned to the Kuwana Domain. Then, in 1877, after several years of studying and teaching Yozan (the Western mathe- matics), he started to rethink Wasan historically.
    [Show full text]
  • Abstract Introduction
    Dutch Algebra and Arithmetic in Japan before the Meiji Restoration Albrecht Heeffer Centre for History of Science, Ghent University, Belgium1 Abstract This paper gives an overview of the scarce occasions in which Japan came into contact with Western arithmetic and algebra before the Meiji restoration of 1868. After the refutation of persistent claims on the influence through Japanese students at Leiden during the seventeenth century, it concentrates on the reception of Dutch works during the last decades of the Tokugawa shogunate and the motivations to study and translate these books. While some studies based on Japanese sources have already been published on this period,2 this paper draws from Dutch sources and in particular on witness accounts from Dutch officers at the Nagasaki naval school, responsible for the instruction of mathematics to selected samurai and rangakusha. Two Japanese textbooks on arithmetic from that period are viewed within the context of this naval training school. Introduction At the beginning of the twentieth century, historian Tsuruichi Hayashi (1873 – 1935) published a well-received series of articles in the Dutch mathematical journal Nieuw Archief voor Wiskunde. His ―Brief History of the Japanese Mathematics‖ (sic) is the first published account of the wasan tradition in a Western language.3 This comprehensive chronological overview of over 120 pages provides many details on Japanese authors of wasan books, the schools in which they practiced mathematics and the mathematical methods they developed. For the
    [Show full text]
  • TAKAKAZU SEKI KOWA & AIDA YASUAKI the Most Distinguished
    TAKAKAZU SEKI KOWA & AIDA YASUAKI The most distinguished Japanese mathematician of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1867) era and perhaps of all time was Takakazu Seki Kowa (March 1642? – October 24, 1708). Aida Yasuaki (February 10, 1747 – October 26, 1817) was one of the most prolific mathematicians of his time. This entry is not only the stories of these two, but also a brief description of the early development Takakazu Seki Kowa of Japanese mathematics. Japan did not begin its intellectual development until Buddhist missionaries arrived from China around A.D. 500. Traditionally it is believed that Japan had a crude system of numeration dating from 600 BCE and that early in its existence it produced or borrowed a system of measures and a calendar. Aida Ysuaki During the 8th century CE, many of the Chinese mathematical arts were introduced into Japan. Japanese mathematicians imitated the work of Chinese scholars and when a university system was established in Japan, nine Chinese books were made the basis of the mathematical curriculum. Chinese mathematics and Japanese mathematics used the same language, not just the same Chinese characters. Thus if Japanese mathematicians acquired Chinese mathematical books they could have easily understood Chinese mathematical ideas. During the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan gradually cut itself off from the western world, with this self- imposed national isolation (sakoku) officially decreed in 1639. Citizens were forbidden to leave the Japanese isles, foreign books were banned and foreign missionaries and their converts were persecuted. Nevertheless, during the late 17th century, the country experienced a cultural renaissance similar to the one that had occurred in the previous century in Europe.
    [Show full text]
  • Seki Kowa, Takakazu
    SEKI KOWA (1642 – October 24, 1708) by HEINZ KLAUS STRICK, Germany The time of the birth of SEKI KOWA (also called SEKI TAKAKAZU) coincided with a dramatic period in Japanese history: In the mid-16th century, the country was still in a power struggle between rival princes who were violently trying to gain supremacy over the country (shogunate). Firearms imported to Japan by European traders ultimately played a decisive role in the war. From 1543 onwards, merchants from Portugal, and later from other countries, had begun to trade. The merchants were followed by missionaries who converted hundreds of thousands to Christianity. Among the missionaries were Jesuits who informed Japanese scientists about the state of mathematical development in Europe. The European merchants and missionaries tried to exert political influence. Then, in 1598, TOKUGAWA IEYASU, one of the military leaders, succeeded in defeating all his rivals and thus unified Japan by force. To reduce any possible influence of the emperor (Tenno), he moved the seat of government from Kyoto to his previous headquarters, a small fishing village called Edo, which was later named Tokyo (literally: eastern capital). He expelled the foreign merchants and missionaries from the country, banned the Christian faith and had the Christian churches destroyed. Only a few Dutch merchants, who rejected any thought of missionary work, were allowed to continue their trade. An artificial, walled island was created for them at the port of Nagasaki and a merchant ship was only allowed to dock there once a year. For over 200 years, this was Japan's only connection to the outside world, as the rulers also forbade Japanese ships from sailing to foreign countries.
    [Show full text]