A Tool for Mapping Ancient Mathematical Expressions
This ongoing digital humanities experiment investigates how mathematical reasoning, as expressed through numerical and operational expressions, was shaped and articulated through symbolic correspondences, classificatory schemes, textual structures, and broader cultural frameworks in pre-modern Chinese and Sanskrit astral contexts.
Current focus
At its current stage, the project is implemented using a graph database backend (Neo4j), in which numerical values, mathematical operations, symbolic associations are modeled as nodes and relationships.
This graph-based structure enables nodes to function as anchors to specific textual passages, situating mathematical and symbolic expressions in their concrete contexts and, as the corpora expand, serving as centers for comparison that link and juxtapose their expressions across multiple texts and traditions.
About the author
This project is maintained by Lingyue Ma, a graduate student at FU Berlin.
It developed through two courses taught by Dr. Christian D. Casey: Digital Humanities and Data Sustainability: A Hands-on Practical Approach and Manuscripts and Digital Humanities: Editing, Encoding, and Analyzing Ancient Texts.
I’m always happy to exchange ideas, feel free to get in touch!
