The mathematics content we learn in middle schools today basically belongs to the elementary mathematics knowledge before calculus in17th century, while most of the contents of the mathematics department in universities are advanced mathematics in17th and18th century.

These mathematics textbooks have been compiled repeatedly under the guidance of the principle of combining science with educational requirements. They are knowledge systems that compile historical mathematical data according to certain logical structure and learning requirements, and inevitably abandon the actual background, knowledge background, evolution process and various factors that lead to their evolution of many mathematical concepts and methods.

Therefore, it is difficult to obtain the original appearance and panorama of mathematics only by studying mathematics textbooks, while ignoring those mathematical materials and methods that have been eliminated by history but may be useful to real science, and the best way to make up for this deficiency is to study the history of mathematics.

Research significance

The history of mathematics belongs to both the field of historiography and the field of mathematical science, so the study of the history of mathematics should follow the laws of both historiography and mathematical science.

According to this feature, mathematical analysis can be used as a special auxiliary means in the study of mathematical history. In the absence or lack of historical data, we can analyze the contents and methods of ancient mathematics from the height of modern mathematics, so as to trace the source, summarize the theory and put forward historical hypothesis. Mathematical analysis is actually a connection between "ancient" and "present".