Zhu shijie biography of martin
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Combinatorics
SectionBiographies
SubsectionB.2.1Abraham ibn Ezra (c. 1093—1167)
Abraham ibn Ezra was an 11th-century Jewish scholar whose commentaries on the bible have been highly influential, and who disseminated Arabic scholarly knowledge into Jewish communities. He was born in Tudela, in what is now the Spanish province of Navarre. In the Middle ages, the town of Tudela had one of the oldest and most important Jewish communities in that region. Abraham moved to Córdoba as a young man and spent about half of his adult life there. In the final 27 years of his life he travelled extensively (going as far as Baghdad), after fleeing from the attacks on hitherto tolerant Moorish Iberia by the fanatic Almohads around 1140. He seems to have made his living largely as a poet and author.
Abraham married and had five children, four of whom are believed to have died young. His youngest son Isaac, an influential poet, converted to Islam in 1140; this event was deeply troubling to Abra
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(circa 1249 – 1314)
Regarding intellectualism, Zhu Shijie was discerning, thorough and versatile. He is without question one of the greatest mathematicians to come out of China. His exploits on Multivariate Polynomials remain till this day, a glowing firework. The same could be said about his methods of solving Linear Equations: by reducing their matrix coefficients. For two decades, Zhu traveled far and wide across China (including its adjoining territories). In the process he mentored and tutored many students, who in turn, helped to advance Chinese mathematics. His famous books: Suanxue Qimeng (which is An Introduction to Mathematical Studies, published around 1299 for beginners), and the Siyuan Yujian (whose alternative name is The True Reflections of the Four Unknowns, published in 1303 for advanced learners), refined and extended the scope of the centuries-long acclaimed Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art. Both publications became so popular that China’s
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Biography
Li Shanlan's name is often written as Li Shan-lan. He was the greatest Chinese mathematician of the 19th century. He was born into a fairly important, highly educated, family from the Zhejiang province who employed a leading philologist, Chen Huan, to educate their children in the classics. Li had a brother, Li Xinmei who also became a fine mathematician.There are two slightly different versions of how Li first came upon mathematics. One suggests that when he was eight years old he found a copy of the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art in the library of a private school. He studied it on his own and mastered it without difficulty. The second utgåva suggests that when Li was ten years old he studied the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art beneath his family tutor. It does seem certain then that he in love with mathematics through a study of the Nine Chapters.
In 1825, when he was fourteen years old, Li studied the first six books of Euclid's Elements which