Andrea Bréard
Biographic Data
| ID | 1037255 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Andrea Bréard |
| GIVEN NAMES | Andrea |
| FAMILY NAME | Bréard |
| SIGNATURE | BRÉARD A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0496-5059 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
“實如法而一”: Division and Equality in Early Chinese Mathematical Texts
This article is about an ancient Chinese phrase, shi ru fa er yi 實如法而一, a fixed multi-word expression that conceptually and prescriptively encodes the operation of division in mathematical texts at least since Han dynasty. The formulaic character of this fixed expression was most explicit in the Nine Chapters of Mathematical Procedures ( Jiu zhang suan shu 九章算術) where it was the first choice for instructing abstract division (without indication o…
Conceptualizing ‘One’ (一): Working Towards Unity
As a trained mathematician, I have a tendency to work on numbers in history in either abstract or in numerical terms.Such an approach is not easy to connect to for a sinological audience.One way to make a connection is to go beyond elementary arithmetic and look at the intellectual and cultural charge of numbers.Similar to many languages in the world, numbers display a variety of meanings in Chinese and other East Asian languages that borrowed th…
Inscriptions in Texts Epistemic Encounters in Giovanni Vacca’s Sinological Library: Epistemic Encounters in Giovanni Vacca’s Sinological Library
This article considers texts in G. Vacca’s (1872‐1953) library as vertices in a sinological network. I analyse his annotations inscribed into books, offprints, maps, brochures, which he mainly collected during his sojourn in China (1907‐08). Focusing on mathematical books, I argue that inscriptions and printed texts together not only materialise Vacca’s turn from mathematics to sinology but also produce new forms of knowledge that resulted from t…
Spaces of Circulation: Knowledge Production Between China and the West
Due to a combination of academic, geopolitical, and economic factors, research into the production of new knowledge in and about China has significantly accelerated around the verge of the twenty-first century. Most studies on the period of the early Christian mission in China were based on the assumption that it were the very same actors – mainly missionaries and a very limited number of Chinese scholar-officials – who played an important role f…
"The (Local) Rise and (Global) Fall of the "Coefficient of Racial Likeness
Casting Away Doubt (Jueyi 決疑) or The Taming of Chance: Some Remarks on Equiprobability in Divination Techniques in Imperial China
This article addresses the ways in which chance was rationalized, in particular through empirical observations of the outcomes of cleromantic divination procedures and mathematical theory in imperial China. It is shown that the non-existence of a theory of probability is not a relevant historical problem for the case of China. By looking at the theoretical probabilities with which certain results could be obtained, the example of Yijing divinatio…
Arunabh Ghosh, Making it Count: Statistics and Statecraft in the Early People’s Republic of China
International audience
Charlotte-V Pollet, The Empty and the Full: Li Ye and the Way of Mathematics. Geometrical Procedures by Sections of Areas
International audience
Wu Dingliang (1894–1969) and the Statistical Definition of a Chinese Race
Chinese characteristics began to be defined in quantitative terms in the early twentieth century. This allowed comparisons and provided scientific answers in the search for the relative position of the Chinese in the historical evolution of human beings and the origins of mankind, thereby challenging earlier culturally defined notions of a Chinese race. By focusing upon the scientific work and network of Wu Dingliang 吳定良 (1894–1969), this contrib…
What Diagrams Argue in Late Imperial Chinese Combinatorial Texts
Attitudes towards diagrammatic reasoning and visualization in mathematics were seldom spelled out in texts from pre-modern China, although illustrations figure prominently in mathematical literature since the eleventh century. Taking the sums of finite series and their combinatorial interpretation as a case study, this article investigates the epistemological function of illustrations from the eleventh to the nineteenth century that encode either…
Robert Hart and China's Statistical Revolution
In 1890 Robert Hart was elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. Hart had sent copies of the statistical publications of the Maritime Customs Service regularly to the Society, but he himself was no statistician. He did publish one piece in the Journal of the Statistical Society of London, but this was no more than an extract of a conclusion Hart wrote to reports written by the Commissioners at China's Treaty Ports on local opium …
Robert Hart and China's Statistical Revolution
In 1890 Robert Hart was elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. Hart had sent copies of the statistical publications of the Maritime Customs Service regularly to the Society, but he himself was no statistician. He did publish one piece in the Journal of the Statistical Society of London, but this was no more than an extract of a conclusion Hart wrote to reports written by the Commissioners at China's Treaty Ports on local opium …
