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Chapter 3

The Meta-rules between Natural Language and History of Mathematics

3.1 The Algebra between the History and the Didactics, a Variety of Perspectives
3.1 The Algebra between the History a nd t he Didactics, a Variety of Perspectives

Before going on to outline teaching, we need a short historicalepistemological process that can draw criticism, quite basic, the key stages of the long journey and suffered from the trend on Algebra as the Arithmetic. We believe the combination of arithmetic-algebra as significant for the relationship between mathematical thinking. Considerations should be made parallel to the geometric area in which we mention in the discussion of the chapter but that remains an issue open to possible future theoretical and experimental investigations. This chapter is not only an important key to try to understand what can be the basis of epistemological obstacles related to this topic (Spagnolo, 1996, 2006) but, in light of this, attempts to "clarify" those that may arise as potential patterns of reasoning of the students involved (both Italian and Chinese) in situations of a pre-algebra and algebra. In this sense, the study of representations, preliminary epistemological and historical-epistemological, it is essential to confront the experimental contingencies, as described in Chapter 5. The presentation of the historical context related to the evolution of disciplinary and cultural offers, in our opinion, the possibility of an organic ap-deep in a particular concept and can lead emissions fundamental reflection on the genesis of the cognitive mental representation (Bagni, D'Amore, 2005). In our opinion, the history of mathematics should be "read" in this sense as an expression of culture in the process. As already widely debated in the literature, this will be more thorough analysis, more "easy" you can argue the situation analyzed in the context of teaching / learning, and therefore chose to use the general procedure in similar conditions (Spagnolo, 1998; Spagnolo et alii, 2009). What do we mean when we talk about the relationship between mathematics and culture? It should be pointed out immediately that what we want is not only the presentation of specific techniques through which certain groups of people (students but also mathematicians in history) have dealt with the mathematical knowledge, but also a critical discussion of possible correlations of these with the cultural context where they are and have been included and in which mathematical knowledge and then is processed and treated and that, in all likelihood, it was sent. This is precisely the approach that will guide us in the next chapter for the analysis of experimental results. The theoretical framework in which we are to get more and more is that socio-cultural context in which knowledge is related to activities in which players
F. Spagnolo and B. Di Paola (Eds.): European and Chinese Cognitive Styles, SCI 277, pp. 4789. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010 springerlink.com

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3 The Meta-rules between Natural Language and History of Mathematics

undertake (Radford, 1997, 2003a, 2003b) and this must be considered in connection with cultural institutions of context from time to time considered. As pointed out by Radford, configuration and content knowledge of mathematics is intimately and properly defined by the culture in which it develops (Radford, 1997, p. 32). Culture in this sense is much more than an obstacle for knowledge1, this is closely rooted in its cultural place. Knowledge is a product of a specific type of human thinking and, as suggested by Wartofsky (1979) and Ilyenkov (1977), the thinking is a social practice, "a form of reflection on the world according to conceptual categories ethical, aesthetic, and other cultural categories" (D'Amore, Radford, Bagni, 2006, p.5). The thought of greek classical period, as previously expressed in the first chapter, it was conformed by eleatica distinction between being and non-being as part of a bivalent. This pattern of thought supported the Greek episteme and between its various manifestations including that of mathematical thought. The episteme of China, as discussed, albeit briefly in Chapter I, was complied from different conceptual categories such as, inter alia, directed Taoist yn-yng. In this vision, to Radford, the connection Mathematics-culture cannot be regarded as a pure coincidence, there is a deep connection between the two terms of the binomial: the mathematical forms are cultural reflection of the world, cultural forms to give meaning to it. " Therefore, in this sense, the cultural diversity of interpretations and suggestions can be a profound richness that is unfortunately all too often its collapse in the name of a universality that does not exist in reality and not to be found as a fact of culture. It is reductive and false. (D'Amore, Radford, Bagni, 2006, p.5). In D'Amore (2005) in this respect one speaks of Babel semiotics of class and cultural relativity to the learning of mathematics. The basic idea is not to conceive of culture as a shirt of force within which to read and interpret all the processes of teaching / learning, but to rethink the possibility that the cultures have a dimension of reinforcement. Different cultures that transmit values and attitudes different shareable class in society and able to be accepted by the students in a vision of equality (Sfard-Prusak, 2005). Another problem regards the deviance compared to a certain well-established practice teaching (cultural). As can be seen, albeit in part by the Chinese teacher, reported in the previous chapter, this is a sensitive issue in education, especially now that classes are increasingly multicultural. It is a problem that involves several players in parallel: the student placed in class, the teacher as mediator of knowledge and one who is led to question whether a single practice is deviant or not with the expectations, the family the student as an outside the micro-class society but highly influential on it etc.

According to the vision of Radford epistemic nature of culture, in agreement with the idea of "milieu" (as is seen in the Theory of Situations Brousseau) is often conceived as something that is opposed to the individual.

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The situation that presents itself to our eyes may then schematized thus:

Fig. 1. "Subjects" active in multicultural learning situations

The binomial Mathematics-culture is probably very complex and contains within it different readings related to each other. This work, through experimental investigation, tends to develop, albeit in a first approximation, several components, with a strong emphasis on what may be the differences and similarities in respect of certain specific elements related to learning of mathematics and particularly of algebra. For the analysis of "differences" seek, Bernhard (1995) distinguishes four key moments highlighted in the past: the difference as deficit; difference as disadvantage / deprivation, no difference as a difference of substance, as a fundamental difference heterogeneity. If the first three correspond roughly to the dominant perspective in the history of mathematics in different eras, in the smooth transition and universality of Western standards and consideration of underdevelopment of the practices of other cultures, and the fourth describes or suggests the future development of the problem with an ever greater willingness to understand diversity as a fundamental heterogeneity in the knowledge game. History of Mathematics in an ethnomathematics may be this sense of great utility: it can provide important tips on how to understand diversity. Of particular interest is in this sense, the mathematical context in which we decided to move the algebra, complex milieu and always at the center of a heated debate on the historical development. Aware of the possible parallel between cognitive development and historical evolution (Piaget & Garcia, 1983), the theoretical framework in which we are moving us to consider the role of history in relation to different cultures and thus provide a valuable opportunity for a critical reading of cultural contexts of the past and, even better, this (Vygotsky, 1990).

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3 The Meta-rules between Natural Language and History of Mathematics

"Read" and "interpret" the history of algebraic thinking in education is a key as difficult as fascinating. Biunivocal establish a history-teaching is, in fact, a complex operation that requires the identification of a domain of validity and applicability of the report in reference to the mathematical content, the subject of investigation, mainly to the phenomenon of teaching / learning is investigated experimentally and thereby to regulate didactic transposition (Chevallard, 1985). Referring to our research work, the history of mathematics and in particular the evolution of algebra may be a "slow observer" interesting. Already by the end of 1800, it was thought that the mathematics education of the children could benefit from a comparison with the development of mathematical thinking in centuries, and that this comparison could be a source of inspiration for teachers and researchers (Dematt-Furinghetti, 2006). "The genesis of knowledge the individual must follow the same course of the genesis of knowledge of the breed ... it would seem that knowledge of the history of science should be an effective remedy in teaching this science" (Cajori, 1896) Several experimental studies (Harper, 1987; Sfard, 1992; Sierpinski, 1994, Spagnolo, 2006) also seem to confirm as some of the difficulties encountered by students in the acquisition of mathematical concepts and procedures can be identified as barriers experienced in the history of the discipline. In this context, a retrospective analysis of the historical development of the Algebra shows a long and difficult path of growth of this discipline, marked by the debates rage between mathematics cultures of different peoples. A careful reading of the historical picture shows off a slow and difficult than the geometry and difficult "relationship" with the arithmetic, evidenced by the constant effort to transition from computational procedures to "mathematical objects". Wanting to draw a picture of the past of the algebra the development and thus of the symbolic system used to express the concepts of this discipline in order to briefly highlight the most important steps of the algebraic thinking, a first reference theory can certainly be one GH Nesselmann and the three stages he identified and distinguished history in algebra: - Phase rhetoric (Diofanto earlier in Alexandria, 250 AD): an Algebra word, all words, not symbols. - Phase syncopated (Diofanto by the end of the sixteenth century): the abbreviations are introduced for the unknown but the calculations are performed in all natural language. - Phase symbolic (introduced by Vite, 1540-1603): the letters are used for all quantities, uncertainties or not, and "exploits" the Algebra not only to discover the value of the unknown, as in the second stage, but also to test the rules that bind the various quantities and to express those solutions. While, however, the classification of the historian said there appeared to be of particular interest for the task envisaged, on the other hand, it appears, as pointed out by more recent studies, not exhaustive. Locate it in history, in a certain, exact, the separate and distinct phases that mark the development of algebraic thinking, it seems almost impossible. Breaking, for example, between the rhetoric Algebra and syncopated or between this and the last token is not clear, well defined. One certainly has not

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supplanted the other of a sudden, the transition was slow and gradual (Gheverghese J., 2003, Spagnolo, 1995; Malisani, 2001, Spagnolo, Malisani, 2008). The proof is the analysis of the parallel development of mathematical knowledge, for example, the equations and systems of equations of first degree2 of some ancient civilizations, such as Babylonian, Greek, Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, Arab and European, and the study of some problems existing in the different books written at different times in history and came down to us through the work of several scholars. As quoted in J. Gheverghese (2000) and the volume of the Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani on the History of Science, China, India, Americas (Treccani, Vol II, 2001), in large part, the general historical works on the reserve Mathematics Greek and European tradition, the more attention often ignoring other cultural traditions such as the Mathematics Arabic, Indian, Chinese or even American pre-Columbian. Not lacking in any interesting work on Arab science and its peculiarities in this respect to a possible international context. Examples include the work of Ambrosetti (2008), Djebbar (2001), R. Rashed (2004) and Nasr (1977), works that recognize the Islamic scientific culture is direct and not mediated through the function between the Greek culture and the medieval and Renaissance Europe. Same considerations should be made for the study of mathematical traditions that have evolved in geographic areas affected by the Chinese Mathematics, like Korea, Japan, Mongolia, Tibet and Vietnam (Martzloff, 1997, pp. 105-110, Needham, 1985 Treccani, Vol II, 2001). The task that we intend to develop in this chapter certainly does not want to be a comprehensive work from a historicalepistemological point of view. The generalizations that are discussed considering the different mathematical taken into consideration, be they Greek, Babylonian, Arabic, Chinese, etc. Certainly leave some gray areas and geographical content, and vice versa, in some cases, perhaps delineate contours too well defined at not detrimental to the separation of ideas. Overall our objective is to propose an educational overview of some aspects considered fundamental to algebra and algebraic thinking, such as the study of equations and their resolution in the history of mathematics. Particularly important in this respect are the considerations contained in the chapter on the concept of variable and unknown in last parameter, load-bearing elements, as stated, to the algebraic thinking and keys to the next in the forms of reasoning brought to light by the students in experimentally 'approach to the algebraic context. During the section and then look at some examples from the history of the discipline (with specific reference to certain periods and certain geographic areas) trying to show how often certain types of processing techniques and concepts have been made possible thanks to a very specific social situation and culture that has encouraged and even led to the contemporary approach to the issues at stake on the part of scholars from different geographical areas. In this light, then the mathematical knowledge should not be considered as the result of a linear evolutionary process started in ancient Greece, it seems more appropriate to describe it as the result of fragile layers of different conceptual
2

Items of interest for analysis of algebraic thinking and then focus privileged, as mentioned, for analyzing historical epistemological of algebra. The mathematical content is central to one of the experiments discussed in this work.

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complex and constantly evolving in the most disparate cultural traditions. The algebraic development of the idea that you are trying to revive what was then a puzzle, a complex mosaic that we will investigate only in some respects like the study of equations and their solutions methods. In the discussion of the chapter, we have preferred to give more space to the classical Chinese mathematics as a system of reference external to our own cultural context and therefore more difficult to monitor and study, but for this very useful to reflect internal.

