July 31, 2004
Japanese Temple Geometry. During Japan's period of national seclusion (1639--1854), native mathematics thrived, as evidenced in sangaku--wooden tablets engraved with geometry problems hung under the roofs of shrines and temples. Also check out these sangaku problems.
The second link does not work, alas.
These are pretty cool. My first-year calculus prof taught a couple of lessons on sangaku, and we solved one of the problems in class.
Sangaku problems?
PS: nice link!
Ta, PF.
And it was the third one down that we did.
[banana, which circles inscribed on it, and also ellipses inside the circles]
Thanks for the corrected link, PF. (Must remind self to hit preview more often.)
A clickable map of Sangaku from various parts of Japan is available here.
Nice post - I'd never heard of them before.
PS. I found the above link at the rather good Mathematics Museum (BACKGROUND MIDI!).
Heard this on the radio a while ago. There's a new book out
Title: Sacred Mathematics: Japanese Temple Geometry
Author: Fukagawa Hidetoshi and Tony Rothman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN 978 0 691 12745 3
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