Question:
what is the history of mathematics?
sasha
2007-04-20 20:54:50 UTC
why were the formulaes invented?what is the main purpose solving the problems?
Eleven answers:
Boof
2007-04-20 20:59:13 UTC
Read for yourself and see if you can find an answer.
2007-04-20 21:08:31 UTC
The evolution of mathematics might be seen as an ever-increasing series of abstractions, or alternatively an expansion of subject matter. The first abstraction was probably that of numbers. The realization that two apples and two oranges have something in common was a breakthrough in human thought. In addition to recognizing how to count physical objects, prehistoric peoples also recognized how to count abstract quantities, like time — days, seasons, years. Arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division), naturally followed. Monolithic monuments testify to knowledge of geometry.



Further steps need writing or some other system for recording numbers such as tallies or the knotted strings called quipu used by the Inca empire to store numerical data. Numeral systems have been many and diverse.



From the beginnings of recorded history, the major disciplines within mathematics arose out of the need to do calculations relating to taxation and commerce, to understand the relationships among numbers, to measure land, and to predict astronomical events. These needs can be roughly related to the broad subdivision of mathematics, into the studies of quantity, structure, space, and change.



Mathematics has since been greatly extended, and there has been a fruitful interaction between mathematics and science, to the benefit of both. Mathematical discoveries have been made throughout history and continue to be made today. According to Mikhail B. Sevryuk, in the January 2006 issue of the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, "The number of papers and books included in the Mathematical Reviews database since 1940 (the first year of operation of MR) is now more than 1.9 million, and more than 75 thousand items are added to the database each year. The overwhelming majority of works in this ocean contain new mathematical theorems and their proofs."





the purpose of maths is to solve applied problems.



you need maths and very complex maths when making cars, planes, buildings, computers etc etc etc, you think we have reached this far without maths????



if maths would have not there, without it was immpossible to make a super fast pc on which u can ask questions on yahoo answers because a pc needs to do millions of calculations to dp this stuff.
dwinbaycity
2007-04-20 21:03:53 UTC
Engineering,archetecture,navigation, weights and measures,curency and the list goes on.



The Origins of Mathematics.



Like every other aspect of human invention, mathematics has its origin, and like every technology, and mathematics is at least partly that, its origin is based upon needs of mankind. The particular needs are those arising from the wants of society. The more complex the society, the more complex the needs. The primitive tribe has little mathematical needs beyond counting. The complex society intent on building great temples, mustering conquering armies, or managing large capital assets has logistical problems that demand mathematics to solve.



Long before Pythagoras considered proving the famous theorem named after him, others tackled the just-as-complex operation of counting. You will see that for some the concept of two times two equals fours is advanced beyond comprehension, while for others counting past three is very complex. That counting began more than 50,000 years ago and many peoples even today and even in complex societies have trouble counting suggests that its creation was not as simple as we may believe.



The Origins of Mathematics

Goals

Readings

Problems



In most cases the reading will be presented in the form of Acrobat (PDF) documents. To read and print them you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader.



The Goals and Problems will be given as HTML documents.
iknowu2jan
2007-04-20 21:00:13 UTC
crazy people thought that using number would tell everything in this world. So a bunch of crazy people thought up of a bunch of equation and formula to prove that math can predict the out come in future.



Plus math is used to simplified life by giving equation and formula so we can calculate a problem. An understanding of what we don't know.
sitzman
2016-10-13 06:16:38 UTC
How approximately Albert Einstein ... one equation very nearly anybody has heard of: E=mc² the place E = potential, m = mass and c = velocity of sunshine Einstein found the courting between potential and mass. This formula added approximately experiments with nuclear reactions (the Manhatten undertaking) and finally the form of the atom bomb. Einstein wrote a letter to the President urging him to boost an atom bomb in the previous Germany or Japan did. think of how historic past may well be diverse if we had had "the" bomb dropped on us as a substitute individuals dropping the bomb ... sturdy success on your undertaking. **** basically observed somebody else recommend Fibonacci ... the Fibonacci sequence is very cool ... even suggested in the DaVinci code.
2007-04-21 13:11:01 UTC
the history of mathematics? why Pythagoras of course. he was More than just a theorem you were taught in middle school... take a look
veenu s
2007-04-20 21:16:54 UTC
history of math is as old as adam and eve, they were surprised to see their baby and first addition started.You i seem to be my kind of guy but dear take it easy as i did its an important part of life as i realised and it have to be taken seriously to grow in future.if u cant love math no problem but at least dont hate it .
2007-04-24 07:09:49 UTC
Go to www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/