3.1.1 The Algebraic Tradition in Antiquity: An Overview


From the documents in our possession, we can say that Algebra was born in the West with the ancient Babylonian Mathematics (Hyrup, 2002, 2007, Maracchia, 2001) and was constituted in a manner independent of the geometry and arithmetic, with Vite and Bombelli. The knowledge of Babylonian mathematics derives chiefly from the study of clay tablets and is based mainly on the work of Otto Neugebauer and Hyrup (Hyrup, 1982, 2002, 2007 and Neugebauer, 1974) that are considered the leading experts in the field. The Babylonian Algebra is generally un'Algebra rhetoric, verbal, even if, according to latest studies, noting for example the tablet AO8862 (1800/1600 BC), unanimously considered one of the oldest, and analysis of the writing given by the scribe, is can be noted in this people a first-level algebra that follows, in formulas, the formula solution of the equations of second degree (Neugebauer, 1935). The difficulty of classifying the methods determined Babylonians and then identify them as cases of algebraic geometry rather than intuitive, set out and solved only verbally, you can still say that whatever the type of solution, there is an algebraic substrate with which it was synthesized, how to ask the question seems kind of algebraic. This stems from the fact that on the one hand, it shows the difficulty of determining one or more unknown values that must verify certain conditions to obtain a given result, in many other cases, the nature of the resolution follows in several boards, certain transactions now standard that often do not reproduce every time the geometric figure from which descend, and then mark a first step from an algebraic to a geometric (Table BM 345689; tav. BM 13901, es.12; tav. BM 80209). It is difficult, in fact, to think that before proceedings are substantially similar, has not gained a mechanistic and hence a certain "formula" for a resolution to be applied to known values to those requested. The Babylonian nell'Algebra symbolic notation was as follows:
Table 1. Symbolic notation in Babylonian Algebra
Modern symbol x y x2 z xy xyz Geometric term length width square height area volume Size (Magnitude??) Babylonian ush sag lagab sukud asha sahar

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Even the Egyptians, like the Babylonians, as set out and resolved the questions in a verbal or explaining why that particular method used for conducting or why it worked in that context (Kline, 1972, Italian Edition, p.25). Egyptian mathematics is in the form of a set of simple rules are not shown, corresponding to problems arising in the daily life of people. The Algebra and their arithmetic appear, therefore, very limited3. One of the most important writings of Mathematics Egyptian culture is certainly of the Rhind papyrus (transcribed to 1650 BC) preserved in the British Museum, the papyrus is that various problems of daily life, such as the distribution of food. Problems that can be linked to resolution of equations of First degree. The collection of the problems presented in the papyrus is not easy, the unknown factor is designated by the word hau which means heap, addition and subtraction are indicated by the legs of a man who walks or to the symbol of the number which must operate, or move away from this, etc. In the study of issues related to algebraic language and therefore the analysis of dual Algebra-Arithmetic relatively to the phase transition between the two at the time of openness from a semiotic field as significant as the arithmetic algebraic (by the simple numerical resolution to the possibility to define a class of problems related to each other), we felt it was of particular interest for our work, the problem 24 of the papyrus in which he asked what was the value of the pile if the bunch and a seventh the pile are equal to 19. He wondered, therefore, to determine the unknown quantity in the equation of First degree(written under the modern notation): x + 1 x = 19 7 The method of resolution, called rule of false position of Ahmes was based reference to an unknown value probably false and execute on this value transactions listed to the left of the sign of equality, then comparing the result of this operation with the desired result and the board with the proportions to find the correct answer. This can only be defined as a method of arithmetic resolution. Through it, in fact the solution of an equation was sought for successive approximations and does not refer to any abstraction. One can now do is that the papyrus of Ahmes has been written in the style of a textbook for students of the period and that therefore, although showing the general rules for solving various types of mathematical problems arithmetic, not the present especially in general. According to this view, the papyrus is a rather advanced arithmetic. Not all agree with this vision. It is generally accepted that the Egyptians did not have a deductive structure based on axioms that establish the soundness of their rules. I do not feel the need, given the convenience, the practicality for which mathematics was used, the social context of reference could not be challenging in this regard. More speech is related to the systematization of Mathematics in history as Euclid for Western culture and the Nine Chapters for the Chinese. Presumably, there are reasons for socio-economic, such as having to teach more people to know the same. At this point, it is inevitable that we have to reorganize the knowledge in an organic body. This has happened in more recent eras (late 1800) in the
3

For a thorough discussion of traditional Egyptian mathematics: Giacardi, Roero, 1979.

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West with the crisis of the foundations coincides with the needs of a middle class that he was reorganizing the transmission of knowledge to wider social groups. The type of rule mentioned earlier, in the Middle Ages was called regula alchataim, word of eastern origin, or regula falsorum. The same techniques can be found in Mathematics Indian Chinese and Arabic for solving concrete problems mostly solvability of equations with a first degree unknown, and in some cases, systems of equations and linear equations of second degree (Guillemot, 1990). Dealing, in this chapter, the cultural diversity as an opportunity to learn Mathematics and the Mathematics wanting Chinese, it should be remembered over the method described above, but also that of double false position. The latter procedure algebraic consists of two specific values to a unknown, perform the necessary calculations to find the errors committed with the use of these particular values, and then apply the formula for linear interpolation. The method of double false position was brought to Europe by the Arabs and is found in the works of Al-Khuwarizmi (author who will discuss in more detail in this chapter) of the ninth century, the same rule is found in Chinese Mathematics in problem N.9 Chapter VII of the Jiu-zhang Suanshu under the name of excess and defect. The same algorithm is used, centuries later, from the Trattato dAlgibra (work of the XIV century) for the resolution of some systems of linear equations (Franci and Pancanti, 1988; Franci, 1999). In the historical-cultural puzzle that we are trying to achieve seems noteworthy in this regard the excellent computational performance that are found in ancient Chinese mathematics. Example is Chapter VIII of Jiuzhang Suanshu in which we found ways of solution of systems of equations up to five unknowns. As the Boyer, The Chinese were especially fond of patters; hence, it is not surprising that the first record (of ancient but unknown origin) of a magic square appeared there. [...] The concern for such patterns left the author of the Nine Chapters to solve the system of simultaneous linear equations [...] by performing column operations on the matrix [...] to reduce it to [...] The second form represented the equations 36z = 99, 5y + z = 24, and 3x + 2y + z = 39 from which the values of z, y, and x are successively found with ease. (Boyer, 1995, pp. 197) Solving linear systems highlights an interesting aspect in dealing with the relationship between mathematics-culture specifically for the Chinese culture, something that we will be more precise in the next paragraph and that it brings to the effect of techniques for calculating with numbers-chopsticks in Development of Chinese Mathematics. As Viola (2005), despite the promising debut,The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art holds the first known example of a matrix as a table coefficients of the system of three linear equations with three unknowns, not found this way of addressing simultaneous equations in other Chinese traditions, if not in modern mathematics. In an ethno-mathematics, so we are led to think that the method in question for solving linear systems is a logical consequence of the particular techniques used in calculating the sticks (to be considered in this vision as a cognitive4 artifact in the process) and that these, because of the strong
4

In a vygotskian perspective, an artifact is a mediator (Bartolini Bussi, 2002; Bartolini Bussi, Mariotti, Ferri, 2005; Vygotskij, 1974 and 1987).

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practical, subsequently inhibiting the development of an abstract Algebra which is reflected in other cultural contexts. An example can be found in Chapter VII of Jiuzhang Suanshu, called Ying put up (excess and defect), N.2 problem: "A group of people buy the same hens. If each person paid 9 wen, wen 11 remain after the purchase. If each person gave only 5 wen, there would be a shortfall of 16 wen. When you have people in the group and what is the total cost of the hens?" The problem is solved bringing this solution: order the two types of contributions made by members of the Group for the purchase of the hens in the first row. The excess and defect resulting are sorted in a row beneath the first, which contains the contributions of members. Multiply them diagonally with each other, plus the products and call the sum shih. Add up the excess and lack, and call the sum does. If a fraction appears in shih that makes you become their denominators equal. Divide shih for difference of the two contributions to obtain the total cost of the hens. I divide the difference between the contributions to give the number of people in the group. In modern algebraic terms, given spectively the excess and lack:

a and a1 the two contributions b and b1 re-

a a1 9 6 11 16 ; b b = 1

ab1 b

a1b 144 66 ab1 + a1b 210 = ; = b1 11 16 b + b1 27


3

a a1 aa + b b 27 fa 1 number of people in the group is: = = 9. = 3 a a1 a a1

ab + a1b 210 Consequently, the total cost of hens is: shih = 1 = = 70 ; the 1

The problem is algebraically expressed in terms of system of two equations in two unknowns for x number of people, and the cost: 9 x y = 11 . The method described above would seem to present a variant of 6 x y = 16 the method of Cramer (1750). Not found in any general formalizations for the solution of linear systems using the determinant. Other examples are found in Chapter VIII (Fangcheng) of the same text. Resume after these problems. Returning to the Trattato d'Algibra, to illustrate the method of double false position, for example, we can cite the problem 38 that, in modern symbolic language, can be presented as a system of four equations in four unknowns. The author, in fact agree with the method of double false position, by successive substitutions, consider a system of two equations in two unknowns such as:
7 y = 13 + 4 which resolves in five successive steps : 4 y = 2 x + 176

(Franci & Pancanti, 1988, pp. 145-150)

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1- Adopt the false position


x1 = 21 + 3 13

y1 = 40 and calculates the first equation

2- Replace these two values in the second equation by finding as a result the first member 160 and 218 + 6 the second member. Since the two members 13 should be equal to their difference is d1 = 58 + 6 . 13 3- Similarly by adopting the false position

y 2 = 80 , calculate x 2 = 42 +

10 ; 13

d 2 = (58 +

6 . ) 13

4- Is obtained then5:

6 6 6 6 y = 80(58 + ) + 40(58 + ) /(58 + + 58 + ) = 60 13 13 13 13


5- Substituting y = 60 in the first equation is x = 32 .

Also in Chapter VII of Jiuzhang Suanshu, the problem N.9, said: A tank capacity of 10 tou contains a certain quantity of rice. Of the grains are added (rice not glazed) to fill the tank. When the beans are glazed one discovers that the tank contains a total of 7 common tou of rice. Find the initial quantity of common rice in the tank.. Solution: If the initial quantity of rice in the tank is 2 tou missing sheng 26, if the initial quantity of rice is 3 tou, there are 2 more in sheng. Run 2 cross-multiply the excess tou sheng 2, and 3 between the lack tou 2 sheng and summed the two products for 10 tou. Divide the sum by the sum of excess and lack (ie 4) to get the answer: 2 and 5 tou sheng. supplies, even in natural language, the rule of double false position shown above:

x=

( 2) * (3) (2) * (2) = 10 = 2 1 tou 4 2 ( 2) (2)

Unlike the Babylonians and Egyptians, the Greeks did not want to scholars only "use" mathematics as a tool for calculation, but always tried to justify the rules used in algebraic calculations, it is precisely in this period that one finds the first demonstration. We cannot yet speak of Algebras axiomatisation, but it tends to greater awareness of the processes used (Kline, Italian Edition, 1972).
5

The formula refers to the process which allows to solve equations of type ax=b with x Q . d1 and d2 defined as the differences or errors obtained by considering how the unknown values of x1 and x2, can be translated into modern algebraic language as follows: a = ( d1 d 2 ) /( x1 x2 ) and b = ( x2 d1 x1d 2 ) /( x1 x2 ) . Since x=b/a is: x = ( x2 d1 x1d 2 ) /( d1 d 2 ) . It is assumed that 1 tou grain yield 6 sheng of rice, since 1 is equivalent to 10 tou sheng.

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Looking at the Greek writings we can see, perhaps because of their sociocultural context, a remarkable development of geometry, but not as the arithmetic and algebraic. In their algebraic equations, the unknowns are always geometric elements, such as segments, rectangles, squares, cubes... geometrical sizes often related to everyday contexts and concrete issues that were analyzed and resolved by means of geometric derivation. A label representative of this type of algebra is that of geometric algebra (term of HG Zeuthen in Van der Waerden, 1983).

