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Synapses are located in our central nervous system where nerve cells connect with each other. “Sin-aps” aims at making connections in our research which bring Chinese studies closer to the world of numbers.
Since the 1st of February 2021 Prof. Dr. Andrea Bréard is holder of the Chair of Sinology with a Focus on the Intellectual and Cultural History of China (Alexander von Humboldt-Professor) and Director of the IKGF (International Consortium for Research in the Humanities “Fate, Freedom and Prognostication”). Her research interests lie at the intersection of the mathematical sciences and sinology, both in history and in present times. Generously supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation her team conducts research on quantification in China (and its global repercussions), the epistemological aspects of algorithmic mathematics and their cultural transformations, as well as numerical techniques of prediction.
Conceptual Engineering in the World History of Mathematics. New Approaches to Pre-Modern Science
2–3 December 2025 @FAU (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg), Germany
Organizers: Prof. Dr. Andrea Bréard, Ruqing Fei, Eva Henke, and Florian Keßler
As KITCHER (1984, 168) has observed, ...
From June 10 to June 13, 2025, the sin-aps group The language of algorithmic mathematics is organising a four-day Master Class, which aims at analysing the migration of mathematical language from Greek to Chinese via Latin. The Master Class brings together scholars and young researchers who have com...
Since its inception, ChatGPT has been increasingly getting better at solving mathematical problems, with current iterations even surpassing the ability of most humans according to OpenAI. But does this ability also extend to pre-modern Chinese mathematics, which uses a language that differs signific...
Andrea Bréard and Stefan Christ have recently edited a Special Issue of the Journal of the European Association for Chinese Studies. It focuses on the increasing efforts to quantify the Chinese population beginning in the twentieth century. The introduction explains how it does not understand number...
