Chinese civilization has made brilliant achievements in all aspects in the past 5000 years, and mathematics is no exception. Mathematicians in ancient China put forward some very important theorems and formulas, some of which were even thousands of years earlier than those in Europe, such as the surplus theorem, which came from Sun Tzu's Calculations (written in the 4th and 5th centuries). In Europe, Gauss didn't deduce the remainder theorem until19th century, but he read the grandson's calculations brought back by missionaries.

There is also the idea of the principle of ancestor (idempotent product theorem), which was not discovered by the Italian mathematician cavalieri until the West17th century, but unfortunately it was not really proved by Zuxuan. Then Zu Chongzhi used pi to calculate the seven digits after the decimal point, hundreds of years earlier than Europeans.

However, mathematics is a systematic basic science, which consists of many aspects of knowledge. Generally speaking, the level of mathematics in ancient China has never been at the leading level in the world.

Liu Hui's Nine Chapters Arithmetic Notes and Calculation on the Island (about 225 -295) can represent the highest level of ancient mathematics in China. Liu Hui's Nine Arithmetic Notes, written in the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, put forward solutions to 246 problems, such as simultaneous equations, four fractional operations, positive and negative operations, and calculation of the volume area of geometric figures.

However, it is undeniable that the ancient Greeks were the founders of mathematics. They use logical proof and deduction, emphasize quantification and systematization, and make mathematics a rigorous, systematic and logical subject. Until now, most of the mathematical methods used by people came from ancient Greece.

When it comes to mathematics in ancient Greece, there is one person who can't get around. He was Euclid (325 BC-265 BC) and wrote Elements of Geometry, which laid a strict foundation for later mathematics. This book has been used as a standard textbook for mathematics for more than 2000 years. Today, almost all the contents about geometry in primary and junior high school mathematics textbooks all over the world come from geometric elements.

Diophantine (A.D. 200-284) wrote a series of arithmetic that was almost contemporary with Liu Hui, and was called "the father of algebra". He put forward some methods and principles of modern algebra.

Of course, ancient Greek mathematics could not be separated from Archimedes, and modern calculus was developed on the basis of his research results. Archimedean spiral was named after him, and some people even listed Archimedes as the greatest mathematician of all time, as well as Newton and Gauss.

After Liu Hui, mathematics in Song and Yuan Dynasties also made some progress, but it also focused on a few theorems and formulas, rather than making a systematic breakthrough. After the Renaissance in Europe, this situation further widened the level of mathematics with the West, and the indirect effect was that it was far behind Europe in science and technology.

Since the Westernization Movement, modern mathematics has been understood by some domestic scholars, and it is known that it is far from the world level in mathematics. However, with the efforts of mathematicians of the older generation such as Chen Jingrun, China, Feng Kang and Wu Wenjun, China's mathematics level has gradually caught up with the world level.