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Overview
Key data
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Excavated | 1983–1984, Zhangjiashan tomb 247, Jiangling, Hubei |
| Period | Early Western Han |
| Form | A collection of problems, each with question, answer and method |
| Sections | About seventy |
| Status | The earliest surviving mathematical work |
Form and contents
The book is arranged as a collection of problems: the question first, then the answer, then the method.
Its topics include fields, grain and millet, proportional division, excess and deficit, and the right triangle, of the same line as the later Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art.
Read against the Nine Chapters, it shows what the later work built on.
Its relation to the calendar
Books of arithmetic and the calendar belong together. Calendrical computation depends on fractions, common denominators and reduction, so works on calculation and works on the calendar were often buried in the same tomb — Shuihudi, Zhangjiashan and Liye are all cases of this.
Its fractions and proportions are exactly the arithmetic basis of calendrical computation.
New moons, intercalary remainders and grand epochs all depend on common denominators and reduction.
Value
The discovery of the “Book of Numbers” pushes the history of Chinese mathematical writing back to the early Western Han.
It shows that the Nine Chapters did not arise from nothing but had predecessors.
Full text
No electronic full text of this work is available here. This is an archaeological find or artefact, for which no transmitted full text exists.
The title, date, summary and index structure compiled here are offered under CC BY 4.0 (attribution: Chujia Kuang · kuangchujia.com).
Compiled and arranged by Chujia Kuang.