3.1.2 The Elements of Euclid as a Canon of Reference for the Western Mathematical Tradition
Continuing in this brief historical overview of algebraic thinking in close connection with those that may be cultural elements of Eastern and Western thought, we cannot fail to take account of what constitutes Western culture to the work of reference, with regard to not only the structure of the work in itself but also to the philosophy that you can find "behind" the text, which refers, as mentioned in the previous chapter, a type of bivalent logic axiomatic deductive: the Elements of Euclid. The best part of the mathematicians of the classical period has come down to us through his writings of Euclid, in his most famous work: thirteen books in which they are many rules of calculation. Interesting, for example, in this context is the book II (in which the author justifies some fundamental results of modern algebra, using a language quite geometric), and in particular the proposition 6 which is geometrically solved a problem, which set out algebra is in the form of second-degree equation with unknown positive coefficients. To analyze specifically the methods of solution used by Euclid for the solution of the equations of second instance can then refer to the geometric problems presented in the Book VI to propositions 28 and 29 (Clavius, Euclid, 1574):
Proposition 28. On a line to construct a parallelogram equal to a given polygon, missing a parallelogram similar to a given parallelogram. It is appropriate for the given polygon is not greater than the polygon constructed on the middle of the line data, and similar to the missing polygon (Clavius, Euclid, 1574, pp. 218-219). Proposition 29. On a given straight line to construct a parallelogram equal to a given polygon, in excess of a parallelogram similar to another given. (Clavius, Euclid, 1574, pp. 220-221)

Concerning the first proposition, the wording given in the text representation has the equivalent of the geometric solution of the second degree: ax

b 2 x =S, a c

represents the straight line, S the area of the polygon as b and c are the sides of the parallelogram given. The phrase It is appropriate for the given polygon is not greater than the polygon constructed on the middle of the line data, and similar to

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the polygon missing requires that the restriction is necessary so that the roots are real in the equation: S

a 2c . 4b

As far as the equations of I degree and then to the method of resolution used by Euclid, an example may be the analysis of proposition 12 of Book VI of the Elements (Euclid, 1930, p. 107). Here are asked to find the fourth proportional to three segments ( AB : BC = AD : DE ). Considering as segments AB=a; BC=b; AD = 1 and DE = x expressed by the method allows to solve geometrically simple equations of First Instance of the type ax = b with a and b coefficients positive.

E D x

1 a A B b C

Fig. 2. Euclidean Construction of the fourth proportional

According to the thought Bourbaki, geometrical methods used heavily by the Greeks and then by Euclid in particular, have not been helpful in developing selfAlgebra because: [...] the progress towards the penalty must be supported in Euclid of paralysis, and some also have a back, in the development of algebraic calculations. The predominance of the geometry is blocking the investigation of autonomous algebraic notation, the elements that appear in the calculations should always be represented geometrically [...] (Bourbaki 1976, pp. 75). The Algebra, then, was not appropriate developments in ancient Greece if not the very late due to Diofanto of Alexandria (about 250 AD) and to Heron (100 AD) who began to treat the arithmetical and algebraic problems not relying the geometry and thus overcoming the design of geometric algebra. Elements of the language is impersonal and not effort or in the meta-language in philosophical discourse, the demonstration in Euclid does not use examples with specific numbers but draws general information applicable to infinite cases. This is particularly significant in relation to the text of the Chinese Jiuzhang Suanshu and its internal structure.

3.1.3 An Initial Comparison between the Elements of Euclid and the Jiuzhang Suanshu
The aspect mentioned in the previous paragraph is perhaps central to the comparison between the Euclids Elements as a canon of culture for the West and the Jiuzhang Suanshu for Chinese thought. As we shall see in more detail below, the very nature of Jiuzhang Suanshu is profoundly different in many aspects and thus

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transversely to define the specificity of a cultural development differently. Stimuli and different needs that have produced mathematical knowledge in different contexts and different historical eras. The essential elements that will highlight later in this process of comparison relate to the situations proposed in the text, highlighted in the proceedings for resolving the individual problems that refer to the application of algorithms for resolution, the type of text used in the presentation of the problems and proposed solutions. Elements, in our opinion, for an overview of the cultural specificity of the ancient Chinese mathematics. A final comparison is then proposed the epistemological value of the demonstration in Chinese thought. Value that will deepen as it is clearly uneven from greek, which is considered in a Euro-centrist, excellence in rigorous mathematical thinking.

3.1.4 One Possible Comparison between Diofanto and Babylonians


Returning to the historical stance, to better highlight the contribution of Diofanto to the development of Algebra and then thinking algebraically, it can be useful, in our opinion, a comparison of its problems with an equal of which you know a solution older, for example, the Babylonian and highlight the different approaches to solving the problems. The problem that you have chosen to analyze is the following: Find the dimensions of a rectangle of area 96 and the semi-perimeter is 20 (in a modern way: xy = 96, x + y = 20). The Babylonian method consists in acting on the data according to the numbers given by the scribe steps:
Table 2. Babylonian method for resolution of the question proposed 1 2 3 4 5 Divide by 2, the semi perimeter Raising to the square Remove the given area, 96, 100 Extract the square root 20:2=10 2 10 =100 100-96=4 2 The length is : 10+2=12; The width is : 10-2=8

What we see, by reading the steps, it is only the presence of a sequence of numerical operations. It is absent any notion of a calculation on an unknown quantity. In Diofanto, the problem of Babylonian (grade II) proposed previously stated in quite general terms: To find two numbers whose sum and whose numbers are the data (issue # 27 of Book I of the Arithmetica) and solved from the same numerical example was: Suppose that the sum of the numbers form 20 units, that their product form 96 units, the difference in numbers is 2" aritmes "(unknown): x + y = 20, xy = 96;

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x-y = 2Z. Then, as the sum of the numbers is 20, if we divide into two equal parts, each of them will be 10 units and if you add a half part of the difference of two numbers, 1 "aritmes", and the other of you subtracts the sum of the numbers is the new 20 units and the difference 2 "aritmes": x + z = 10, y = 10-z, xy-z2 = 100. But the product of the numbers must be equal to 96 units. Their product is 100 units less than 1 square "aritmes" which beat it to 96 units. L ' "aritmes" is 2 units. Consequently, the larger number will be 12 units and smaller units would be 8 and these numbers satisfy the proposition. As you can see the solution revolves around to auxiliary unknown z. The emergence of this unknown auxiliary, "aritmes" is together with the symbolism, a real conceptual change (Ver Eecke, 1959, p. 2; Radford, 1996, p. 43). It can be argued that history of Algebra begins with Diofanto. Babylonian mathematics is light years away. The transition from Babylonian mathematics to the Greek, from this point of view, it is clear: the introduction of unknown and a special symbol appears to describe an innovation equal to that of the zero so that changed the course of history of mathematics. Diofanto marks in this sense the transition slow, gradual and difficult to Algebra rhetoric than syncopated. As mentioned previously also educationally concepts of unknown, variable and, more generally, parametric, are generally for students of the concepts are difficult to internalize, as carriers for algebraic reasoning and thereby to the algebraic thinking, and he will develop slowly, moving from the initial report between numbers, quantities related dynamics through a formula (Malisani, 2006, pag.161). The initial report by the passage between numbers, quantities related dynamics through a formula, the full awareness of the concept of variable and parameter, may highlight the cognitive differences, the obstacles, connected to a different socio-cultural background? These may follow, although some of the historical and / or cultural? What interests us here is trying to understand what patterns of reasoning, children from different cultures such as those we take in consideration, make out in the process of acquisition of mathematical concepts treated. In the coming chapters, we will try to answer these questions through consideration of a different nature.

3.1.5 The Algebraic Tradition among the Arabs and the Indians
With regard to Indian Algebra, in agreement with the Malisani (Malisani, 1996) we can certainly say that the symbolism used by the people of India, although rudimentary, it is sufficient to classify them as Algebra almost symbolic, and certainly to a greater extent than it was of the syncopated algebra Diofantos. This is no longer just verbal, expressed in words and without the aid of symbolism, the unique features of the phase of Nesselmann rhetoric, but it cannot even regarded as fully belonging to the third phase identified by the historian, the symbolic, as this people while developing good processes and having great skill and technique, [...] the various steps were not accompanied with reasons or evidence (Malisani, 1996, p.34). Most research on the mathematics of India focuses on particular details of the mathematical discoveries of the people in question, perhaps omitting that which

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interests us more in this work: the way in which they perceived mathematical knowledge as intellectual discipline and as a body of knowledge (Keller, 2001) in view of possible trade, scientific links with China. Still highly debated topic among historians of mathematics. In a mathematical astronomy Bhaskara comment reads: The mathematics includes the figure, the shadows, the succession of numbers, equations, the sprays (indeterminate linear equations), etc. [...] The mathematics is of two kinds: that of figure and that of quantity. The proportions, the sprays, etc., that are specific to mathematics, were named among the mathematics of quantity. Succession, the shadows and so on, [including] the mathematics of shapes. So in this way, mathematics as a whole is based only on quantity of math and mathematical figures. According to his thinking, the basic principle of the global definition of mathematics is the distinction between quantity and figures that is between computational manipulations of known or unknown values and use of the properties of plane figures. According to this view then: Arithmetic Geometry against. The Algebra? At the same time, in a work composed in 629, Brahmagupta defines a different classification of mathematical thinking as a unique set of knowledge. Classification which will be generally accepted as a standard of mathematical thought, and that does not feature in quantity and figures but between calculated and unknowns. Anyone who knows the twenty separate operations starting with addition, and the eight practices that end in the shadows, this is a computer [...]. [It was] familiar with the masters of the treaties, based on knowledge of the gun, zero, of negative, the positive, the unknowns, the elimination of [term] in the middle, [the reduction] to only one unknown, the products of unknowns, and the nature of the square [indeterminate equations of second degree]7. The basic principle of Brahmagupta in the arrangement of mathematics as a whole is similar to the distinction between arithmetic and algebra, conceptual categories that constitute the fundamental structure of learning math. Neither author provides a detailed discussion of the proposed classification. We agree with the suggestion that the debate has certainly helped shape the medieval ideas about mathematics that are likely to have also taken into account those who were the Chinese mathematical texts. The witnesses on scientific and cultural contacts between China and India before the advent of Buddhism, around the fourth century, are only fragmentary. The most reliable evidence regarding the last decades of the Han dynasty, with the spread of Buddhism8. A character that can represent the cultural exchange between the two countries is perhaps the Buddhist pilgrim Fa Hsien that for fifteen years through northern India and traveled throughout Central Asia. The solution of indeterminate equations by the method kuttaka in qiuyishu in India and China, was a constant passion in both countries. In both contexts, the issue of indefinite born in astronomy and for the creation of calendars, with the determination of orbits of the planets.
7 8

Brahmasphutasiddhnta, cap. XII, v.1, and cap. XVIII, v.2. Over the same period seems to have been written the Jiuzhang Suanshu (Eastern Han dynasty : 25-220 d.C.).