www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/university/scit/maths/history.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mathematics

www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/Links/ and search as many you want...........
2007-04-21 01:22:38 UTC
Long before the earliest written records, there are drawings that indicate a knowledge of mathematics and of measurement of time based on the stars. For example, paleontologists have discovered ochre rocks in a cave in South Africa adorned with scratched geometric patterns dating back to c. 70,000 BC.[2] Also prehistoric artifacts discovered in Africa and France, dated between 35,000 BC and 20,000 BC,[3] indicate early attempts to quantify time.[4]



Evidence exists that early counting involved women who kept records of their monthly biological cycles; twenty-eight, twenty-nine, or thirty scratches on bone or stone, followed by a distinctive scratching on the bone or stone, for example. Moreover, hunters had the concepts of one, two, and many, as well as the idea of none or zero, when considering herds of animals.[5][6]



The Ishango Bone, found in the area of the headwaters of the Nile River (northeastern Congo), dates as early as 20,000 BC. One common interpretation is that the bone is the earliest known demonstration[7] of sequences of prime numbers and Ancient Egyptian multiplication. Predynastic Egyptians of the 5th millennium BC pictorially represented geometric spatial designs. It has been claimed that Megalithic monuments in England and Scotland from the 3rd millennium BC, incorporate geometric ideas such as circles, ellipses, and Pythagorean triples in their design.[8]



The earliest known mathematics in ancient India dates back to circa 3000-2600 BC in the Indus Valley Civilization (Harappan civilization) of North India and Pakistan, which developed a system of uniform weights and measures that used the decimal system, a surprisingly advanced brick technology which utilised ratios, streets laid out in perfect right angles, and a number of geometrical shapes and designs, including cuboids, barrels, cones, cylinders, and drawings of concentric and intersecting circles and triangles. Mathematical instruments discovered include an accurate decimal ruler with small and precise subdivisions, a shell instrument that served as a compass to measure angles on plane surfaces or in horizon in multiples of 40–360 degrees, a shell instrument used to measure 8–12 whole sections of the horizon and sky, and an instrument for measuring the positions of stars for navigational purposes. The Indus script has not yet been deciphered; hence very little is known about the written forms of Harappan mathematics. Archeological evidence has led some historians to believe that this civilization used a base 8 numeral system and possessed knowledge of the ratio of the length of the circumference of the circle to its diameter, thus a value of π.[9]









Throughout the 19th century mathematics became increasingly abstract. In this century lived one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777 - 1855). Leaving aside his many contributions to science, in pure mathematics he did revolutionary work on functions of complex variables, in geometry, and on the convergence of series. He gave the first satisfactory proofs of the fundamental theorem of algebra and of the quadratic reciprocity law.The Russian mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky and his rival the Hungarian mathematician Janos Bolyai both independently discovered non-Euclidean geometry. Their non-Euclidean geometry was called hyperbolic geometry and differed from traditional Euclidean geometry in that it rejected Euclid's fifth postulate, a rule of Euclidean geometry that states that parallel lines go on to infinity and never intersect. They replaced this with a postulate that allowed parallel lines to intersect, in hyperbolic geometry because parallel lines can intersect triangles have less than 180 degrees. The initial reaction of the mathematical and scientific communities to Lobachevsky's findings was hostile. It was very courageous of Lobachevsky to publish his findings in the face of this opposition. Lobachevsky's essay about non-Euclidean geometry A concise outline of the foundations of geometry was published by the Kazan Messenger but was rejected by Ostrogodski when the St. Petersberg Academy of Sciences submitted it for publication. Another non-Euclidean geometry called elliptic geometry was developed later in the nineteenth century by the German mathematician George Friedrich Bernhard Riemmann. In elliptic geometry parallel lines do not exist and there are three dimensional triangles with more than 180 degrees. Despite the fact that the mathematical and scientific communities' initial reaction to non-Euclidean geometries was at first negative these new geometries and in particular elliptic geometry later turned out to be crucial to Albert Einstein's theory of relativity;e=mc squared, which is a theory about geometrical gravitational fields, although the theory of relativity also used Euclidean flat space. Also in the nineteenth century William Rowan Hamilton developed noncommutative algebra.



