On the history of indeterminate problems of the first degree in Greek mathematics

Jean Christianidis

pp. 237-247

in: Kostas Gavroglu, Jean Christianidis, Efthymios Nicolaidis (eds), Trends in the historiography of science, Berlin, Springer, 1994

Abstract

One of the most interesting issues in the early history of algebra is that of the formation of the methods for solving the first-degree indeterminate equations. In the traditional historiography such methods are primarily associated with the Chinese and the Indian mathematical traditions. The fact that the Remainder Theorem is commonly called "Chinese Remainder Theorem" in almost all the textbooks on Number Theory, strikingly expresses the traditional viewpoint. The same holds about the so called problem of the "hundred fowls", the origins of which are also reduced to the Chinese mathematical tradition.¹