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In this context of comparison of mathematical knowledge and knowledge is, however, in our opinion, interesting to note that, unlike the Egyptian mathematics, and later to the Chinese, Indian mathematics at least at the time of Aryabhata (born in 476 AD), a most important mathematician of ancient, method of false position, seen previously, was not used (Gheverghese J., 1987). The hypothesis that some historians of mathematics are in this regard is that perhaps the Indian mathematics, precisely because of the progress of algebraic symbolism, did not need to that algorithm. Examples of geometric solutions of linear equations to an unknown factor found in Sulbasutra of Baudhayana, algebraic solutions are reported in Bakhshali Manuscripts of the twelfth century AD. The algebraic method used was based on inversion, a method which is five centuries after the Arab mathematics. The procedure required a reasoning backwards from a certain information and was also used for quadratic equations. With the objective to identify a possible difference in the formulation of a problem of this kind from that expressed in such Jiuzhang Suanshu, given the text and the solution, expressed in modern language, the following problem: Wonderful shiny-eyed girl, tell me, because you know the method to be applied, what number multiplied by 3, plus three quarters of its product, then divided by 7, less than a third of the result, then multiplied by the same, and then decreased to 52, whose square root is extracted before being added to 8 and then divided by 10 results in the final 2? Solution: We start from the answer (2) and then backward, If the problem says to add, subtract it, if he says to multiply, divide it, if he says to extract the square root, squared rises etc. The solution is then: [(2)(10) 8] + 52 = 196 ;
2

3 4 (14)( )(7)( ) 7 = 28 ; 2 196 = 14 ; 3

The Manuscript of Bakhshali is the oldest evidence we have on the Indian Mathematical Association detached from any religious or metaphysical. Cultural context that has driven most of the scientific work of classical antiquity. The scientific environment is described in the text is similar in form and content to the general mathematical Jiuzhang Suanshu, older than some centuries. The latter, however, is much broader and more advanced than Bakhshali (J. Gheverghese, 1991). Indian mathematics did not direct influence on Europe, but it seems almost certain that the Arabs studied the Arithmetic and Algebra Indian indirectly: through the representatives of the elite science, accepted in the courts of the caliphs of the IX and X century. In that time were several classical works, literary and scientific publications that were translated into Arabic, from sancrito and greek, and were studied by the sages of Islam. The claim of self-algebra as a subject, start to get light in the Arab world, in Persia, in the fervor of the great school that was developed in Baghdad in the second half of the ninth century. It is in this socio-cultural context that for the first time is on the first recognition of the subject in itself, with problems and methods of self (Betti, 2001).

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The great development of culture and science reached its one of the highlights during the caliphate of Al-Mamun (809-833) with the founding of the "House of Knowledge9". Among the many members who made the part, the astronomer and mathematician Mohammed Ibn Musa al-Khowarizmi, a scholar who wrote more than a dozen works of Astronomy and Mathematics, the oldest of which were probably of Indian derivation. The title of his most important Aljabr w'al muqabala provided in modern languages the word Algebra. Aljabr had the meaning of completion and was one of the main methods resolutive along with almukabala, balance with the meaning which we today give to simplification. In his work, he systematically studied the equations of the second degree, classified according to different types and are represented graphically. While, however, the Arab Algebra seems to some progress in the development of algebraic thinking from another point of view, these people seem to make a big step backwards is the level of arithmetic (even knowing the numbers by the Indians negative, refused them) that of algebra itself. The Arabs are not used or abbreviations [...] only a few names to name the unknown and its powers ... a step back, then, is compared to Algebra Indian to that of Diofanto (Malisani, 1996, p.34 ). They also influenced by the Greeks, always felt the need to explain and justify the procedures used to solve algebraic problems, but they were used for this purpose, only the geometry10. As the greek people, in fact, felt the need to justify everything geometrically. The predominance of the geometry, geometric methods, it would seem, in fact, in this case, to prevail on the conduct of autonomous algebraic notation. In the texts of al-Khuwarizmi, the study is free from any immediate application and calculation of the solutions becomes progressively problem in general on the resolution method. A proof of this we tried to analyze, in a first approximation, a problem among those offered in some Arabic texts, highlighting the processes algebraic / geometric solutions, variety. Considering for example the problem: A square and ten roots are equal to nine and thirty dirhems, (39 units), i.e. chief add ten root to square and the sum is equal to nine and thirty (Kline, 1972, Italian Edition, pp. 226-227). Analyzing processes resolutive reported by Al-Khuwarizmi, we find two different techniques that are (stating with the first strategy I and II with the second) in order to highlight the first resolution, although logically correct, was not considered by them the solution to the problem and only the second, the geometric, was considered as optimal (today we might say that the second strategy can be considered superfluous): In modern notation, the solution is as follows: x 2 + 10 x = 39 ;

10 = 5; 2

x 2 + 10x + 25 = 39 + 25 ; ( x + 5) 2 = 64 ; x + 5 = 8 ; x=3
9

Casa del sapere(Italian Language), Maison du Savoir (France Language), the term Sapere has no equivalent in English. 10 As Djebbar Islamic culture is Aristotelian but remained firm on the translation of Averroes.

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3 The Meta-rules between Natural Language and History of Mathematics Table 3. Resolution procedure reported by Al-Khuwarizmi equation for second-degree

Ia Ib Ic Id Ie

Take half of the roots Multiply them for herself It adds to these 39 It makes the square root This number is subtracted half of the roots

10 =5 2
55 = 25 25+39 = 64

64 = 8
8-5 = 3 x=3 is the root string

II. Draw a square ab to represent x and four sides of this square to put the rectangles c, d, e, f 2 * off each unit. To complete the square, add more of the four small squares at the angles, each of which area of 6 * units (i.e., to complete the square you have to add 4 to 6 * units, ie 25 units) resulting in a square whose area measure 39 +25 units.

Fig. 3. Geometric resolution procedure set out by Al-Khuwarizmi for the equation of second degree

The greater part of the square should measure 8 units, from which you subtract 2 for 2* units equal to 5 units found so that x = 3 is the solution of data. It thus shows that the solution presented was algebraically exact. This geometric reasoning is based on the fourth preposition of the second book of the Elements. Another text of the ninth century interest in dealing with the relationship between mathematics-culture and more specifically Western cultural tradition, Eastern cultural tradition, we are trying to treat, albeit roughly and not a strictly historical, is perhaps the Liber Mensuratonium of Ab Bekr. This is a text that contains many problems solved with different resolutive methods. One of these is explicitly called by Hyrup (Hyrup, 1990) method of "cut-paste geometry", a method that can be found, albeit in different ways, in the Jiuzhang Suanshu, The Nine Chapters of Mathematical Art (first century BC-I century AD ). One example is the statement and the resolution of the problem 25 said: The area is 48 and the sum of the two sides is 14, how far each side?.

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The problem therefore seems to require to determine the length of the sides of a rectangle that meets certain conditions. The text expressed in algebraic language is equal to the system:

xy = 48 x + y = 14

that is the equation: x 2 14 x + 48 = 0 . The author explains the solution of the question by applying the method of cut-paste geometry by adding and subtracting an appropriate figure given quantity. Radford and Charbonneau (Charbonneau & Radford, 2002, pp. 5-6) believe that the solution was accompanied by some drawings but not in the text. In a possible reconstruction of these designs, propose the following sequence:

Fig. 4. Resolution procedure according to the Geometry of cut-paste

Divide in half the 14, the result will be 7 on 7 multiplies itself and will be 49 (creation of a square of area 49), subtract 48 from it and will remain 1, which gets the root is 1, if added 1 half of 14, what will be the first major, if subtract this number from the mid-14, what will be the smallest dimension (you get the exact figure 4, the rectangle of side 8 and 6). The method of cut-paste, but with the necessary modifications to absolutely stress the concept underlying the various mathematical problems, is reflected strongly in Jiuzhang Suanshu Chinese, in the commentaries of Liu Hui (Ca. 220-280) of 263. The author in Chapter V (Shang kung, Handbook for engineering works), by dealing with the rules for calculating areas and volumes of various three-dimensional figure, refers to a particular method of demonstration 11: the method of re-test or principle of complementarity external-internal or dissection and reassembly. Essence of this method, similar to that of cut-paste, is based on two assumptions that constructive in some ways, in some respects purely conceptual, the difference just from that of Liber Mensuratonium while constructively resume: - Is the area of a plane figure that the volume of a sound remains the same when subjected to a rigid shift in another place; - If a plane figure or a solid is cut into sections, the sum of their areas or volumes of the sections is equal to or the amount of the original figure.
11

The term evidence is properly inserted between quotation marks because there is a problem on the epistemological demonstration schemes in different cultures. You mention this aspect at the end of this chapter. Interesting work of teaching in this sense can be Huang, 2005 and Di Paola-Spagnolo, 2009.

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The method used, which is often viewed as a method of trial and error in its simplicity of construction and explanation, in our opinion, shows something more than a simple numerical attempts to carry and cannot, therefore, be regarded as a banal arithmetical thought put into in a geometric light. Example of application of cut-paste Chinese are found in the demonstration of the Pythagorean theorem (Chapter IX called kou ku) which do not deal in this work12 and other different problems presented in Chapter V and IX. Problems IX 15 and IX, 16 are listed as such (we consider a translation of tense in modern algebraic language):

Fig. 5. The figure illustrates the description given by Lui Hui in Jiuzhang Suanshu, in applying the principle to demonstrate the theorem of Pythagoras. Chapter IX, issue 3.

Problem 15. Since x side of a square inscribed in a right triangle. Define a and b the lengths of the two legs and c the length of the hypotenuse of the triangle. What is the square of side x? 13

The method for finding the unknown x is shown in the following sequence which is supposedly similar to the one lost in the commentaries of Liu Hui: As shown in the figure, through the principle of cut-paste (dissection and reassembly) and try that ab = ( a + b) x and then the side of the square, x, required is: x =

ab . a+b

12 13

For an deep investigation. Chemla, 1997, 2001. Va puntualizzato che il testo del problema riportato nel Jiuzhang Suanshu non espresso nella forma generale qui proposta per una trattazione algebrica pi esplicita ma si presenta in una forma concreta ed espressa senza alcun simbolismo.

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Fig. 6. The figure shows the description in Jiuzhang Suanshu for the solution of the problem given. Chapter IX, issue 15.

Problem 16. 2r is the diameter of the circle inscribed in a right triangle. Define a and b the lengths of the two legs and c the length of the hypotenuse of the triangle. To find the diameter 2r of the circle.

The method of finding 2r can be seen in the following sequence of figures taken into account in dealing with Liu Hui in the commentaries: The figure above shows through the picture, the instructions given by the scholar, the first figure reconstructed (a) consists of four right triangles whose lengths of legs are a and b and length of the hypotenuse is c. The comparison of this with (b) and (c) states:

2ab = 2r (a + b + c) hence r =

ab . a+b+c

As Youjun Wang These are some typical examples of the use of principle of congruency by addition and subtraction. In fact, Liu Hui also used an extension of this principle to explain the theory of limit, which Liu Hui called the method of validation with Chinese chess whose shape is cube (Wu 1982). By using this principle, the propositions pertaining to areas of figures with linear sides and to volumes of simple solids, such as column, cone, and so on could be validated []. The principle also played a very important role in the field of solving equations. In general, this unique Chinese mathematical tradition of doing mathematics by handson manipulation or by experiments was further developed since the time of Liu Hui. It influenced the future development of Chinese mathematics, such as during the Song dynasty (9601279) and Yuan dynasty (12791368).14

14

These types of verification of the proposed questions was open in the literature, considerable debate about the epistemological value of demonstrating a proposition. Address, even if in part, this argument will next paragraph.

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Fig. 7. The figure shows the description in Jiuzhang Suanshu for the solution of the problem given. Chapter IX, issue 16.

As we will see in coming chapters, we think that these assumptions resolutive methods applied to most mathematical contexts, may find themselves, albeit in a different form today, in multicultural classes with students of Chinese culture. Principles and patterns of reasoning probably conveyed through Confucian philosophical principles and language (composition of cut-paste / dissection and reassembly on the Chinese written language). But there is yet another aspect that is related to the spatial approach of algebraic formulas. As seen in the previous chapter, ideograms in the rules of association (for the Chinese culture: logical Association) follow the forms of space that might be reference to a "translation" mathematics possible algebraic simplifications, the principles of equivalence of equations, etc. ..., as evidenced by:

Fig. 8. Linguistic principles related to the possible meta-rules (see chap. 2) of the composition (Cornet, 2006)

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Similar considerations may be in the context of geometric equidecomposable. The cut and paste is a fundamental element to understand the approaches to solving the problems of Chinese geometric problems already presented. For us this is an open problem to be studied experimentally. Suggested that as in Euclid algebra does not develop because of the difficulties to move from III to IV size, so in the Chapters 9 and earlier in the geometry of the cut and paste can be a barrier to a thought geometric generalized in the sense that we have given to this term in Chinese culture.