Lobachevsky also discovered a method for finding the approximations of the roots of algebraic equations which is still called the Lobachevsky method in Russia although it is called the Dandelin-Graffe method in the West after two western mathematicians who discovered it independently both of each other and of Lobachevsky.



In addition to new directions in mathematics, older mathematics were given a stronger logical foundation, especially in the case of calculus, in work by Augustin-Louis Cauchy and Karl Weierstrass.



A new form of algebra was developed in the nineteenth century called Boolean algebra. It was developed by a British mathematician named George Boole. It was a system that contained true and false statements, in it 1 meant true and 0 meant false. Boolean algebra later became important in the twentieth century because it was the mathematics that would be used for computers.



Also, for the first time, the limits of mathematics were explored. Niels Henrik Abel, a Norwegian, and Évariste Galois, a Frenchman, proved that there is no general algebraic method for solving polynomial equations of degree greater than four, and other 19th century mathematicians utilized this in their proofs that straightedge and compass alone are not sufficient to trisect an arbitrary angle, to construct the side of a cube twice the volume of a given cube, nor to construct a square equal in area to a given circle. Mathematicians had vainly attempted to solve all of these problems since the time of the ancient Greeks.



Abel and Galois's investigations into the solutions of various polynomial equations laid the groundwork for further developments of group theory, and the associated fields of abstract algebra. In the 20th century physicists and other scientists have seen group theory as the ideal way to study symmetry.



The 19th century also saw the founding of the first mathematical societies: the London Mathematical Society in 1865, the Société Mathématique de France in 1872, the Circolo Mathematico di Palermo in 1884, the Edinburgh Mathematical Society in 1864, and the American Mathematical Society in 1888.
Somebody
2007-04-21 01:20:30 UTC
Too large to write



But here is about just aryabhatta an other indians



The chronology of Indian mathematics spans from the Indus Valley civilization (3300-1500 BCE) and Vedic civilization (1500-500 BCE) to modern India .

Indian mathematicians have made major contributions to the development of mathematics as we know it today. One of the bigest contributions of Indian mathematics is the modern arithmetic and decimal notation of numbers used universally throughout the world (known as the Hindu-Arabic numerals). John Playfair, the famous scottish mathematician published a dissertation titled "Remarks on the astronomy of Brahmins" in 1790.His following quotation shows the appreciation of the then European Scientific community on the achievements of ancient Indian mathematicians and scientists.

"The Constructions and these tables imply a great knowledge of geometry,arithmetic and even of the theoretical part of astronomy.But what, without doubt is to be accounted,the greatest refinement in this system, is the hypothesis employed in calculating the equation of the centre for the Sun,Moon and the planets that of a circular orbit having a double eccentricity or having its centre in the middle between the earth and the point about which the angular motion is uniform.If to this we add the great extent of the geometrical knowledge required to combine this and the other principles of their astronomy together and to deduce from them the just conclusion;the possession of a calculus equivalent to trigonometry and lastly their approximation to the quadrature of the circle, we shall be astonished at the magnitude of that body of science which must have enlightened the inhabitants of India in some remote age and which whatever it may have communicated to the Western nations appears to have received another from them...."

Albert Einstein in the 20th century also comments on the importance of Indian arithmetic: "We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made."

