Determinants
Determinantes
- Date
- 1683 · confidence high
- Place
- Edo (Tokyo), Japan
- Credited to
- Seki Takakazu (Kaifukudai no ho); Leibniz (letter to L'Hôpital, 1693, independent)
- People
- 👤 Gottfried Leibniz1646–1716👤 Seki Kōwa1642–1708
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
A rule for eliminating unknowns in systems of equations using a quantity calculated from the coefficients, a forerunner of the determinant. Seki also found the Bernoulli numbers before Bernoulli and developed Japanese wasan mathematics.
An independent discovery in Japan and Europe; the systematic theory is due to Vandermonde, Laplace and Cauchy (18th-19th centuries).
What it led to
- linear algebra
- Cramer's rule (1750)
- matrix theory (Cayley, 1858)
Built on
- Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Artc. 150 BCE - 100 CE
- The Nine Chapters (fangcheng method)