By Dr. Quan Le

The Chinese ‘Four Books’ are the epistemological treatises of the Confucian School.

The Five Books (or ‘Five Classics’) are the cultural legacy of the Ji Royal House aka the Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BCE)

Less known in the West are the Ten Classics of Mathematics.

The Nine Chapters of the Mathematical Art constitute one of the ten Classics of Mathematics. One of its first authors having lived 3000 years ago offered two demonstrations of what is called in the West “the Pythagorean theorem”.

We will explore the demonstrations together.

The eight chapter of the same Classic showcases what is called in the West “the Gaussian elimination method” using matrices.

And a word about Zhu Zaiyu, a member of the Zhu Imperial House aka the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) who wrote a treatise in 1584 on the 12 interval musical temperament system.

I will finish with the music of the sphere.

Resource videos referred to during the lecture: