Seki Takakazu

In this Japanese name, the surname is Seki.
Seki Takakazu
Ink painting of Seki Takakazu, from the Japan Academy archives in Tokyo.
Born1642(?)
Edo or Fujioka, Japan
DiedDecember 5, 1708 (Gregorian calendar)
Japan
NationalityJapanese
Other namesSeki Kōwa
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics

Seki Takakazu (関 孝和, c. March 1642 – December 5, 1708),[1] also known as Seki Kōwa (関 孝和),[2] was a Japanese mathematician and author of the Edo period.[3]

Seki laid foundations for the subsequent development of Japanese mathematics, known as wasan.[2] He has been described as "Japan's Newton".[4]

He created a new algebraic notation system and, motivated by astronomical computations, did work on infinitesimal calculus and Diophantine equations. Although he was a contemporary of German polymath mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz and British polymath physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton, Seki's work was independent. His successors later developed a school dominant in Japanese mathematics until the end of the Edo period.

While it is not clear how much of the achievements of wasan are Seki's, since many of them appear only in writings of his pupils, some of the results parallel or anticipate those discovered in Europe.[5] For example, he is credited with the discovery of Bernoulli numbers.[6] The resultant and determinant (the first in 1683, the complete version no later than 1710) are attributed to him.

Seki also calculated the value of pi correct to the 10th decimal place, having used what is now called the Aitken's delta-squared process, rediscovered later by Alexander Aitken.

Seki was influenced by Japanese mathematics books such as the Jinkōki.[7]

  1. ^ Selin, Helaine. (1997). Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, p. 890
  2. ^ a b Selin, p. 641., p. 641, at Google Books
  3. ^ Smith, David. (1914) A History of Japanese Mathematics, pp. 91-127. , p. 91, at Google Books
  4. ^ Restivo, Sal P. (1992). Mathematics in Society and History: Sociological Inquiries,, p. 56, at Google Books
  5. ^ Smith, pp. 128-142. , p. 128, at Google Books
  6. ^ Poole, David. (2005). Linear algebra: a Modern Introduction, p. 279. , p. 279, at Google Books; Selin, p. 891.
  7. ^ 鳴海風「和算」『東京人』第321号、都市出版、52-56頁、2013年2月3日。