Seki

Takakazu Seki Kowa

Born: 1642 in Fujioka, Japan
Died: 24 Oct 1708 in Edo (now Tokyo), Japan

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Takakazu Seki was born into a samurai warrior family, he was an infant prodigy in mathematics. He was the first person to study determinants in 1683. Ten years later Leibniz, independently, used determinants to solve simultaneous equations although Seki's version was the more general.

Seki also discovered Bernoulli numbers before Jacob Bernoulli. Secrecy surrounded the schools in Japan so it is hard to determine the contributions made by Seki, but he is also credited with major discoveries in the calculus which he passed on to his pupils.

References elsewhere in this archive:

Tell me more about Seki's work on determinants

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  3. Y Mikami, The Development of Mathematics in China and Japan (Leipzig-New York, 1913).
  4. K Yosida, A brief Biography of Takakazu Seki (1642?-1708), Mathematical Intelligencer 3 (1981), 121-122. 
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JOC/EFR February 1996