3.1.6 Significant Developments for the Symbolic Algebra


Over the years, slowly and not without difficulty, the higher culture of the Arabs came with penetrating even in Europe. The Arabs of Spain and the Arabs of the Levant were largely responsible for having encouraged the rebirth of European culture that throughout the early medieval period (from about 400 to 1100) was in a situation completely stagnant. At that time it [...] the European civilization is not worried the development of mathematics, there was no progress, and there were serious attempts to generate new knowledge. All the problems faced requiring only the use of the four operations of whole numbers [...] the calculations were performed with the help abacus [...]. It used the Roman numbering system, avoiding the zero you do not understand the meaning. The fractions were used rarely and irrational numbers did not appear at all. (Malisani, 1996, p.48). The center of the intellectual renaissance it was Italy, and one of the scholars who began to light at that time was undoubtedly Leonardo Pisano, called Fibonacci which you trace the use of the term equation (from the Latin aequatio). We can consider the year of 1202 held on the year in which appeared the Liber abaci, the book on which are based completely arithmetic and algebra (Kline, 1972,Italian Edition, p.278) According to historical data in our possession, we are now able to say that from the thirteenth century, the most important discoveries that are made in Maths came mainly in the field of arithmetic and algebra. Indeed many scholars devoted increasing interest in these subjects seeking to deepen their studies. In these writings, called Treaties of abacus, the algebra had a geometric rather than arithmetic, and many of the issues addressed were resolved with the help of the equations. A classic abacus Treaty is the Trattato dAlgibra we have already mentioned before by treating the double false position. Written at the end of the fourteenth century, by an anonymous Florentine, an elementary text in which many topics are treated merchant (which characterize this type of work) not only proposed for a practical purpose, but also addressed in a more complex and abstract. The Trattato dAlgibra clearly states twenty-five rules for solving equations of first, second, third and fourth degree with coefficients always positive.

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Franci and Pancanti believe that this is one of the best treaties abacus medieval and Renaissance that they have examined. In particular, state that ... the final chapters devoted all'Algebra ... are fundamental in the reconstruction of the history of this discipline in the thirteenth and fourteenth century. (Franci, Pancati,1988, pag.6). In Liber Abaci, Fibonacci solves several problems that can be defined as concrete, daily newspapers, mostly related to commercial transactions. They found among other things, examples of specific and indeterminate equations of first, second and third grade. The resolution method for quadratic equations follows the style Arabic and diofanteo separately in five different cases so that the coefficients are always positive. For each of these, the author determines the different solutions using geometric Euclidean reasoning. The various problems of analysis unspecified are resolved according to the application of various artifices or the method of false position (see Loria, pp. 386-391). Comparison of mathematical traditions between east and west should be clarified how many problems in this book are closely related to chinese mathematics, e.g. there are problems on page 304, cognate to Problems 26, Volume 3 of Master Suns Mathematical Manual15(Kangshen, 1999, pp.18; 415). What was built, however, until the sixteenth century were a slow and little precise Algebra: the symbols most commonly used in mathematics texts were the result of common abbreviations of words, of pieces of words that designate the unknown of the problem. In the Renaissance style was still common rhetorical and drew the symbolism adopted by Diofanto. The most significant change in character of algebra was introduced in connection with the symbolism of Viet. He, in a change of conception in the use of formalized language, language is more complete and more agile than through a symbolism more uninhibited gave more speed and precision, not the symbolism used to indicate only the unknown but used points also to see that generic terms be express. His new language was not created solely to solve problems but algebraic calculation was applied to test different rules. The boundary between the Arithmetic and Algebra is thus traced to prohibit the distinction between logistica numerosa and logistica speciosa, the first dealing specifically of numbers and the second is defined as a way to work on the species and forms of things. The algebra then becomes, in this sense, the study of general forms of representation: infinite cases expressed in a simple and concise language. Bombelli (1526-1573) and Viet (1540-1603), following, in a first approximation, the classification of Nesselmann time, thus driving the Algebra in stage highlighted by the scholar: the symbolic.

15

The texts of Master Suns Mathematical Manual and the Zhang Qiujians Mathematical Manual, writings of the IV and V centuries are regarded as simplified versions of Jiuzhang Suanshu. In Master Zhang Qiujians Mathematical Manual we find some evidence on the problems Arithmetic "recreational" typical of the Western tradition: issue 38, Chapter 3.

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In his Algebra (1572) 16, Bombelli develops the theory of equations of the first four grades. Separately considers many special cases of equations of the same grade so that the coefficients are always positive. For each type of equation states (in rhetorical language) the rule practical resolution, performs geometric construction (as possible) to justify the validity of equality expressed in equation and to analyze the nature and multiplicity of roots. Following the traditions of medieval Arab and accept only the positive real solutions not void. The negative roots or complex were difficult to interpret in an appropriate way in relation to the problems to be solved, and the socio-cultural context not pushed in this direction. Bombelli uses geometric construction to solve algebraic problems, but the procedure is the reverse of that taken in Algebra geometric of the ancients. It does not solve the problem directly geometric solution for the analytical interpretation of arithmetic building built, but uses exactly the resolution to derive the algebraic geometric construction (Bortolotti, 1966, pp. XLIII). Bombelli can be considered one of the protagonists of history of algebra. With regard specifically to the resolution of algebraic equations and then looking for the solutions of these, which we tied to the historical development of algebraic thinking and long identified with this (Betti, 2001), it certainly reminded the work on cubic equations, by Bombelli in Algebra. The treatment, also referred to procedures for resolving Cardano, Del Ferro and Tartaglia, leads in the search for solutions, a radical with no real quantity. In a vision of algebraic thinking and thus of the same, in a continuous balance between history and teaching, which we believe should be stressed in order to highlight, as mentioned, any obstacles and difficulties of the learning process with regard to today's thought algebraic and its interactions with the arithmetic, is the trend continues, in various historical writings, at least for Western culture, the generalization of the problems addressed. Element strongly felt in the thinking algebraically. The proposed task is not easy. Taking a step back in history epistemological just discussed, we limit ourselves to consider as an example, in the first instance, a parallelism between the Liber Quadratorum by Pisano, the "Trattato dAlgibra" by anonymous Florentine and Algebra by Bombelli. They found, as mentioned earlier, a growing awareness of the need to generalize all the processes of resolution recreated and thus the possibility to apply the resolution to a variety of specific cases. The Algebra, and, according to this view, strongly western, is being read as a study of general types of problems: everything that can be applied to the general case you can use it to infinite cases. While Algebra was then considered a Universal Arithmetic a discipline that is capable of expressing in general the rules apply to arithmetic operations, on the other hand, it tried to free it, tripping from this bond making it less restricted.

16

The full title of the text is Algebra opera di Rafael Bombelli da Bologna, divisa in tre libri, con la quale ciascuno da s potr venire in perfetta cognitione della teoria dellAritmetica, published in two editions (almost identical) in 1572 and 1579 (Bombelli, 1966; Loria, 19291933, pp. 316317).

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According to this view, the variable, could no longer be regarded as a generalized, it was necessary emptied of all meaning outside it superior to the idea of projecting the parameter as a means of solution for classes of problems. Like the rest of the evolutionary path, however, this phase was very slow and difficult. (Arzarello, Bazzini, Chiappini, 1994). This route is also what we try to encourage educationally, with many difficulties in students. The concept of variable in thinking is a dynamic concept that evolves through different stages and interpretations. In agreement with Malisani (2006), as already mentioned, the concept of variable carrier for algebraic reasoning and thereby to the algebraic thinking develops slowly, passing from the initial report of the numbers included in the tables, the dynamic quantity related through a formula (Malisani, 2006, pag.161). This was also the historical algebraic, his formalism and the stage of generalization. A teaching degree is necessary to point out how the conceptualization of the variable steps and then, more or less casually, from an initial sense of thing that varies (term used by Malisani, 2006) meaning essentially aimed at a first point of any possible numerical reports submitted, for a more mature observation and assimilation of any property of the variational mathematical objects in question. The third stage of conceptualization then builds to a more complex and takes into account the ability to define, in a problematic situation, which may look like abstract positional values that are (or become) the quantity dynamics, mathematical variables. At this stage, the variable takes different forms and meanings and binds strongly to the functional and parametric. Are interesting in this context, the educational work of Radford (1996, p.51, 2004b) and Gagatsis (2000). Around 1700, the algebra had reached a mature autonomy that allowed it to become detached from the geometry and especially from Arithmetic. But certainly what was missing was still a strong and resilient on which to build the future. Foundations of logic similar to those for the Euclidean Geometry. In this long period of growth, technical developments are accompanied by little to the conceptual and Algebra was clarified to his status today. Around 1770, Joseph-Louis Lagrange explicitly connects the solutions with those who will be the groups of transformations and in 1799, Paolo Ruffini first announced the nonexistence of a formula for resolving the equation radicals fifth overall grade; discovered and discussed in early dell'800 by Gauss and Abel successfully addressing some special classes of equations (the binomial equations and then, more generally, those to be called abelian). Were the ideas and studies to provide Galois then a theory which could decide the solvability of the equations is the equation which generally confirming the non-solvability by radicals when the level exceeds the fourth. Thus, in the first half of the 800, the theory of Galois further determined the turning point for the history of algebra; an historic socio-cultural context in which the structural aspects of scientific thought are becoming mature and predominant. As will be recognized long after the death of its author, the theory of Galois provide also a criterion of solvability for radicals of all algebraic equations but that non-solvability of

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equations of degree higher than the fourth, his study shows the centrality of the concept of group of substitutions, which soon spread to many contexts. The theoretical perspective of algebra changed radically again with the definition of a new problem: finding a formula resolutive became the study of the properties of a group associated with the equation on the Group of Galois. The Galois theory became the theory of extensions of number fields and the relationship that binds these extensions automorphism groups: one that in fact today is called Galois correspondence. The problem originates in the radical to solve algebraic equations which both pushed the development of algebraic thinking is slowly disappeared transformed into something more complex. In the meantime, have changed the outlook of algebra. The reading we have given the process of growth of the algebraic thinking cannot be completely generalized to the Chinese culture especially given that those are the values of mathematics epistemological eastern China that put the roots in Jiuzhang Suanshu.

3.2 A Look at the Ancient Chinese Mathematics 3.2.1 The Historical-Cultural


Understanding the history of Chinese mathematics requires some knowledge of Chinese history, very large and difficult to analyze in its entirety, since it extends for more than 4500 years. The paragraph that we are discussing is not intended to be an exhaustive discussion of mathematics in China, go beyond the objective of our history of algebra in a epistemological-cultural perspective for a application to didactics of disciplines. Then we are interested in some particular aspects of learning Chinese mathematician specific reference to some written records that can better describe the traditional Chinese mathematics seen in the relationship between mathematics and culture we are studying. References in this fundamental sense is the work of Chemla (2001, 2004), Cullen (1996, 2004), J. Gheverghese (1987), Guo and Liu Shuchun Dun (1998). The first sources that reflect an initial mathematical activity in ancient China dating from roughly the Han dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD) 17, when territorial expansion for the Chinese people, thanks to the silk trade with India and the Empire Roman18. These texts, expressed only through a discursive approach to the
17

A list of Chinese dynasties that have occurred up to 1912 (Birth of the Republic of China moved to Taiwan from 1949) is reproduced in Appendix B. 18 As mentioned earlier, the economic and cultural relations with India is made even more intense public through the acceptance of Buddhism. It seems then that Rome had not cured long to know the "far country from which the silk." The Chinese chronicles, however, recall that in 166 AD Marco Aurelio sent a mission to China, after this first meeting, the silk trade between China and the Roman Empire became more intense (Needham, Vol. I, 1985).