Wu Dingliang (1894–1969) and the Statistical Definition of a Chinese Race
Chinese characteristics began to be defined in quantitative terms in the early twentieth century. This allowed comparisons and provided scientific answers in the search for the relative position of the Chinese in the historical evolution of human beings and the origins of mankind, thereby challenging earlier culturally defined notions of a Chinese race. By focusing upon the scientific work and network of Wu Dingliang 吳定良 (1894–1969), this contrib…
Robert Hart and China's Statistical Revolution
In 1890 Robert Hart was elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. Hart had sent copies of the statistical publications of the Maritime Customs Service regularly to the Society, but he himself was no statistician. He did publish one piece in the Journal of the Statistical Society of London, but this was no more than an extract of a conclusion Hart wrote to reports written by the Commissioners at China's Treaty Ports on local opium …
What Diagrams Argue in Late Imperial Chinese Combinatorial Texts
Attitudes towards diagrammatic reasoning and visualization in mathematics were seldom spelled out in texts from pre-modern China, although illustrations figure prominently in mathematical literature since the eleventh century. Taking the sums of finite series and their combinatorial interpretation as a case study, this article investigates the epistemological function of illustrations from the eleventh to the nineteenth century that encode either…
Arunabh Ghosh, Making it Count: Statistics and Statecraft in the Early People’s Republic of China
International audience
Charlotte-V Pollet, The Empty and the Full: Li Ye and the Way of Mathematics. Geometrical Procedures by Sections of Areas
International audience
Wu Dingliang (1894–1969) and the Statistical Definition of a Chinese Race
Chinese characteristics began to be defined in quantitative terms in the early twentieth century. This allowed comparisons and provided scientific answers in the search for the relative position of the Chinese in the historical evolution of human beings and the origins of mankind, thereby challenging earlier culturally defined notions of a Chinese race. By focusing upon the scientific work and network of Wu Dingliang 吳定良 (1894–1969), this contrib…
Casting Away Doubt (Jueyi 決疑) or The Taming of Chance: Some Remarks on Equiprobability in Divination Techniques in Imperial China
This article addresses the ways in which chance was rationalized, in particular through empirical observations of the outcomes of cleromantic divination procedures and mathematical theory in imperial China. It is shown that the non-existence of a theory of probability is not a relevant historical problem for the case of China. By looking at the theoretical probabilities with which certain results could be obtained, the example of Yijing divinatio…
Inscriptions in Texts Epistemic Encounters in Giovanni Vacca’s Sinological Library: Epistemic Encounters in Giovanni Vacca’s Sinological Library
This article considers texts in G. Vacca’s (1872‐1953) library as vertices in a sinological network. I analyse his annotations inscribed into books, offprints, maps, brochures, which he mainly collected during his sojourn in China (1907‐08). Focusing on mathematical books, I argue that inscriptions and printed texts together not only materialise Vacca’s turn from mathematics to sinology but also produce new forms of knowledge that resulted from t…
Spaces of Circulation: Knowledge Production Between China and the West
Due to a combination of academic, geopolitical, and economic factors, research into the production of new knowledge in and about China has significantly accelerated around the verge of the twenty-first century. Most studies on the period of the early Christian mission in China were based on the assumption that it were the very same actors – mainly missionaries and a very limited number of Chinese scholar-officials – who played an important role f…
"The (Local) Rise and (Global) Fall of the "Coefficient of Racial Likeness
“實如法而一”: Division and Equality in Early Chinese Mathematical Texts
This article is about an ancient Chinese phrase, shi ru fa er yi 實如法而一, a fixed multi-word expression that conceptually and prescriptively encodes the operation of division in mathematical texts at least since Han dynasty. The formulaic character of this fixed expression was most explicit in the Nine Chapters of Mathematical Procedures ( Jiu zhang suan shu 九章算術) where it was the first choice for instructing abstract division (without indication o…
Conceptualizing ‘One’ (一): Working Towards Unity
As a trained mathematician, I have a tendency to work on numbers in history in either abstract or in numerical terms.Such an approach is not easy to connect to for a sinological audience.One way to make a connection is to go beyond elementary arithmetic and look at the intellectual and cultural charge of numbers.Similar to many languages in the world, numbers display a variety of meanings in Chinese and other East Asian languages that borrowed th…
China (6 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · History (4 works) · Archaeology (3 works) · Economics (3 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · History and Theory of Mathematics (3 works) · History of China (3 works) · Mathematics (3 works) · Philosophy (3 works)