The history of Vietnamese mathematics

Historical records regarding state examinations in computation are sparse. Metropolitan examinations took place in 1077, 1261, 1363, 1403 or 1404, 1477, 1507 and 1762, yet the contents of all but one remain unknown.1 The surviving records fix the dates of these examinations but not their contents. Mathematics was examined sporadically across seven centuries. Candidates' specific test questions have not survived, and 1762 marks the last examination named in historical documents.1

Multiple conflicts caused the destruction of written collections over time. Champa forces burned the capital in 1371. Vietnamese library holdings may have been confiscated and transported to China during the occupation of 1407 to 1427, an assertion that historian Alexei Volkov maintains in the conditional voice.1 Although two consecutive decrees of the early Lê dynasty dispatched officials nationwide to locate ancient texts, surviving records contain no mention of mathematical works found during those searches. Later warfare in the capital during 1516 and 1592 destroyed numerous additional manuscripts.1 Volkov identifies these destructive events as primary factors behind the scarce record, noting that none specifically targeted mathematical works.

Surviving mathematical works from this period remain rare. In 2013, Nguyễn Xuân Diện of the Institute of Hán-Nôm Studies and Tạ Duy Phượng of the Institute of Mathematics surveyed two collections, the Institute of Hán-Nôm Studies and the National Library of Vietnam, and cataloged twenty-two Hán-Nôm mathematical texts, including thirteen in Hán and nine combining Hán and Nôm.3 That figure is a count of two specific libraries at a single point in time rather than a global inventory. Volkov's independent account confirms that same total of twenty-two.4 These texts address pragmatic concerns, including abacus arithmetic, land measurement, construction, astronomy, tidal patterns, and Nguyễn dynasty tax policies.3 Publication dates appear on select items, such as an 1820 text by Phan Huy Khuông, an 1829 volume by Nguyễn Hữu Thận, and two 1909 works authored by Nguyễn Cẩn and Đỗ Đức Tộ.4

The manuscript Lập thành toán pháp illustrates these attribution difficulties clearly. Preserved as an undated text in Hán within the Hán-Nôm library, it begins with basic arithmetic operations and multiplication tables before expanding into plane geometry.4 Textual evidence shows that the work is anonymous.4 Although common reference connects the text to Vũ Hữu and Lương Thế Vinh, physical catalog descriptions confirm neither attribution.

Attribution challenges appear even more prominently in the most famous mathematical treatise of the era. Scholars cite this single work under two title variants, Toán pháp đại thành and Đại thành toán pháp, with the Vietnamese Wikipedia entry adopting the latter.29 Two copies survive under shelfmarks A 2931 and VHv 1152.2 While Lương Thế Vinh's name appears on the opening page of both physical copies, formal attribution rests solely on those inscriptions. Volkov concluded that "the text of the treatise does not contain any information proving that the manuscript found in the Han-Nom Institute in Hanoi was indeed authored by Lương Thế Vinh", suggesting that both the title and authorship "may have been due to later editors or copyists".2 Indeed, his 2006 research paper examines the historical formation of a "mathematical hagiography" surrounding Lương Thế Vinh (1441-1496?), complete with the question mark.5 Traditional claims deserve record alongside the critical evidence refuting them.

A small international network of researchers has examined these early texts over several decades. Chinese historian of science Han Qi provided the initial systematic survey of surviving Vietnamese astronomical and mathematical manuscripts in 1991.1 Decades earlier, Japanese math historian Mikami Yoshio published an analysis of the treatise Chỉ minh toán pháp in a 1934 issue of Gakkō sūgaku (volume 14). Volkov later analyzed Mikami's paper in a book chapter and continues his research on historical mathematics at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan.5 Vietnamese scholars Hà Huy Khoái and Tạ Duy Phượng actively produce research in this discipline and have collaborated with him.12 Current locations of these manuscripts and recent cataloging efforts are detailed in the Vietnamese mathematical record.

Dismantling the traditional examination structure occurred incrementally. Nam Định hosted the final regional examination in Tonkin in 1915.6 Four years later, Huế held the last court examination in April 1919.7 The colonial administration replaced these civil tests with a Franco-Vietnamese school network, instituted under the Règlement général de l'instruction publique on 21 December 1917.8 Primary instruction delivered the first three years of schooling in quốc ngữ, whereas the final two years required instruction and testing in French.9 Students encountered mathematical concepts through a Latin writing system within a European curricular framework.

Options for advanced mathematics remained strictly limited locally. Authorities established the University of Indochina on 16 May 1906 and opened classes on 1 November 1907 with general mathematics in its curriculum.10 When student Lê Văn Thiêm enrolled, he pursued a general science degree because no specialized mathematics degree existed at the university.11 While this fact describes his personal academic path rather than every institutional offering across Indochina, it illustrates why foreign study became necessary. Beginning in 1930, selected students traveled to France for advanced mathematical training. Hoàng Xuân Hãn attended the École polytechnique in 1930 and the Sorbonne in 1936; Nguyễn Xiển studied at Toulouse between 1927 and 1932; Nguyễn Thúc Hào worked at Marseille from 1929 to 1933; and Lê Văn Thiêm gained admission to the École normale supérieure in 1939.12

Efforts to produce Vietnamese-language educational texts actually preceded these institutional reforms. Trương Vĩnh Ký published an early primary textbook, Manuel des écoles primaires, ou Simples notions sur les sciences, which was printed by the government press in Saigon in 1876.13 Bibliographies occasionally attribute a second work to him, Sách dạy làm tính, identifying it as the earliest printed quốc ngữ mathematics textbook. Library catalog searches conducted in July 2026 yielded no physical records or title pages for that volume, omitting both the book and the priority claim from this page.

