ProofWiki:Mathematicians/Sorted By Nation/China

For more comprehensive information on the lives and works of mathematicians through the ages, see the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, created by John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson.

"The army of those who have made at least one definite contribution to mathematics as we know it soon becomes a mob as we look back over history; 6,000 or 8,000 names press forward for some word from us to preserve them from oblivion, and once the bolder leaders have been recognised it becomes largely a matter of arbitrary, illogical legislation to judge who of the clamouring multitude shall be permitted to survive and who be condemned to be forgotten."

China

Sun Tzu

c. 3rd – 5th century C.E.

Otherwise known as Sun Zi.

Chinese mathematician and astronomer.

Best known for his work on Diophantine equations. His work is the source of the Chinese remainder theorem.
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Zu Chongzhi

429 – 501

Zu Chongzhi (simplified Chinese: 祖冲之; traditional Chinese: 祖冲之; pinyin: Zǔ Chōngzhī; Wade–Giles: Tsu Ch'ung-chih), courtesy name Wenyuan (文遠), was a prominent Chinese mathematician and astronomer.

Father of Zu Geng.

Deriving the most accurate approximation for $\pi$ for over nine hundred years.
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Zu Geng

c. 450 – c. 520

Also known as Zu Gengzhi (simplified Chinese: 祖暅之; traditional Chinese: 祖暅之; pinyin: Zǔ Gèngzhī; Wade–Giles: Tsu Kengchi; 480 - 525), courtesy name Jing Shuo (景烁).

Son of Zu Chongzhi.

Chinese mathematician who determined how to compute the diameter of a sphere of a given volume. He did this using a generalized version of Cavalieri's Principle.
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Chia Hsien

c. 1010 – c. 1070

Chia Hsien or Jia Xian (贾宪) was a Chinese mathematician best known for inventing Pascal's Triangle about 500 years before Pascal.
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Yang Hui

c. 1238 – c. 1298

Simplified Chinese: 杨辉; traditional Chinese: 楊輝; pinyin: Yáng Huī, courtesy name Qianguang (谦光).

Chinese mathematician who is best known for an early treatment of Pascal's Triangle (also known as Yang Hui's Triangle), although acknowledging that it was given an earlier treatment by Chia Hsien in a work which is now lost.
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Chu Shih-Chieh

c. 1260 – c. 1320

Acknowledged as one of the greatest Chinese mathematicians of his era, known under several names and transliterations: pinyin: Zhū Shìjié, Wade-Giles: Chu Shih-chieh, simplified Chinese: 朱世杰, traditional Chinese: 朱世傑, courtesy name Hanqing (汉卿), pseudonym Songting (松庭), he spent 20 years travelling around China teaching mathematics.

Chu was his family name, Shih-chieh his given name.
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Chen Jingrun

1933 – 1996

Simplified Chinese: 陈景润; traditional Chinese: 陳景潤; pinyin: Chén Jǐngrùn; Wade-Giles: Ch'en Chingjun. Chen is his family name.

Chinese mathematician who made significant inroads into Goldbach's Conjecture by proving what is now referred to as Chen's Theorem.
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