1607, a year of (some) significance: Translation of the first European text in mathematics - Elements - into Chinese

Abstract

The Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci and the Chinese scholar-official XU Guang-qi of the Ming Dynasty collaborated to produce a translation of the first six books of Elements (more precisely, the fifteenbook-version Euclidis Elementorum Libri XV compiled by Christopher Clavius in the latter part of the fifteenth century) in Chinese in 1607, with the title Ji He Yuan Ben (Source of Quantity). This paper attempts to look at the historical context that made Elements the first European text in mathematics to be translated in China, and how the translated text was received at the time as well as what influence the translated text exerted in various domains in subsequent years, if any, up to the first part of the 20th century. This first European text in mathematics transmitted into China led the way of the first wave of transmission of European science into China, while a second wave and a third wave followed in the Qing Dynasty, but each in a rather different historical context. Besides comparing the styles and emphases of mathematical pursuit in the eastern and the western traditions the paper looks at the issue embedded in a wider intellectual and cultural context.