Creating a standardized technical vocabulary proved essential for national instruction. Following studies at the École polytechnique from 1930 to 1932, Hoàng Xuân Hãn took up this linguistic task.14 He compiled and published Danh từ khoa học in 1942, establishing the first formal Vietnamese dictionary of scientific terminology.15 Teaching mathematical concepts in the national language required agreed terms for complex abstract ideas. Serving as Minister of Education and Fine Arts in the brief Trần Trọng Kim administration of 1945, Hoàng Xuân Hãn directed the official replacement of French by Vietnamese across the national school curriculum.14

Historical investigation into how this language shift affected mathematical writing specifically remains in its early stages. A 2025 research paper in Tạp chí Hán Nôm characterizes its findings modestly as "some initial surveys on transition process of Vietnamese mathematics from mathematics books written in Chinese and Nom characters to mathematics books written in Quoc Ngu".16 Eight decades after those educational policies took effect, scholarly analysis of the transition remains preliminary.

Lê Văn Thiêm was born on 29 March 1918 and died on 3 July 1991.17 He completed a doctoral degree at Göttingen under advisor Hans Wittich. During Alexandre Grothendieck's visit to North Vietnam in 1967, Lê Văn Thiêm remained the only Vietnamese scholar holding a formal doctorate in mathematics, yet Grothendieck observed an active mathematical community operating despite wartime hardships.18 Returning to his home country, Lê Văn Thiêm led efforts to organize the Faculty of Sciences alongside the Institute of Mathematics.18

Administrative records show a discrepancy between the founding charter of the Institute of Mathematics and its official operational start. Prime Minister Phạm Văn Đồng signed Decision 25/CP creating the body on 5 February 1969. Operations commenced in 1970 with Lê Văn Thiêm serving as deputy director in charge, before his promotion to director in 1975 and Hoàng Tụy's appointment as director in 1980.19 English Wikipedia claims that Lê Văn Thiêm became director in 1970, a statement repeated across many secondary English sources.30 Official institutional archives contradict that timeline, and the account here follows the Institute.

Hoàng Tụy lived from 7 December 1927 to 14 July 2019, advancing original research in global optimisation.20 He earned his doctorate at Moscow University under Vladimir Menshov and Georgiy Shilov. In 1964, he introduced a mathematical formulation later called the Tuy cut inside a short paper titled Concave programming under linear constraints.20

Academic publishing expanded alongside institutional growth. Founded in 1964 under a former title, Acta Mathematica Vietnamica reached volume 10 in 1974 before assuming its current name in 1976.31 Lê Văn Thiêm served as editor-in-chief from 1964 through 1983.21 Although Wikipedia credits him with founding both that publication and Vietnam Journal of Mathematics, available archival sources do not confirm those founding claims.30 Meanwhile, national teams entered the International Mathematical Olympiad for the first time in 1974.22 Reflecting on conditions during the 1970s and 1980s, Ngô Bảo Châu noted that local scholars were "mostly trained in the USSR and eastern european countries, lived and worked in spartan conditions with very limited connection with the West".18

Describing academic conditions following reunification, Ngô Bảo Châu wrote that "the 90' has been a dark period for vietnamese mathematics: people quit doing research, no more PhD students, degraded quality of teaching in Universities".18 His personal narrative reflects the professional struggles of that decade. He later earned the 2010 Fields Medal after proving the Fundamental Lemma in the theory of automorphic forms.23

Government policy sought to reverse this decline through targeted institution building. Officials founded VIASM under Decision 2342/QĐ-TTg on 23 December 2010, opening the institute on 1 June 2011 as the cornerstone of a new national mathematics initiative.24 State officials extended this master plan for the period 2021 through 2030 under Decision 2200/QĐ-TTg on 22 December 2020, placing oversight with the Ministry of Education and Training.25 Publication numbers grew steadily during this period, rising from roughly 300 MathSciNet-indexed papers in 2010 to 767 papers by 2019 according to official reporting.26 Authors of the SciMath survey trace the start of modern Vietnamese mathematics research to Lê Văn Thiêm's first foreign paper in 1947.27 Active institutions operating within this modern framework appear on mathematics research in Vietnam.

Prominent researchers also emphasize necessary distinctions between competition scores and research capacity. Ngô Bảo Châu observed that high performance at student Olympiads has "been sometimes misleading about the overall ranking of vietnamese mathematics".18 Strong performance on a six-problem student exam does not automatically demonstrate a fully developed academic research infrastructure.

Institutional support for historical scholarship remains less established than active scientific research. As of July 2026 our searches found no department, institute or research centre in Vietnam dedicated to the history of mathematics. Nevertheless, the Institute of Mathematics organizes an ongoing seminar covering historical developments and mathematics pedagogy, led by chair Phùng Hồ Hải and secretary Tạ Duy Phượng.28 Beyond independent publications by individual academics, the existing archival evidence consists of twenty-two manuscripts surveyed in 2013, an anonymously authored foundational treatise, and a script shift documented in 2025 as being under preliminary survey. VietAlpha digitizes these primary sources to inform modern school curricula.