Said Laplace: "The ingenious method of expressing every possible number using a set of ten symbols (each symbol having a place value and an absolute value) emerged in India. The idea seems so simple nowadays that its significance and profound importance is no longer appreciated. Its simplicity lies in the way it facilitated calculation and placed arithmetic foremost amongst useful inventions. the importance of this invention is more readily appreciated when one considers that it was beyond the two greatest men of antiquity, Archimedes and Apollonius."

Other examples include zero, negative numbers, and the trigonometric functions of sine and cosine, which have all provided some of the biggest impetuses to advances in the field. Concepts from ancient and medieval India were carried to China and the Middle East, where they were studied extensively. From there they made their way to Europe and other parts of the world.



Indian mathematicians have made outstanding contributions to the development of mathematics as we know it today. The Indian decimal notation of numbers, concept of zero have probably provided some of the biggest impetus' to advances in the field. Concepts from India were carried to the Middle East, where they studied extensively. From there they made their way to Europe.

Unfortunately, some concepts of Indian origin have not been given due acknowledgement in modern history, with some discoveries/inventions by Indian mathematicians now attributed to their western counterparts. Some historians have argued that much of modern mathematics was either originally developed by Indian mathematicians or most probably known to them during periods of rapid mathematical development during the 19th and 20th century.

This remains an open question, and much more research still needs to be done. There exist significant bodies of mathematically fluent scientists and engineers within India that are testimony to the general mathematical educational standards within that nation.

Here is the list some important Indian mathematicians :-

BC

•Yajnavalkya, the author of the altar mathematics of the Shatapatha Brahmana.

•Lagadha - Author of a 1350 BC text on Vedic astronomy

•Baudhayana, 800 BC

•Manava, 750 BC

•Apastamba, 700 BC

•Aksapada Gautama, 550 BC, Logician

•Katyayana, 400 BC

•Panini, 400 BC, Algebraic grammarian

•Pingala, 5th century BC

•Bharata Muni, 4th century BC, combinatorics in music

AD 1-1000

•Aryabhata - Astronomer who gave very accurate calculations for astronomical constants, 476-520

•Varahamihira

•Bhaskara I, 620

•Brahmagupta - Helped bring the concept of zero into arithmetic

•Matanga Muni - Combinatorics in music

•Virahanka (8th century) - Gave explicit rules for the Fibonacci series.

•Shridhara (between 650-850) - Gave a good rule for finding the volume of a sphere.

•Lalla, 720-790

•Govindsvamin (9th century)

•Virasena

•Mahavira (9th century)

•Jayadeva (9th century)

•Prithudaka, 9th century

•Halayudha, 10th century

•Aryabhata II, 920-1000

•Vateshvara (10th century)

•Manjula, 930



AD 1000-1800

•Brahmadeva, 1060-1130

•Sripati, 1019-1066

•Gopala - Studied Fibonacci numbers before Fibonacci

•Hemachandra - Also studied Fibonacci numbers before Fibonacci

•Bhaskara II - Conceived of Differential Calculus

•Gangesha Upadhyaya, 13th century, Logician, Mithila school

•Pakshadhara, sone of Gangehsa, Logician, Mithila school

•Shankara Mishra, Logician, Mithila school

•Narayana Pandit

•Madhava - Considered the father of mathematical analysis, Founded some concepts of Calculus

•Parameshvara (1360-1455), discovered drk-ganita, a mathematical model of astronomy based on observations, Madhava's Kerala school

•Nilakantha Somayaji,1444-1545 - Mathematician and Astronomer, Madhava's Kerala school

•Mahendra Suri (14th century)

•Shankara Variyar (c. 1530)

•Vasudeva Sarvabhauma, 1450-1525, Logician, Navadvipa school

•Raghunatha Shiromani, (1475-1550), Logician, Navadvipa school

•Jyeshtadeva , 1500-1610, Author of Yuktibhasa, the world's first calculus text, Madhava's Kerala school

