The cooperation research by Hunan University, Tsinghua University and Fudan University on “the world’s earliest decimal multiplication table founded on the bamboo slips of the Warring States Period” has been listed in the recently released 2014 Hunan’s Top Ten Science and Technology News.

In 2014, the researchers of the three universities found the world’s earliest decimal multiplication table from a large number of bamboo slips dating back to the Warring States Period (770-476 BC), among which 21 bamboo slips could be used in the tables as well as complex mathematical calculations, such as extracting a root. The research has caused a sensation in the academic circle at home and abroad and has been praised as “an important discovery in the history of Chinese mathematics as well as the world”.

This research was organized by the Research and Conservation Center for Excavated Texts. Prof. Chen Songchang from HNU, also the chief scientist in the bamboosilk Research organization of the Center, and Dr. Xiao Can, a backbone for scientific research in HNU, devoted towards relevant research, found the evidence of the application of the multiplication tables from the bamboo slips collected in Yuelu Academy which can be dated back to Qin Dynasty (221-207BC), and accordingly inferred that such tables might have been used as an official calculator in Qin Dynasty.

In January 2014, Tsinghua University as the collector of the Warring States Period bamboo slips, published the research results for the first time. In March, experts from USA and Japan, as well as Chinese institutions like Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University, gathered in Beijing for a seminar at which they agreed that the conclusion that the decimal multiplication tables is the earliest practical calculation methods in China. The Nature Magazine gave detailed report on the founding and titled it as “world’s oldest decimal times table”.

Translated by Chen Xintong