Nine Chapters of Arithmetic is a mathematical monograph written by Zhang Cang and Geng Shouchang in ancient China, and it is the most important one in the Ten Books of Arithmetic, which was written around the first century AD. Its author can no longer be examined. It is generally believed that it has gradually become the final version after several generations of supplement and modification. Zhang Cang and Geng Shouchang in the Western Han Dynasty had been supplemented and sorted out, and they were generally finalized at that time. The last book was in the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty at the latest, and most of them were Notes to Nine Chapters written by Wei Yuan, Jing Yuan and Liu Hui in the Three Kingdoms Period (263).
The influence of Nine Chapters Arithmetic on later generations
Nine Chapters Arithmetic is the earliest book in the world that systematically describes fractional operation. Among them, the residual algorithm is an amazing creation; The chapter "Equation" also expounds the negative number and its addition and subtraction algorithm for the first time in the history of world mathematics. In algebra, Nine Chapters Arithmetic put forward the concept of negative number and the law of addition and subtraction of positive and negative numbers for the first time in the history of world mathematics. The solution of linear equations taught in middle school is basically the same as that introduced in Chapter 9 Arithmetic. ?