Mathematics is a formal science, which contains its own theories, methods and the intersection with other disciplines. Mathematics is the foundation of all natural sciences, which provides language, ideas and methods for other sciences; Mathematics is also the foundation of some major technological developments and has begun to play a role in social sciences. More and more people have realized that mathematics is a very important scientific system.

At the same time, mathematics is a kind of culture, which occupies an important position in human civilization. Many people think this view is nonsense or exaggerated. Until now, there are still many people who naively believe that mathematics is only a useful skill and tool for scientists, engineers or financial economists. What does it have to do with culture? However, if we put mathematics into the whole human history, we will find that the overall characteristics of an era are closely related to mathematical activities to a great extent.

If the appearance of the concepts of number and shape marks the beginning of early human civilization, then the appearance of Euclid's Elements of Geometry marks the birth of rational spirit in ancient Greece. When European mathematics stagnated, it was accompanied by the dark Middle Ages. The first revival of the spirit of mathematics blew the horn of the Renaissance ... The brilliant development of mathematics shows that mathematics has always been a unique cultural existence and has greatly influenced human life and thought.

Although mathematics is a kind of culture, until modern times, it was difficult for human beings to appreciate mathematics from a cultural perspective. This is not difficult to explain, because it is impossible to discuss mathematics from a cultural perspective before we understand mathematics as a whole. In order to fully understand mathematics, an appropriate method is to study the history of this subject. Although the origin of the study of the history of mathematics is very early, which can be traced back to ancient Greece, until the17th century, the main work of the history of mathematics was the collection, translation, revision and annotation of the original works, and there was no decent research.

/kloc-In the middle of 0/8th century, Montucla, a French mathematical historian, published the book History of Mathematics, and began to explore the development of mathematics along the two clues of history and logic, marking the formal birth of the history of mathematics as an independent discipline. /kloc-in the second half of the 0/9th century, German historians of mathematics began to appear. M. Cantor edited and published four volumes of Lecture Notes on the History of Mathematics, of which the fourth volume directly promoted the study of the history of mathematics until the end of 18.