•Achyuta Pisharati, 1550-1621, Astronomer/mathematician, Madhava's Kerala school

•Mathuranatha Tarkavagisha, c. 1575, Logician, Navadvipa school

•Jagadisha Tarkalankara, c. 1625, Logician, Navadvipa school

•Gadadhara Bhattacharya, c. 1650, Logician, Navadvipa school

•Munishvara (17th century)

•Kamalakara (1657)

•Jagannatha Samrat (1730)

Born in 1800s

•Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920)

•A. A. Krishnaswami Ayyangar (1892-1953)

•Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1893-1972

•Satyendra Nath Bose (1894-1974)

•Sanjeev Shah (1803- 1896)

•Raghunath Purushottam Paranjape

Born in 1900s

•Raj Chandra Bose (1901-1987)

•S. N. Roy (1906-1966)

•Sarvadaman Chowla (1907-1995)

•Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995)

•D.K. Ray-Chaudhuri

•Harish-Chandra (1923-1983)

•C. R. Rao

•Shreeram Shankar Abhyankar (1930-)

•Vijay Kumar Patodi (1945-1976)

•Narendra Karmarkar (1957-)

•Manjul Bhargava (1975 - )

•M.V. Subbarao (1921-2006)

•Divakar Viswanath

•Dhananjay P. Mehendale

•Bhama Srinivasan (1935-)











Born : 476 in Kusumapura (now Patna), India

Died : 550 in India



There were at least two mathematicians who lived by the name Aryabhata. This is a biography about Aryabhata from Kusumapura, now Patna. Aryabhata belonged to the Kusumapura School, but was probably a native of Kerala since his tradition is still in vogue there.

We know the year of Aryabhata's birth date since he tells us that he was twenty-three years of age when he wrote Aryabhatiya which he finished in 499. We have given Kusumapura, thought to be close to Pataliputra (which was refounded as Patna in Bihar in 1541), as the place of Aryabhata's birth but this is far from certain, as is even the location of Kusumapura itself. As Parameswaran writes :-

... No final verdict can be given regarding the locations of Asmakajanapada and Kusumapura.

We do know that Aryabhata wrote Aryabhatiya in Kusumapura at the time when Pataliputra was the capital of the Gupta Empire and a major centre of learning, but there have been numerous other places proposed by historians as his birthplace. Some conjecture that he was born in south India, perhaps Kerala, Tamil Nadu or Andhra Pradesh, while others conjecture that he was born in the north-east of India, perhaps in Bengal. In it is claimed that Aryabhata was born in the Asmaka region of the Vakataka dynasty in South India although the author accepted that he lived most of his life in Kusumapura in the Gupta Empire of the north. However, giving Asmaka as Aryabhata's birthplace rests on a comment made by Nilakantha Somayaji in the late 15th century. It is now thought by most historians that Nilakantha confused Aryabhata with Bhaskara I who was a later commentator on the Aryabhatiya.

We should note that Kusumapura became one of the two major mathematical centers of India, the other being Ujjain. Both are in the north but Kusumapura (assuming it to be close to Pataliputra) is on the Ganges and is the more northerly. Pataliputra, being the capital of the Gupta empire at the time of Aryabhata, was the centre of a communications network which allowed learning from other parts of the world to reach it easily, and also allowed the mathematical and astronomical advances made by Aryabhata and his school to reach across India and also eventually into the Islamic world.

As to the texts written by Aryabhata only one has survived. However Jha claims that:-

... Aryabhata was an author of at least three astronomical texts and wrote some free stanzas as well.



At age 23 he wrote his small but famous work on astronomy and mathematics , the Aryabhatiya. In it he organized and combined existing knowledge of astronomy and mathematics. He says, "I delved deep in the astronomical theories, true and false, and rescued the precious sunken (hollow) jewel of the knowledge by means of the best of my intellect and by the grace of God". Aryabhata considered his work as a whole, but Brahmagupta divides the work into two parts in his Brahma Sphuta Siddhanta. It consists of 121 slokas-three slokas (verses) forming the introduction and the conclusion, ten slokas written in the Geetika metre, followed by 108 slokas in the Aryavrata metre. Brahmagupta called the Geetika metre and the Aryavrata metre, Dasgeetika and Aryashtasatam respectively. He then divided the Aryashtasatam into three parts:



Ganita (mathematics),

Kala-kriya (calculation of time),

Gola (sphere).



