Seki Takakazu

Seki Takakazu (born c. 1640, Fujioka, Japan—died October 24, 1708, Edo [now Tokyo]) was the most important figure of the wasan (“Japanese calculation”) tradition (see mathematics, East Asian: Japan in the 17th century) that flourished from the early 17th century until the opening of Japan to the West in the mid-19th century. Seki was instrumental in recovering neglected and forgotten mathematical knowledge from ancient Chinese sources and then extending and generalizing the main problems.

Little is known about Seki’s life and intellectual formation. He was the second son of Nagaakira Uchiyama, a samurai; he was adopted at an early age by Seki Gorōzaemon, a samurai official with the Bureau of Supply in Edo, to carry on the Seki family name. Seki Takakazu assumed various positions as an examiner of accounts for the lord of Kōfu, Tokugawa Tsunashige (until 1678), and then his son, the future shogun Tokugawa Ienobu (see Tokugawa period). The functions that he carried out were relatively modest, although some anecdotes mention special rewards conferred on him; even though some of these accounts may be disputed, they do suggest that his scientific and technical skills were encouraged.

The exact source of Seki’s early education is unknown, but, as a resident of Edo, the political and cultural centre of the times, he was well placed for access to the latest publications, and his first writings testify to an uncommon knowledge of contemporary mathematics. Zhu Shijie’s Suanxue qimeng (1299; “Introduction to Mathematical Science”), Yang Hui’s Yang Hui suanfa (13th century; “Yang Hui’s Mathematical Methods”), and Cheng Dawei’s Suanfa tongzong (1592; “Systematic Treatise on Arithmetic”) were among the Chinese treatises that inspired him.

Seki’s most productive research was in algebra, a field in which he created powerful new tools and provided many definitive solutions. A concern for generality can be observed throughout his work, especially in his way of reformulating and extending traditional problems. He substituted a tabular notational system for the cumbersome Chinese method of counting rods (see mathematics, East Asian: The Nine Chapters), thereby simplifying the handling of equations in more than one unknown. In his Kaifukudai no hō (1683; “Method for Solving Concealed Problems”) he described some important properties related to such computations. Another topic of Seki’s research was the extraction of roots (solutions) of higher-degree polynomial equations; in Kaiindai no hō (1685; “Method for Solving Hidden Problems”) he described an ancient Chinese method for obtaining a root and extended the method to get all the real roots of the equation.

Because of his disciples’ zealous diffusion of his work, Seki had an immediate impact on his contemporaries. In particular, Takebe Katahiro and his brother Kataaki helped to deepen and consolidate Seki’s work, making it difficult now to apportion credit properly. The publication of Katsuyō sanpō (1712; “Compendium of Mathematics”), containing Seki’s research on the measure of circle and arc, is due to another disciple who used this work to open a Seki School of Mathematics—a prestigious centre that attracted the best mathematicians in the country until the 19th century.