Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries Japan was totally isolated from the West by imperial decree. During that time, a unique brand of homegrown mathematics flourished, one that was completely uninfluenced by developments in Western mathematics. People from all walks of life--samurai, farmers, and merchants--inscribed a wide variety of geometry problems on wooden tablets called sangaku and hung them in Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines throughout Japan. Sacred Mathematics is the first book published in the West to fully examine this tantalizing--and incredibly beautiful--mathematical tradition. Fukagawa Hidetoshi and Tony Rothman present for the first time in English excerpts from the travel diary of a nineteenth-century Japanese mathematician, Yamaguchi Kanzan, who journeyed on foot throughout Japan to collect temple geometry problems. The authors set this fascinating travel narrative--and almost everything else that is known about temple geometry--within the broader cultural and historical context of the period. They explain the sacred and devotional aspects of sangaku, and reveal how Japanese folk mathematicians discovered many well-known theorems independently of mathematicians in the West--and in some cases much earlier. The book is generously illustrated with photographs of the tablets and stunning artwork of the period. Then there are the geometry problems themselves, nearly two hundred of them, fully illustrated and ranging from the utterly simple to the virtually impossible. Solutions for most are provided. A unique book in every respect, Sacred Mathematics demonstrates how mathematical thinking can vary by culture yet transcend cultural and geographic boundaries.

Seki was a Japanese mathematician in the seventeenth century known for his outstanding achievements, including the elimination theory of systems of algebraic equations, which preceded the works of Étienne Bézout and Leonhard Euler by 80 years. Seki was a contemporary of Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, although there was apparently no direct interaction between them. The Mathematical Society of Japan and the History of Mathematics Society of Japan hosted the International Conference on History of Mathematics in Commemoration of the 300th Posthumous Anniversary of Seki in 2008. This book is the official record of the conference and includes supplements of collated texts of Seki's original writings with notes in English on these texts. Hikosaburo Komatsu (Professor emeritus, The University of Tokyo), one of the editors, is known for partial differential equations and hyperfunction theory, and for his study on the history of Japanese mathematics. He served as the President of the International Congress of Mathematicians Kyoto 1990.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

The book presents the main features of the Wasan tradition, which is the indigenous mathematics that developed in Japan during the Edo period. (1600-1868). It begins with a description of the first mathematical textbooks published in the 17th century, then shifts to the work of the two leading mathematicians of this tradition, Seki Takakazu and Takebe Katahiro. The book provides substantial information on the historical and intellectual context, the role played by the Chinese mathematical treatises introduced at the late 16th century, and an analysis of Seki’s and Takebe’s contribution to the development of algebra and calculus in Japan.

In 1918, Emmy Noether, in her paper Invariante Variationsprobleme, proved two theorems (and their converses) on variational problems that went on to revolutionise theoretical physics. 100 years later, the mathematics of Noether's theorems continues to be generalised, and the physical applications of her results continue to diversify. This centenary volume brings together world-leading historians, philosophers, physicists, and mathematicians in order to clarify the historical context of this work, its foundational and philosophical consequences, and its myriad physical applications. Suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students and professional researchers, this is a go-to resource for those wishing to understand Noether's work on variational problems and the profound applications which it finds in contemporary physics.

In Before It's Too Late: A Report to the Nation from the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century (2000) in the US, the authors quote from James Stigler's conclusions from various videotape research studies of mathematics teaching: “The key to long-term improvement [in teaching] is to figure out how to generate, accumulate, and share professional knowledge”. Japanese Lesson Study has proved to be one successful means.This book supports the growing movement of lesson study to improve the quality of mathematics education from the original viewpoints of Japanese educators who have been engaging in lesson study in mathematics for professional development and curriculum implementation. This book also illustrates several projects related to lesson study in other countries.