Emperor Kangxi was an ambitious and studious monarch. He studied astronomy, mathematics, geography and Latin under the guidance of the Belgian missionary Ferdinand Verbiste. Although Emperor Kangxi was brilliant, it was not easy to listen to foreign teachers.
Because Ferdinand ferdinand verbiest and others have limited knowledge of Chinese and Manchu, they can barely cope with daily conversations, but they are not enough to express their rigorous and profound scientific knowledge.
At that time, most of the textbooks were in foreign languages, and even the Chinese version could not pass. In this way, there is bound to be a lot of energy spent on language communication in learning, and the progress is not fast.
But Kangxi studied hard and was patient. If you don't understand it at first time, please ask the teacher to say it again until you really understand it. When ferdinand verbiest was talking about equations, his sentences were long and his pronunciation was unclear. Kangxi's mind is often very chaotic.
How can I get the teacher to speak well? After thinking for a while, a wonderful method suddenly appeared. He suggested to Ferdinand ferdinand verbiest that the unknown should be translated into "yuan" and the highest number into "times" (finite integer equation), so that the values of the unknown on the left and right sides of the equation can be translated into "roots" or "solutions" ... Ferdinand ferdinand verbiest carefully wrote it down with a pen, and then replaced his original complicated words with these newly created terms: ".
Ferdinand ferdinand verbiest stared at Kangxi in disbelief, froze for a while, and suddenly embraced Kangxi according to the most cordial etiquette in the West: "I have been studying and teaching for decades, and I have never seen anyone who is willing to think like you!" These mathematical terms created by Kangxi are scientific and concise, very easy to understand and remember, so they continue to this day.
Emperor Kangxi, China Entertainment, was a famous monarch in history. There are many monographs on literature and history of Kanggan Shengshi, and the image of Kangxi created by TV series is a household name. However, few people know that Kangxi is very fond of mathematical research besides literature and martial arts!
Incredibly, the "roots", "yuan" and "times" in mathematical equations were all named by Emperor Kangxi, and he even wrote a unique mathematical monograph.
According to textual research, western arithmetic was introduced to China in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, and Kangxi was the king of this period. After Chen Houyao's Shu Shu, there was an encyclopedia of mathematics, Essentials of Mathematics, which was circulated in the mathematics field in Qing Dynasty. Although the two works have not been published for a long time, they are different in mathematical ideas and methods. Chen Houyao's Shu Shu often uses the intermediate calculation method to solve problems. For example, Kangxi's "Pythagorean method" is a pure intermediate calculation method; However, the essence of mathematics mostly adopts western calculation methods. In this book, Pythagoras' solution became the geometric solution in the foreign Elements of Geometry. This shows that in the interval between the two books, the mathematical research at that time had begun to accept the style and system of western computing, and integrated China computing with western computing.
In the newly exposed mathematical monograph of Kangxi, in addition to discussing how to solve the related problems of right triangle, the unique viewpoint of "Pythagoras by product" was put forward. Kangxi therefore became the only emperor in the history of China who put forward his own solutions to mathematical problems.
He also talked about the correspondence between Kangxi and Leibniz, the greatest mathematician at that time, which was a model of cultural exchange between the East and the West in modern times. Moreover, Leibniz presented a calculator model to Kangxi and applied for China citizenship. Of course, we can't agree to his request so easily, but this hidden secret history provides evidence for Emperor Kangxi's position in the history of mathematics.