Chang Tshang (ca 200-142 BC) China

Chinese mathematicians excelled for thousands of years, and were first to discover various algebraic and geometric principles. There is some evidence that Chinese writings influenced India and the Islamic Empire, and thus, indirectly, Europe. Although there were great Chinese mathematicians a thousand years before the Han Dynasty, and innovations continued for centuries after Han, the textbook Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art has special importance. Nine Chapters (known in Chinese as Jiu Zhang Suan Shu or Chiu Chang Suan Shu) was apparently written during the early Han Dynasty (about 165 BC) by Chang Tshang (also spelled Zhang Cang). Many of the mathematical concepts of the early Greeks were discovered independently in early China. Chang's book gives methods of arithmetic (including cube roots) and algebra, uses the decimal system (though zero was represented as just a space, rather than a discrete symbol), proves the Pythagorean Theorem, and includes a clever geometric proof that the perimeter of a right triangle times the radius of its inscribing circle equals the area of its circumscribing rectangle. (Some of this may have been added after the time of Chang; some additions attributed to Liu Hui are mentioned in his mini-bio; other famous contributers are Jing Fang and Zhang Heng.) Nine Chapters was probably based on earlier books, lost during the great book burning of 212 BC, and Chang himself may have been a lord who commissioned others to prepare the book. Moreover, important revisions and commentaries were added after Chang, notably by Liu Hui (ca 220-280). Although Liu Hui mentions Chang's skill, we cannot be sure that Chang had the mathematical genius to qualify for this list, but he would still be a strong candidate due to the book's immense historical importance: It was the dominant Chinese mathematical text for centuries, and had great influence throughout the Far East. After Chang, Chinese mathematics continued to flourish, discovering trigonometry, matrix methods, the Binomial Theorem, etc. Some of the teachings made their way to India, and from there to the Islamic world and Europe. There is some evidence that the Hindus borrowed the decimal system itself from books like Nine Chapters. No one person can be credited with the invention of the decimal system, but key roles were played by early Chinese (Chang Tshang and Liu Hui), Brahmagupta (and earlier Hindus including Aryabhatta), and Leonardo Fibonacci. (After Fibonacci, Europe still did not embrace the decimal system until the works of Vieta, Stevin, and Napier.)