Jade Mirror Of The Four Unknowns
''Jade Mirror of the Four Unknowns'', ''Siyuan yujian'' (), also referred to as ''Jade Mirror of the Four Origins'', is a 1303 mathematical monograph by Yuan dynasty mathematician Zhu Shijie. Zhu advanced Chinese algebra with this Magnum opus. The book consists of an introduction and three books, with a total of 288 problems. The first four problems in the introduction illustrate his method of the four unknowns. He showed how to convert a problem stated verbally into a system of polynomial equations (up to the 14th order), by using up to four unknowns: 天 Heaven, 地 Earth, 人 Man, 物 Matter, and then how to reduce the system to a single polynomial equation in one unknown by successive elimination of unknowns. He then solved the high-order equation by Southern Song dynasty mathematician Qin Jiushao's "Ling long kai fang" method published in Shùshū Jiǔzhāng (“Mathematical Treatise in Nine Sections”) in 1247 (more than 570 years before English mathematician William Ho ...
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