Chén Jìnmó 陳藎謨
Style name Xiànkě 獻可, sobriquet Zàigōng 在公. Native of Xiùshuǐ 秀水 (Jiāxìng 嘉興 prefecture, Zhèjiāng). Fl. late Wànlì through Chóngzhēn (c. 1610–c. 1650). Birth and death years not securely recorded; CBDB id 131036 confirms the name and dynasty but supplies no dates.
A late-Míng mathematical scholar specializing in surveying-and-instrumentation and root-extraction methodology. His mathematical career was in the immediate aftermath of the early Jesuit-translation period (after Ricci, Schreck, Schall) but largely outside the Beijing-based Jesuit collaborative circle of 徐光啟 and 李之藻. His mathematical work belongs instead to the lower-Yangzi independent tradition that absorbed and re-presented the imported European mathematical content for a wider Chinese audience.
His principal surviving works:
(1) The Dùcè 度測 (KR3fc030) in 6 juàn — the survey-and-measurement treatise.
(2) The Dùsuàn jiě 度算解 (KR3fc031) — supplementary commentary on the Dùcè’s computational procedures, treating the proportional-divider instrument (the bǐlìguī 比例規 / Galilean compasso proporzionale).
(3) The Kāipíngfāng shuō 開平方說 (KR3fc032) — exposition of the square-root extraction procedure.
(4) The Kāilìfāng shuō 開立方說 (KR3fc033) — exposition of the cube-root extraction procedure.
Through these works, Chén Jìnmó systematizes a particular aspect of late-Míng / Chóng-zhēn-era mathematical pedagogy: the integration of imported European instrument-based surveying methods (the proportional-divider, the jiǎnpíng yí 簡平儀 simple-flat astrolabe, etc.) with the indigenous kāifāng (root-extraction) computational tradition. His expositions are presented as practical pedagogy for the working mathematician, not as theoretical innovation, but they document the mid-Chóng-zhēn level of integrated Sino-European mathematical practice. The series was repeatedly cited in Qīng mathematical works, including those of 梅文鼎 Méi Wéndǐng, who treated Chén Jìnmó as an important late-Míng predecessor.