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problem and a presentation only in natural language, are expressly refer to calculations with numbers chopsticks, numbers that were, until recently, the main tools for the job math and science (as stated above shall be considered and artifacts derived from the Chinese tradition of mathematics). The research undertaken in the early decades of the last century by Vacca, Mikami and Van Hee19, studying the first editors of memories from the ancient Chinese tradition, Chinese mathematics defined as a totally uncoordinated collection of information, sometimes imitate those of Greek or those Indian, sometimes incomprehensible in their inner meaning, sometimes in incomplete concepts, methodology and applications, and only rarely with some originality in arithmetic (Adamo, 1968, p179). As seen previously by the few examples from the text Jiuzhang Suanshu, considered the canon of reference for the traditional Chinese mathematics, the ancient Chinese world was unaware of it certainly need deductive arguments and his mathematics, was not guaranteed by the rigor of a technique logic (in the Aristotelian sense) organized exactly as the Greeks, for example, but by practical people who distributed them in the elementary problems of economy, agriculture, etc. The result was such that it can be submitted after due consideration to a Westerner, not as a harmonious edifice of knowledge, but as a set of terms, developed, just as a technical grammar the spontaneous and natural, the language described by its economic relations so useful to trade. In other words, according to a vision etno-mathematics, Mathematics is a universal activity, that is, it is a pan-cultural and panhuman activity. In all cultures, mathematical thinking has taken place, whether spontaneously or in an organized way, all human beings are spontaneously doing some mathematical thinking and are capable of learning more (D'Ambrosio, 1985), mathematics is not the property of any particular (sub) culture or cultural complex, like the Greek, European, Western, white, male, city dwellers, mathematicians, mathematics teachers etc. (Anderson, 1990). The ancient Chinese world is not felt the need to pose problems in the abstract and deductive character much loved by the Greek mathematicians because their socio-cultural context of that was different, completely different concept of life. These general considerations are not surprising: unlike what happened in the Middle Eastern world and then in the West, the Chinese civilization, according to a vision of the Western, does not seem to have had up to the XX century no period presents an analogy with Enlightenment rationalistic, yet, from an educational perspective, there is no denying that the Chinese have strong provisions to mathematics, to its rigorous, as demonstrated in the last century and are still doing, in line to Western20 science and giving it its own significant contributions. Then enter the details of debate and analyze this content. Two mathematical historical documents (classics jing) that there have been transmitted through the written tradition and that are significant in shaping the
19

Vacca, Boll. di Bibl. e Storia, Tomo VII, 1904; Mikami, The Development of Mathematics in China and Japan, Lipsia, 1912, Van Hee, Articles published in various journals between 1911 and 1926, particularly in T'oung Pao; Leyda, 1923. 20 The term "line" we mean the ability to "take" from Western culture what might be considered useful for their own social group. How did the Roman Empire before and after the Catholic church for the "old Europe".

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history of Chinese mathematics specifically addressed to evolution of algebra are the Gnomone of Zhou (Zhoubu) presumably written in the time period of the first century BC - The century D.C. (Cullen, 1996, pp.148-156), and the Jiuzhang Suanshu, The Nine Chapters of Mathematical Art, text, as said, written about during the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD) and as mentioned earlier, is the oldest text ever in mathematics and a fee of culture for the Chinese thought. Just because of what will be, in this paragraph, the main topic of analysis. The transmission of these references in writing was concerned, over the years, different commentaries that accompanied and handed the texts in various historical periods from the III century onwards. The first two commentaries are written and completed in 263 by Liu Hui on Jiuzhang Suanshu and another written by Zhao Shuang in the III century on Gnomone of Zhou. Another important task for the transmission of the classics in the history of Chinese mathematics was made by Li Chunfeng then, during the Tang dynasty (618-907) with the collection and commentary of ten traditional math (the Suanjing Shibu), a monumental work, an encyclopedia of traditional Chinese mathematics. It includes: Jiuzhang suanshu (Nine Chapters of the Mathematical Art), Haidao suanjing (Sea Island Mathematical Manual), Sunzi Suanjing (Master Sun's Mathematical Manual), Wucao Suanjing (Mathematical Manual of the Five Government Departments), Wujing Suanshu (Arithmetic in Five Classics), Qiujian Suanjing Zhang (Zhang Qiujian's Mathematical Manual), Xiahou Yang Suanjing (Xiahou Yang's Mathematical Manual), Zhui Shu (Method of Interpolation), and Xugu Suanjing (Continuation of Ancient Mathematics). The only other ancient mathematical texts that has come down to us is the Book of mathematical procedures established during the Han dynasty or before, and found in 186 BC . The nature of written text is profoundly different from the other two, not, indeed, that the accompanying commentaries, and there is no indication that we confirm the nature of classic, a distinctive feature for works written for the imperial interests. This aspect as it should be noted, as well Chemla (2007, p.93) this is a first discriminating relevant to describe the culture, this fact distinguishes the different kinds of tracts, which were read and used in different ways. The different writings testify to that effect, mathematical distinct cultures and therefore different cultural aspects, albeit within the same social context. For the purpose of our work, we are interested particularly in the Jiu-zhang Suanshu (meaning the classic, accompanied by his comments, specifically that of Liu Hui to which it will from time to time reference).

3.2.2 The Jiuzhang Suanshu


For the treatment of a subject as vast, complex and unusual, would not have made sense in turn present some results of mathematical text. We preferred to focus on specific aspects of mathematical thinking in Chinese and then across the cultural in general, in which it was entered. The discussion thus includes considerations and examples discussed in the preceding paragraph and provides a more detailed description.

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3 The Meta-rules between Natural Language and History of Mathematics Table. 5. The Nine Chapters of Jiuzhang Suanshu (Kangshen, Crossley e Lun, 1999)
Chapter 1: Land Surveying. This consists of 38 problems on land surveying. It looks first at area problems (the types of shapes for which the area is calculated includes triangles, rectangles, circles, trapeziums), at rules for the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractions. The Euclidean algorithm method for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers is also presented. In the problem number 32 an accurate approximation is given for . This chapter contains 46 problems concerning the exchange rates among twenty different types of grains, beans, and seeds. It possible to find a study of proportion and percentages and an introduction of the rule of three for solving proportion problems. Many of the treated problems apply as simple exercise to give to the reader the practice to work with the calculations with fractions. There are 20 problems which involve proportion (direct proportion, inverse proportion and compound proportion). In particular arithmetic and geometric progressions are used in some of the problems. 24 problems (the first eleven problems take the name to the chapter). Problems 12 to 18 involve the extraction of square roots, and the remaining problems involve the extraction of cube roots. Notions of limits and infinitesimals appear also in this chapter. 28 problems on construction of canals, ditches, dykes, etc. it is possible to find volumes of solids such as prisms, pyramids, tetrahedrons, wedges, cylinders and truncated cones Liu Hui, in his commentary, discusses a "method of exhaustion" that he invented to find the correct formula for the volume of a pyramid. This chapter contains 28 problems involving ratio and proportion. The problems refer to travelling, taxation, sharing etc.

Chapter 2: Millet and Rice. Chapter 3: Distribution by Proportion. Chapter 4: Short Width. Chapter 5: Civil Engineering. Chapter 6: Fair Distribution of Goods. Chapter 7: Excess and Deficit.

20 problems that report the rule of double false position. This chapter contains 18 problems which are reduced to solving systems of simultaneous linear equations. However the method given is basically that of solving the system using the augmented matrix of coefficients. The problems involve up to six equations in six unknowns and the only difference with the modern method is that the coefficients are placed in columns rather than rows. The matrix is so reduced to triangular form, using elementary column operations as is done today in the method of Gaussian elimination, and the answer interpreted for the original problem. Negative numbers are used in the matrix and the chapter includes rules to compute with them. In this final chapter there are 24 problems which are all based on right angled triangles. The first 13 problems are solved using an application of Pythagoras's theorem, which the Chinese knew as the Gougu rule.

Chapter 8: Calculation by Square Tables.

Chapter 9: Right angled triangles.

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The basic idea is always that of Radford, in the interpretation of mathematical culture as forms of cultural reflection to the world, cultural forms to "give effect to it" (Eco, 1999). So, as said earlier, in this sense, the cultural diversity of interpretations and contexts may be a profound richness that, as pointed out earlier, too often, unfortunately, is its collapse in the name of a universality that does not exist in reality and does not lie as a cultural fact. It is reductive and false. Our considerations in this regard following the work carried out in recent years by Chemla (2001, 2004) Martzloff (1987) and Needham (1985) and try to explain what may be interesting, even from the academic point of view for the specific cultural context of Chinese mathematics: the nature of the problems presented in the text, Cases and comments resolutive reported, the epistemological value of the demonstration of the validity of a certain proposition, the types of contexts used in different situations and their proposed role in solving them. The main element from which we start the description of the corpus of knowledge that we want to analyze Jiuzhang Suanshu and that is the culture of which he is a witness, it's certainly the types of problems included in the text. The Chinese terms are found in the text refer to two different translations: wen which translated means "to ask a question" and that is reflected here, however, "seek", the meanings are very different. Before going into the review of some major problems related to the arithmetic / pre-algebra we consider a frame, albeit quickly, the text in its entirety. This fact includes 246 problems divided into nine sections (chapters) which address various mathematical topics, ranging from measurement of the fields with the calculation of fractions and operations on them, in the disposal of solid and plane geometry. Below is a summary table on the English translation of Chinese text (Kangshen, Crossley, and Lun, 1999). The text, articulated, such as through exposure to situations in natural language on specific examples and concrete, immediately followed by the answer, the answer is also specific, has no algebraic notation and is therefore within a tradition arithmetic-algebraic similar to that of previously treated Babylonian mathematics. There is no shortage problems related to situations so abstract, and the problem I.9 which is followed by a process for the addition of fractions:
Problem I.9

Suppose further that one has everything together.

1 2 3 4 , , , , wonders what is achieved by putting 2 3 4 5

Although the wording of the problem that relates to specific numerical values, unlike other problems of the same chapter (like the questions I.8 or I.9), amounts are abstract. One cannot, therefore, speak of an algebraic thinking, structured around the concept of variable, but, in our opinion, there is a need for possible generalization, however, still strongly coupled to an arithmetic thought. Other examples of that can then be found in Chapter IX in which it addresses the issue of the Pythagorean theorem (kou Ku) and the Pythagorean terne (example is the problem IX, 1) (Chemla, 2007).

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Proceedings resolutive (shu) of these problems as well as of others, brought to light in the different chapters of the work, they always use, through a kind of procedural, the data presented in the text of the problem, expressed in magnitudes and specific numerical values. This is a key element that goes in depth for a full understanding of practical mathematics of China and perhaps also in the day. Practice occurred, albeit in part due to cultural exchange with the West, as we shall see in Chapter 5, in disciplinary didactic and in the learning phase. The distinctive characteristic of the methods of solution derive mainly represented by the text in your process as simple list of operations (Kline, 1972, Italian Edition) and use the algorithm solver as crucial steps for the "demonstration" and the widespread the proposed wording. Then considerations should be made parallel to the use of the presentation of the various questions. The text, indeed, situations in which, for the resolution process, the context described is fundamental as well as specific numerical values reported and used in the algorithmic procedure followed, and others where this is almost entirely absent (as in I.9 problem described above). In these proceedings resolving problems do not relate either to specific situations or to numerical values established a priori. The process of resolving problems I.7, I.9, I.19, I.21 are an example. They are found only technical terms, such as "numerator, denominator, multiply ..." (Chemla, 2007, pp.98-99). In the commentaries of Liu Hui, for this type of solutions we read "there doushu ye" which translated means: "this is a general procedure."
Problem I.7-I.9 Parts to be collected.

Case: the numerators multiply the numbers that do not match them, it added, and takes this as a dividend. The different denominators between them are multiplied the divisor. You then divide the dividend by the divisor [...].
Problem I.19-I.21 Parts multiply.

