Karine Chemla

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Karine Chemla (born February 8, 1957 in Tunis ) is a French mathematician and sinologist .

Life

Karine Chemla (center) with Antoni Malet (left), Eberhard Knobloch (right), Oberwolfach 2009

Chemla studied mathematics at the École normal supérieure de jeunes filles (ENSJF) in Paris from 1976 to 1982 and graduated in 1979 with a specialization in ergodic theory with the Diplôme d'études approfondies (DEA). She then turned to the history of Chinese mathematics and received a travel grant from the Fondation Singer-Polignac for 1980/81 , which enabled her to do research at the "Institute for the History of Natural Sciences" of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing . In 1982 she was Christian Houzel at the University of Paris XIII with a thesis on the work sea Circle calculation of Li Ye doctorate .

Since 1982 she has been researching for the CNRS , from 1986 as research assistant and from 1997 as research director. Since 2001 she has been director of the REHSEIS group ( Recherches épistémologiques et historiques sur les sciences exactes et les institutions scientifiques ) of the CNRS and the University of Paris VII . She is visiting professor at the Universities of Northwest China in Xi'an (since 2005), Jiaotong University in Shanghai (since 2010) and Hebei University of the North in Zhangjiakou (all People's Republic of China ). In 2010 she was a scholarship holder of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She was at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin in 2007 , was a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in 1994/95 , at Columbia University in New York in 2002, at the Dibner Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006 and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for the study of the ancient world at New York University .

She dealt in particular with the history of Chinese mathematics and, with Guo Shuchun, published a critical bilingual Chinese / French edition of the classic ancient Chinese mathematics, the Nine Books of Arithmetic Technique (→ Jiu Zhang Suanshu ). In 2006, both authors received the Ikuo Hirayama Prize from the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres .

Since 1997 she was a corresponding and from 2005 a full member of the Académie internationale d'histoire des sciences . In 2008 she was awarded the CNRS silver medal . She also speaks German and is a member of the Leopoldina (2005). She has been a full member of the Academia Europaea since 2013 . In 1998 she was invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berlin ( History of Mathematics in China: a factor in world history and a source of new questions ) and in 2016 she gave a plenary lecture at the European Congress of Mathematicians in Berlin ( How has one, and how could one, approach the diversity of mathematical cultures? ). In 2019 Chemla was elected to the American Philosophical Society , for 2020 she was awarded the Otto Neugebauer Prize of the European Mathematical Society .

Interpretation of the Pythagorean theorem in the Nine Books after Chemla

The following images show a diagram from the Chinese classic mathematics of the Nine Books and its interpretation to prove the Pythagorean theorem based on Karine Chemla's critical edition.

  • Diagram from the Nine Books

  • Interpretation by Chemla, squares with sides 3, 4 above the cathetus, for example of triangle 1

  • Interpretation by Chemla, continued, The large square, corresponding to the hypotenuse square, has the same area as the sum of the cathetus squares.

Fonts

  • with Guo Shuchun: Les neuf chapitres. Le classique mathématique de la Chine ancienne et ses commentaires. Edition critique bilingue traduite, présentée et annotée par K. Chemla et Guo Shuchun , Dunod, 2004
  • with F. Bray, Fu D., Huang Y., G. Métailié: La scienza in Cina , in Sandro Petruccioli (editor): Storia della scienza , 8 volumes, Rome, Enciclopedia Italiana, Volume II, 2001
  • as editor History of science, history of text , Boston studies in the philosophy of science, Springer Verlag, 2004
  • Euler's Work in Spherical Trigonometry: Contributions and Applications , Euler, Opera Omnia, Series 3, Volume 10 Commentationes physicae ad theoriam caloris, electricitatis et magnetismi pertinentes , 2003
  • as editor with Florence Bretelle-Establet Qu'était-ce qu'écrire une encyclopédie en Chine? What did it mean to write an encyclopedia in China , Extrême-Orient, Extrême-Occident, hors-série, 2007

Individual evidence

  1. ^ German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina - Newly elected members 2004, Halle (Saale) (PDF; 1.7 MB) p. 17.
  2. ↑ 10 EMS Prizes, the Felix Klein Prize and the Otto Neugebauer Prize announced for 2020. In: 8ecm.si. 8th European Congress of Mathematics, accessed on June 14, 2020 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Chemla, Karine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French sinologist and mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH February 8, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Tunis