Li Rui (mathematician)

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Li Rui (born December 8, 1768 in Yuanhe , † June 30, 1817 ibid) was a Chinese mathematician.

As a teenager he learned mathematics from the textbook by Cheng Dawei (Suanfa tong zong, 1592). After graduating from the provincial school of Yuanhe in 1788, he studied at the Ziyang Academy in Yuanhe, where the director Qian Daxin (1728-1804) was his mathematics teacher. His first publication was an appendix to a commentary by his teacher, and in 1797 he published a commentary on a work by Li Zhi from 1248 on inscribed and rewritten circles, followed by a commentary on his New Levels of Arithmetic (Yi gu yan duan) from 1259 After the Minister of Education of Zhejiang Province , Ruan Yuan, in Hangzhou in 1795 set up a program to comment on the works of older Chinese mathematicians and astronomers, he and his teacher Qian Daxin participated in it.

From 1795 he worked on the 1799 published collection of biographies of mathematicians and astronomers (Chouren zhuan, CRZ) by Ruan Yuan and was one of its secretaries. This was mostly followed by contributions to mathematical treatises by other authors and further comments. From 1800 he worked with the mathematician Jia Xun (1763-1820), who was also involved in the biography project of Ruan Yuan.

In 1802 his wife died. In 1810 he went to Beijing, where he prepared for the exams for senior officials, which he failed at the time. In Beijing he stayed with the mathematician Li Huang (died 1812), a commentator on Jiu Zhang Suanshu . To distinguish it from Li Rui, it was later also called northern Li , while Li Rui was called southern Li . In his house he found a commentary on a book by Yang Hui , believed to be lost, from 1275 , which he published in 1814. Li Rui also compiled a number of other works by Yang Hui that were newly discovered around this time. He was later secretary to Zhang Dunren (1754-1834), who also dealt with mathematics.

Li Rui found his inspiration mostly in the works of older Chinese mathematicians, such as Li Zhi and from Qin Jiushao and his Shùshū Jiǔzhāng (Mathematical Treatise in Nine Chapters), which dealt with the Chinese remainder of the sentence . In 1814 he published a book on higher degree equations (Kaifang Shuo). Li Rui independently discovered an equivalent to Descartes' sign rule in his treatment of the solutions to higher degree equations .

In 1799 he published a work on approximation methods in astronomical calculations by older Chinese mathematicians (Rifa shuoyu qiangruo kao, Exploring the dates of fractions for the tropical year) in calculating the differences between the solar and lunar calendars. In 1798 he published a book about the calculation of arcs, 1806 about calculations with right triangles and 1808 about the solution of linear systems of equations

His edition of the Jade Mirror of the Four Elements (1303) by Zhu Shijie was unfinished when he died.

literature

  • Dauben, Scriba (ed.): Writing the history of mathematics, Birkhäuser 2002, pp. 302–303

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Dauben, Scriba (Ed.): Writing the history of mathematics, Birkhäuser 2002, p. 303
personal data
SURNAME Li, Rui
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1768
PLACE OF BIRTH Suzhou (Jiangsu)
DATE OF DEATH June 30, 1817
Place of death Suzhou (Jiangsu)