Case: the denominators multiplied for each other are the divisor. The numerators multiplied for one another are the dividend. Dividing the dividend by the divisor. These considerations therefore show different possible levels of abstraction in the text. Even if it is correct to interpret the proceedings resolutive procedures as arithmetic, numerical, in the text, it shows a very clear, however, a continuous search algorithms to "General" can be applied to different classes of problems that are Always refer to the specific concrete situations. In this sense, the operations that are defined and that they are "used" in the application of various algorithms, are back to ordinary arithmetic operations (multiply, divide, etc.). And abstract as the use of terms: to communicate (a example is found in the problems I, 17th I, 18), Procedure of the positive and negative, the increase and decrease, which then define the meta-rules such as the multiply to break combine to simplify,

3.2 A Look at the Ancient Chinese Mathematics

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standardize, match them to communicate. Meta rules can also be found for the resolution of the equations21. The terms used in the solution of the question proposed algorithms determine different nature. Another key element in the Chinese cultural tradition mathematics is, as mentioned before presenting the resolution of linear systems, the use of chopsticks and the calculation of these available for the execution of arithmetic operations. In a vygotskiana, the rods can be considered, as mentioned before, in this view, a possible artifact in the cognitive process, a primary artifact. The conventions are artifacts representing the corresponding secondary and are used for setting and transmitting the mode of action on the rods themselves. A calculation by the rods in the field of research in mathematics education requires a thorough study and a well-defined specification of the theoretical framework that will be used. The proposed topic has already been discussed in several researches (Bartolini Bussi, 2002, 2003, Mariotti, 2005) which relate to the work of Vygotsky (1974, 1987), of Bachtin (1979, 1988), of Engestroem (1990) and Wartofsky (1979). We do not want to enter the teaching on the issue, but we believe useful to analyze the historical socio-cultural context that the rods have "defined" in the history of cultural tradition and ancient Chinese mathematics22 define another aspect to the algorithm, as a procedure concrete calculation in mathematics. Educationally significant is that the use of primary artifacts requires handling (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 45) directly. The importance of the body is consistent with the recent position of cognitive science, based on the work of Lakoff and Nez (2000), that the formation of mathematical ideas is based on sensory-motor (Mariotti, 2005 ). It is possible then that these activities of calculation with the sticks together, as we shall see in Chapter 5, the handling characteristics of the Chinese written language, and has carried vehicles today for students attending school in China (not only) a certain knowledge that could define the key capabilities in thought "mathematician"? This represents an application of research closely linked to our research work, assumptions that formalize rigorously in Chapter 5. Reconstruction of the instrument used to calculate the rods requires a complex historical analysis and is based on a variety of historical documents. Thus, outside of our considerations. Parallel assessments to be made, however, the strong character that positional algorithms with chopsticks may have conveyed. The table for calculating algebraic version was set so that certain positions were still occupied by specific types of variables (unknowns, powers, etc.), This convention can be considered a secondary artifact. The system introduced entailed the recording of mathematical models (Needham, 1985, p. 113). Significant models, in our opinion, for the ancient Chinese cultural tradition. Historically, the positional Chinese algebra had different consequences: while, implicitly placed the

21

The meta-rules are therefore to be understood as cultural products characterized by Philosophy, Religion of the Chinese written language etc. 22 The use of chopsticks sets only in the late Ming period (1368-1644) when they were replaced from Abacus.

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importance of the matrix23, determined in parallel, on the contrary, inhibition of the development of algebraic symbolism and thus a formalization of the concept of variable and unknown but there is in resolving algorithm with chopsticks. Taking then the statements made on algorithm as the key to the procedures for resolving mathematical procedures of China, although discussed in the first instance in the previous paragraph, it seems interesting to reconsider the text of Jiuzhang Suanshu solving linear systems using chopsticks. From reading the algorithm of resolution makes it immediately as a direct approach through the manipulation we can approach without difficulty and in an intuitive, with some properties of invariance of the equations.

3.2.3 The Rule of Fangcheng as Meta-rule for the Chinese Algebra


As mentioned previously, the resolution of linear systems is introduced in Jiuzhang Suanshu in Chapter VIII, called Fangcheng name associated with the mathematical approach developed for the resolution. The commentary of Liu Hui in this chapter, but in defining a first approximation the theoretical basis of elimination of unknowns that the algebraic algorithm implies, proposes a definition of the term given as the principle of equality and homogeneity to test the procedure described in the various issues proposed. Since mid-century past the period of Fangcheng was appointed to constantly refer to what we call today equation 24. To properly define the original meaning of Fangcheng, we must examine the original meanings of the two characters and Cheng Fang. Fang can be translated as put together, the origin of the term seems to come from the provision of a raft made of wood or bamboo that are assembled side by side, parallel to each other (Chemla, 2004). Cheng is the origin, the name of a measure. The Shuowen jiezi (Interpretation of graphs, Explanation of characters) of Xu Shen gives the following definition: 10 is a form cheng, cheng 10 forming a fen, 10 fen cun do. According Chemla, and Fang Cheng for derivation is that they have acquired the meaning of rules of things. The term Fangcheng, in this sense is used as a verb meaning to look for the rules of things. (Chemla, 2004) From this terminology seems to arise as a primary meaning of Fangcheng to check the rules of assembling things side by side. The expression means, namely: to put alongside all the quantitative relations between things in order to assess the standards of the measures of each of them. According to the description that gives Chelma This report is prepared quantitatively in a column, in the manner of a branch of bamboo or a stick of wood, and all of these columns are then placed side by side, in the same way that a raft is mounted from the tables.
23
24

Crucial to the concept was developed rather late, in 1683, the Japanese Kowa Seki. The word "equation" has been introduced in China with the European mathematical works.

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81

(Chemla, 2004) The algorithm of Fangcheng can be considered the result of more elaborate Jiuzhang Suanshu. His way of description is modern and fitting equations and the transformations that accompany the elimination of all unknowns using a positional writing. This procedure is virtually identical to the algebraic method of separation of the coefficients of modern mathematics. The algorithm is considered, as mentioned, one of the most important algorithms in traditional Chinese mathematics for the specificity of the definition of different meta rules as those of the multiply to break down, to convene meetings of simplifying, of homogenate, equal to communicate with it connected25. Rules that we believe may find strong connections with their cultural aspects of Chinese culture as the Taoist yn-yng and the cardinal virtues, treated in the first chapter. In the following, we intend to develop possible relationships between these, the written language and the teaching of mathematics today. An example of application of the Fangcheng you can find the problem VIII.3 proposing a system of three equations in three unknowns within which presents, in the solution, the negative amount. For complete information, please refer to the work of Chemla (2004) and Kangshen (1999) Spagnolo & Di Paola (2009) for a more thorough discussion of the algorithms proposed.
Problem VIII.326: Suppose you have 2 Bing miles of high quality, 3 Bing miles of medium quality, 4 Bing miles of lower quality, and production (shi) will fill in any case 1 Dou. If (the mile) of superior quality is the sum (of miles) of medium quality, with (a mile) of average quality is the sum (of miles) of inferior quality, and (the mile) is lower quality sum (of miles) of superior quality, each time with no reason to Bing 1, then the production (shi) is always 1 Dou. It asks what produce (shi), respectively, 1 Bing miles of high quality, middle and bottom. Answer: A Bing miles of high quality produce (shi) 9 / 25 Dou. Bing miles of a medium quality produce (shi) 7 / 25 of Dou. Bing miles of a lower-quality produce (shi) 4 / 25 of Dou. Procedure: In modern notation, the solution starts putting x, y and z as their yields of wheat Bing upper, middle and bottom. The question can then be placed in

this way (since

2 x 1, 3 y 1, 4 z 1 ):
2x + y = 1 3y + z = 1 4z + x = 1

25

A thorough study of the meta-rules can be regarded as being in the work of Chemla (1996, 2004) and the French translation of Jiuzhang Suanshu (Chemla, 2004). 26 The Italian translation of the cap. VIII is Di Paola&Spagnolo 2009.

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The information contained in the text of the problem are, as in these earlier sites, initially arranged in a table of calculation 27:

1 0 4 1

0 2 3 1 1 0 1 1

The three columns contain the coefficients in order and the constant of the three equations (the first equation is represented by the third column). The first column is then multiplied by 2 and the third column subtracted from the result. The first column is then replaced by the new column obtained:

0 1 8 1

0 2 3 1 1 0 1 1

The first column is then multiplied by 3 and the second plus the result:

0 0 25 4

0 3 1 1

2 1 0 1

Consequently, says the text, 25 Bing grain with a lower yield of 4 dou. A Bing was lower then the yield of 4 / 25 dou. 3 Bing grain and medium grain Bing with a lower yield of 1 dou. So an average grain Bing then has the performance of 7 / 25 Dou. 2 Bing higher grain and Bing have lower grain yield of dou 1, so a grain Bing higher then the yield of 9 / 25 Dou. The previous examples have been provided, for ease of reading, using the IndoArabic digits. The representation may also be obtained through the sticks from the calculation. An example of solving the system with the rule of Fangcheng may be this: The system is considered:
2 x 3 y + 8 z = 32 6 x 2 y z = 62 3 x + 21y 3 z = 0

27

Unlike Problem 1, in the description of this problem has been appropriately chosen to set the table for the system on a more formal representation, according to a presentation reminiscent of the mathematical concept of matrix, a term is found in ch Kangshen the English translation of Jiuzhang Suanshu (Kangshen and alii, 1999)

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83

The elements described so far put the emphasis on two important epistemological values for the ancient Chinese mathematics culture. The first we have to recall (as we have mentioned above) is certainly that of the general as an element of discrimination between the Western European and Eastern China, and conditions predominate for the full, mature achievement algebraic thinking. The second, also a lot of it is debated in the literature demonstrating the importance of resolving the methods discussed so far. Regarding the first matter for reflection, analysis of the Jiu-zhang Suanshu and its commentaries, highlights how each problem, the relationship between the text and the procedure that follows, which, as we have seen, is expressed natural language, is something more complex than it might appear at first sight. The procedures, as mentioned, are systematically placed in the possession of more problems and should, therefore, be made in relation to more specific contexts (quantities and values issues). Through the reading is clear then, as mentioned earlier, a continuous search for a basic algorithm, defined for classes of problems between their equivalent. In agreement with Chemla (2007) could show that each algorithm was built not only to solve a specific problem, but the concrete class of problems that this represented. In this step, from simple calculations to think arithmetically through more or less complex, at a pre-algebraic thinking through the design of a possible change of context and numerical values, it often reveals an inability to move towards greater abstraction and hence the formulation a formalized algorithm applied to infinite possible cases. An inability to define then a symbolic algebra perhaps due to a lack of interest in this activity. Important in this perspective is, as mentioned, the use of chopsticks is calculated. The observation and enforcement of the provisions of the calculations, as we have seen, show the need for strict and systematic rules which established the initial setup and future development. The development of the calculation on the area-was governed by the constraints and conditions very similar to the formalism that we follow when writing mathematical formulas (Chemla, 2004). This formalism was to provide a dynamic and precisely because of this, any position, any numeric value, was considered in our view, within the variable of thing that varies (Malisani, 2006), first step, as discussed earlier, the effective "capture" of the algebraic variable. This aspect will be central later, when examining what is the practice of teaching today's school system for Chinese primary schools, will observe how the calculation with all the sticks are now charged with small children and students immigrants, although not used in schools in our classrooms, for the calculation, since children learn these skills in the family. The second aspect that we consider interesting to point at the end of this paragraph on Jiuzhang Suanshu, analyzed, albeit in a first approximation in its epistemological value, value is the demonstration of the methods discussed in the text inconclusive. Processes which, as mentioned, have for years influenced the

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Chinese mathematical tradition and beyond28, which in our opinion, can be regarded as canon of cultural reference for their mathematical thinking.

