Mathematicians are people who have a deep understanding of mathematics and apply what they have learned to their work (especially to solve mathematical problems). Mathematicians focus on numbers, data, sets, structures, spaces and changes.

Mathematicians in Ming dynasty

Xu Guangqi

Xu Guangqi devoted his life to the study of mathematics, astronomy, calendar, water conservancy and other aspects, and wrote a lot, especially agronomy, and translated books such as Geometry Elements, Taixi Water Law, and Encyclopedia of Agricultural Administration. At the same time, he is also a pioneer in communicating Chinese and western cultures. It has made important contributions to the cultural exchange between China and the West in the17th century.

Cheng Dawei

Cheng Dawei was born in Xiuning County, Anhui Province (now Huangshan City). As a mathematician, he is different from those "Confucian scholars with name and reason". He attaches great importance to practical work and the application of mathematics. His "unity of arithmetic" can be "popular all over the world" and make "a person who holds a plan in the sea should also raise a series at home", which is inseparable from its practicality.

Wang Wensu

Wang Wensu, whose real name is Shang Bin, was born in Fenzhou (now Fenyang), Shanxi Province, about 1465. Born in a family of small and medium-sized businessmen, Wang Wensu was smart since childhood and dabbled in classics and history. During the years when a hundred schools of thought contend, he stayed in Zhili (now Hebei) with his father Wang Lin to calm Raoyang down and do business. Because of the need of business, he practiced abacus calculation, especially arithmetic, since he was a child. Wang Wensu painstakingly studied the arithmetic books of Yang Hui in the Song Dynasty, Du Fu and Xia in the Ming Dynasty, and combined with his own experience, he wrote them in 15 13 (eight years), with 30 volumes.

At that time, a man named Du Jin in Wuqing, Hebei Province, also liked mathematics and met Wang Wensu at Qinghe Hotel to discuss it. Wang Wensu invited Du Jin to read ten math books that were corrected on weekdays. Du Jin praised it even more after reading it. He thinks that the algorithms of Yang Hui in Song Dynasty, Du in Jinling, Xia in Jiangning and Jin Laipeng in Jintai are all unreasonable. They are all good, but they are all proved by coincidence. They are not flexible enough and cannot be changed, so that it is difficult for future generations to learn. Only Wang Wensu broke the speech with the skill of understanding the mysterious changes, which made people easy to learn and understand.