Sacred Mathematics
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-12745-3 (ISBN)
Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries Japan was totally isolated from the West by imperial decree. During that time, a unique brand of homegrown mathematics flourished, one that was completely uninfluenced by developments in Western mathematics. People from all walks of life--samurai, farmers, and merchants--inscribed a wide variety of geometry problems on wooden tablets called sangaku and hung them in Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines throughout Japan. Sacred Mathematics is the first book published in the West to fully examine this tantalizing--and incredibly beautiful--mathematical tradition. Fukagawa Hidetoshi and Tony Rothman present for the first time in English excerpts from the travel diary of a nineteenth-century Japanese mathematician, Yamaguchi Kanzan, who journeyed on foot throughout Japan to collect temple geometry problems. The authors set this fascinating travel narrative--and almost everything else that is known about temple geometry--within the broader cultural and historical context of the period.
They explain the sacred and devotional aspects of sangaku, and reveal how Japanese folk mathematicians discovered many well-known theorems independently of mathematicians in the West--and in some cases much earlier. The book is generously illustrated with photographs of the tablets and stunning artwork of the period. Then there are the geometry problems themselves, nearly two hundred of them, fully illustrated and ranging from the utterly simple to the virtually impossible. Solutions for most are provided. A unique book in every respect, Sacred Mathematics demonstrates how mathematical thinking can vary by culture yet transcend cultural and geographic boundaries.
Fukagawa Hidetoshi is a retired high-school teacher in Japan, and one of the world's experts on "sangaku". He is the coauthor of "Japanese Temple Geometry Problems". Tony Rothman is a theoretical cosmologist who lectures in physics at Princeton University. His books include "Everything's Relative and Other Fables from Science and Technology".
Foreword by Freeman Dyson ix Preface by Fukagawa Hidetoshi xiii Preface by Tony Rothman xv Acknowledg ments xix What Do I Need to Know to Read This Book? xxi Notation xxv Chapter 1: Japan and Temple Geometry 1 Chapter 2: The Chinese Foundation of Japanese Mathematics 27 Chapter 3: Japa nese Mathematics and Mathematicians of the Edo Period 59 Chapter 4: Easier Temple Geometry Problems 89 Chapter 5: Harder Temple Geometry Problems 145 Chapter 6: Still Harder Temple Geometry Problems 191 Chapter 7: The Travel Diary of Mathematician Yamaguchi Kanzan 243 Chapter 8: East and West 283 Chapter 9: The Mysterious Enri 301 Chapter 10: Introduction to Inversion 313 For Further Reading 337 Index 341
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 21.7.2008 |
|---|---|
| Vorwort | Freeman Dyson |
| Zusatzinfo | 16 color illus. 150 line illus. |
| Verlagsort | New Jersey |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 203 x 254 mm |
| Gewicht | 1276 g |
| Themenwelt | Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte | |
| Mathematik / Informatik ► Mathematik ► Geometrie / Topologie | |
| Mathematik / Informatik ► Mathematik ► Geschichte der Mathematik | |
| Naturwissenschaften | |
| ISBN-10 | 0-691-12745-X / 069112745X |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-691-12745-3 / 9780691127453 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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