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Wang Xiaotong
Early Tang official mathematician whose Continuation of Ancient Mathematics set up and solved cubic equations for engineering and astronomical problems
In a calculation room, a wide table holds a board of black and yellow counting rods laid in neat bundles, beside an abacus, a ruler and a sheet with a circle divided into equal parts; one person sits at a far desk with their back turned, and terraced fields lie outside.
Also known as Tang Chu Tong Zhi Lang Tai Shi Cheng
Wang Xiaotong left no record of his birth, death or home; he was active at the end of the Sui and the start of the Tang, when he served as an erudite of mathematics and calendar. In 623 he and Zu Xiaosun of the Ministry of Personnel were ordered to examine the Wuyin calendar drawn up by Fu Renjun, and they pointed out a number of errors. In 626 he was promoted to assistant director of the Astronomical Bureau, later receiving a court rank. His Continuation of Ancient Mathematics (Jigu suanjing), a single chapter of twenty problems, deals with astronomical reckoning and with volumes and dimensions in building dikes, granaries and pits, setting up cubic equations and finding their positive roots; it is the earliest surviving work to treat cubic equations systematically. In presenting it he offered a thousand pieces of gold to anyone who could change a single character, and the Tang mathematics school made it a set text with three years of study.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; early Tang