3.2.4 Argue, and Demonstrate in Conjecturing Jiuzhang Suanshu an Example through the Algebra29
The elements described so far put the emphasis on two important epistemological values for the ancient Chinese mathematics culture. The first we have to recall (as we have mentioned above) is certainly that of the general as an element of discrimination between the Western European and Eastern China, and conditions predominate for the full, mature achievement algebraic thinking. The second, also a lot of it is debated in the literature demonstrating the importance of resolving the methods discussed so far. Regarding the first matter for reflection, analysis of the Jiu-zhang Suanshu and its commentaries, highlights how each problem, the relationship between the text and the procedure that follows, which, as we have seen, is expressed natural language, is something more complex than it might appear at first sight. The procedures, as mentioned, are systematically placed in the possession of more problems and should therefore be made in relation to more specific contexts (quantities and values issues). Through the reading is clear then, as mentioned earlier, a continuous search for a basic algorithm, defined for classes of problems between their equivalent. In agreement with Chemla (2007) could show that each algorithm was built not only to solve a specific problem, but the concrete class of problems that this represented. In this step, from simple calculations to think arithmetically through more or less complex, at a pre-algebraic thinking through the design of a possible change of context and numerical values, it often reveals an inability to move towards greater abstraction and hence the formulation a formalized algorithm applied to infinite possible cases. An inability to define then a symbolic algebra perhaps due to a lack of interest in this activity. Important in this perspective is, as mentioned, the use of chopsticks is calculated. The observation and enforcement of the provisions of the calculations, as we have seen, show the need for strict and systematic rules which established the initial setup and future development. The development of the calculation on the area-was governed by the constraints and conditions very similar to the formalism that we follow when writing mathematical formulas (Chemla, 2004). This formalism was to provide a dynamic and precisely because of this, any position, any numeric value, was considered in our view, within the variable of thing that varies (Malisani, 2006), first step, as discussed earlier , the effective "capture" of the algebraic variable. This aspect will be central later, when examining what is the practice of teaching today's school system for Chinese primary schools, will observe how the calculation with all the sticks are now charged with small children
28

There are three main cultural areas that have undergone the influence of mathematics in China: Korea, Japan and Tibet. The circumstances in which this influence manifested itself, the response and the assimilation of which enjoyed differ considerably from one area to another. (Joseph, 1991). 29 Di Paola, Spagnolo, 2008; Spagnolo, Ajello, Xiaogui, 2005; Spagnolo, Ajello, 2008.

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85

and students immigrants, although not used in schools in our classrooms, for the calculation, since children learn these skills in the family. The second aspect that we consider interesting to point at the end of this paragraph on Jiuzhang Suanshu, analyzed, albeit in a first approximation in its epistemological value, value is the demonstration of the methods discussed in the text inconclusive. Processes which, as mentioned, have for years influenced the Chinese mathematical tradition and beyond30, which in our opinion, can be regarded as canon of cultural reference for their mathematical thinking.
Problem VIII.13 There is a common well for five families. That which is lacking (in the distance of the water) to 2 ropes of A is a rope of B. That which is lacking to 3 ropes of B is like a rope of C. That which is lacking to 4 ropes of C is a rope of D. That which is lacking to 5 ropes of D is like a rope of E. That which is lacking to 6 ropes of E is like a rope of A. If each family has the rope corresponding to what lacks, all of them reach the water. The question is what is the value of the depth of the well and the length of the respective ropes.

Answer31: The depth of the well equals 7 ZHANG 2 CHI 1 CUN. The length of Jias rope is equals 2 ZHANG 6 CHI 5 CUN. The lengths of Yis rope equals 1 ZHANG 9 CHI 1 CUN. The length of Bings rope equals 1 ZHANG 4 CHI 8 CUN. The length of Dings rope equals 1 ZHANG 2 CHI 9 CUN. The length of Wus rope equals 7 CHI 6 CUN. Procedure: Liu: The first thing is to introduce the matrix. The problem is therefore a limit of five equations in six unknowns can be expressed in modern algebraic terms according to this matrix

1 0 0 0 6 1
30

0 0 0 5 1 1

0 0 4 1 0 1

0 3 1 0 0 1

2 1 0 0 0 1

There are three main cultural areas that have undergone the influence of mathematics in China: Korea, Japan and Tibet. The circumstances in which this influence manifested itself, the response and the assimilation of which enjoyed differ considerably from one area to another. (Gheverghese, 1987) 31 This has to do with the rope for getting water from the well. The ropes associated with a family must be understood as having uniform length. Note the use of the abstract series of the celestial trunks. Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding and Wu are the frist 5 of the series of celestial trunks to which one returns for the ordinals. They are equally used as letters of the alphabet in their employment as markers for the numeration.

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3 The Meta-rules between Natural Language and History of Mathematics

The resolution that gives the author of Jiuzhang Suanshu refers to the procedure of Fangcheng, seen before, to eliminate the uncertainties, and transform the matrix in:

0 0 0 721 0 0 0 721 0 0 0 0 721 0 0 0 0 0 721 0 721 0 0 0 0 76 129 148 191 1275


In conclusion, we list the results by saying that the depth of wells is 721 cun respectively, whereas the rope of the Jia family has a length of 265 cun, the Yi family of a length of 191 cun, the home of Bing length 148 cun, the home Ding a length of 129 cun and finally that of the Wu family in length of 76 cun. As is highlighted in the matrix above. The answer given is a case of infinite solutions that the system admits. Marked with x, y, z, u, v the lengths of the strings t and the depth of the well you would have: x = 265k, 191k = y, z = 148k, 129k u = v = = 76k and 721k The solution reported in the text refers to the position k = 1 It is clear that just taking a pit depth equal to 721 for the length of cord Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, fulfilling the original issue. The Jiuzhang Suanshu states then the smallest set of whole solutions that can be obtained. In agreement with Kangshen that, citing the text of commentaries on Li Huang's, speaks of arbitrary but convenient solution (Kangshen, 1999, p. 415), we believe that the choice of referring to a solution of this kind could be due to a strong connection with the reality of the same. This fact comes out, in this sense, not only in the choice of the situation/problem32 (the choice of the well as a meaningful situation) but also in the choice of the depth of the latter. 7 Zhang 2 Chi 1 Cun is a solution acceptable as the depth of a well that could be really feasible. Another famous riddles of indeterminate analysis is the problem of a hundred birds, algebraic problem is not easy33. This is, again, questions whose resolution is equivalent to that of two linear equations in the form: ax + by + cz = h x + y + z = k, which is seeking integer solutions. The first witness who finds it is in China as Shibu suanjing mentioned before. The text is presented in this form: A cock 5 qian, a hen 3 chicks, and 3 chiks 1 qian. With 100 qian will buy 100, how many cocks, hens, and chicks has. (Martzloff, 1997).
32 33

(DAmore, 2000, p.285). In the history can be defined two types of classical problems of analysis unspecified: birds of a hundred problems and issues of division of victuals (R. Franci, introduction of Alcuino Yorks book, 2005, p.20).

3.3 Conclusion

87

In modern algebraic terms is according to the system:

x + y + z = 100 5 x + 3 y + z / 3 = 100
and therefore as a solution: x = 4 +4 t, y = 18-7t, z = 78 +3 t In the solution must be considered that positive results are obtained only for t = 0, 1 and 2. The solution is also shown in this case only numerical expressed in words, reporting appropriately three possible answers numerical concrete, three sets of integers for cocks, hens and chicks: 4/18/78, 8/11/81, 12 / 4 / 84. How has achieved such results remains a mystery (Kangshen, 1999, p.415). We do not know if the reasoning used for the solution has been to trial and error (arithmetic) or prealgebra through a vision of the variability of the numerical cases tied to being positive integers. It should be pointed out, in our opinion that, even in this case, the problem is real, numerically solved, and the link context, however, is kind of different compared to that of Jiuzhang Suanshu. In this case, the choice of three options is not conveyed by the "convenience" as a numerical parameter was inferred from the choice of the depth of the well. The riddle of a hundred birds is one of the most popular pastime in the history of mathematics, they found almost similar in their dealings with Indian mathematics (the 8152 Proposition Ganita-Sara-Sangraha of Mahavira'se in Bakhshali Manuscript of the twelfth century), in 'Medieval Europe (with the works of Alcuin from York eighth century), and in the Arab (in the work of Abu Kamil in the 900 and that of al-Kashi in the XV century) and even in Liber Abaci.

3.3 Conclusion
We can conclude that the choice of the context well allows a meaningful choice essential that the algorithm in the case of the problem of a hundred birds will not be able to identify. Returning to the mathematics of China and the process demonstration that we were discussing, in this light, we can therefore say that a proposition is considered proven if the solution algorithm was correct, if it functioned within a class of significant problems. The whole structure of Jiuzhang Suanshu, seems to call this procedure and, on the other hand, encourages the search for a generally formulated in a Algebra rhetoric. We insisted on these issues, because we consider them as important epistemological values of Chinese cultural tradition in relation to the Italian. In this sense, may be important to focus on those issues in Spagnolo&Ajello 2008 are as possible similarities and differences that the algorithm takes in the two cultures. For the Chinese culture, this constant research for a fundamental algorithm and the concreteness of thought, associated on the one hand to a mathematician, social, well-defined and, to a drive to the generality, may be significant elements in conjecturing and arguing in mathematics and therefore significant for Algebra.

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3 The Meta-rules between Natural Language and History of Mathematics

Table 6. Similarities and differences between the meaning algorithm that takes in two different culture (Spagnolo, Ajello, 2008)

From the Eastern point of view Procedure. Research algoIntuitive alProcedure rithms as a basic gorithm reference A paradigmatic Algorithm Algorithm: example is the rule formalized 1. Effectiveness, actually executable by an automaton. The automaton must be able to of three: tell which parts of the minimal description of the rule of three algorithm (accept the language in which the based on the algorithm is written, well-formed sentences "quantity of what are said to instructions); you have" and the 2. Finiteness of expression over the succescouple formed by sion of instructions. Cycles, conditions, the "l of what jumps. you have" and the 3. Finiteness of the calculation: the concept "l of what one of algorithm is usually included the condiseeks" to give rise tion of termination of the procedure for any to the "quantity of situation of the initial data within a certain what you try." domain. 4. Determinism: at every step of execution of the procedure must be defined one and only one step further. Research through analogies of algoThe condition 1 is essential. The other gives rithms applicable Deterministic rise to different types of algorithms. If mis- to homogeneous Algorithm sing the 4 will be called non-deterministic classes of probalgorithm. lems. Reference to the algorithms as a real model. Approximate algorithms, probability, NPcomplete (if there is a polynomial algorithm Probabilistic that can say if this is actually solving the Algorithm fuzzy? Algorithm problem), algorithms that are arrested after a number of steps that grows exponentially. From a Western point of view

The Multiply to break down, put them together to simplify, to make uniform and equal so that they can communicate how these may be the fundamental points of mathematics? Represent strategic targets in the research for invariants in the different methods of calculation. the making equal and making homogeneous may be in view of this, indications on the algebraic manipulation, but also strategies of reference that can then realize the correctness of the reasoning by the algorithm.

3.4 How to Summarize the Role of History?

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3.4 How to Summarize the Role of History?


Wanting schematized, albeit in a non-exhaustive, as discussed at the historical and epistemological level we wanted to insert the following table to highlight the macro similarities and differences between Eurocentric and Chinese thought.
Systematization of contents Europe Argued, conjecture and demonstrate Conjecturing and arguing in semantic models. When you formalize the model, it introduces the demonstration. The demonstration is a tool with widespread use of bivalent logic in a hypothetical-deductive system. Research for "Fundamental Algorithms" defined for classes of problems (Chemla, 2007). Metarules to natural language, to algebra and to culture in general as tools demonstration and allowing generalization.

Hypothetical-deductive method of Euclidean type. The process modeling focuses on syntactic model in the hypotheticaldeductive sense.

China

Canon of "Chapter 9" as a system to generalize classes of problems in the processes of conceptual modeling. The modeling process priority conceptual maps and reasoning by analogy.

The table shows that the processes of modeling have been and are central to the systematization of knowledge in the subject. The modeling has been the only factor to interpret and make prediction on the phenomena of reality in the two cultures. But the process of modelling is different. Similarities and differences will be played in the choice of the algorithm as we have emphasized in Table 6? This for us is an open research problem.

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