The Ganita deals with pure mathematics and therefore addresses topics such as: the methods of determining square and cube roots, geometrical problems, the progression, problems involving quadratic equations and indeterminate equations of the first degree. The method of solving these equations has been called Kuttaka by later mathematicians.

In the chapter “Gola”, Aryabhata defines all the circles given in the armillary sphere together with the small circles representing the diurnal motion of the sun. He was the first astronomer to mention that the diurnal motion of the heavens is due to the rotation of the earth about its axis.

Other contributions Aryabhata made towards pure mathematics were his approximation of pi and his sine tables.

Aryabhata's name spread rapidly and disciples gathered from all over to see him. Among his disciples were Bhaskara I, Sankaranarayana, Surya-deva, and Nilkantha.

The surviving text is Aryabhata's masterpiece the Aryabhatiya which is a small astronomical treatise written in 118 verses giving a summary of Hindu mathematics up to that time. Its mathematical section contains 33 verses giving 66 mathematical rules without proof. The Aryabhatiya contains an introduction of 10 verses, followed by a section on mathematics with, as we just mentioned, 33 verses, then a section of 25 verses on the reckoning of time and planetary models, with the final section of 50 verses being on the sphere and eclipses.

The mathematical part of the Aryabhatiya covers arithmetic, algebra, plane trigonometry and spherical trigonometry. It also contains continued fractions, quadratic equations, sums of power series and a table of sines. Let us examine some of these in a little more detail.

First we look at the system for representing numbers which Aryabhata invented and used in the Aryabhatiya. It consists of giving numerical values to the 33 consonants of the Indian alphabet to represent 1, 2, 3, ... , 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100. The higher numbers are denoted by these consonants followed by a vowel to obtain 100, 10000, .... In fact the system allows numbers up to 1018to be represented with an alphabetical notation. Ifrah in [3] argues that Aryabhata was also familiar with numeral symbols and the place-value system. He writes in [3]:-

... It is extremely likely that Aryabhata knew the sign for zero and the numerals of the place value system. This supposition is based on the following two facts: first, the invention of his alphabetical counting system would have been impossible without zero or the place-value system; secondly, he carries out calculations on square and cubic roots which are impossible if the numbers in question are not written according to the place-value system and zero.

Next we look briefly at some algebra contained in the Aryabhatiya. This work is the first we are aware of which examines integer solutions to equations of the form by = ax + c and by = ax - c, where a, b, c are integers. The problem arose from studying the problem in astronomy of determining the periods of the planets. Aryabhata uses the kuttaka method to solve problems of this type. The word kuttaka means "to pulverise" and the method consisted of breaking the problem down into new problems where the coefficients became smaller and smaller with each step. The method here is essentially the use of the Euclidean algorithm to find the highest common factor of a and b but is also related to continued fractions.

Aryabhata gave an accurate approximation for π. He wrote in the Aryabhatiya the following:-

“Add four to one hundred, multiply by eight and then add sixty-two thousand. The result is approximately the circumference of a circle of diameter twenty thousand. By this rule the relation of the circumference to diameter is given.”

This gives π = 62832/20000 = 3.1416 which is a surprisingly accurate value. In fact π = 3.14159265 correct to 8 places. If obtaining a value this accurate is surprising, it is perhaps even more surprising that Aryabhata does not use his accurate value for π but prefers to use √10 = 3.1622 in practice. Aryabhata does not explain how he found this accurate value but, for example, Ahmad considers this value as an approximation to half the perimeter of a regular polygon of 256 sides inscribed in the unit circle. However, Bruins shows that this result cannot be obtained from the doubling of the number of sides. Another interesting paper discussing this accurate value of π by Aryabhata is [22] where Jha writes:-

“Aryabhata I's value of π is a very close approximation to the modern value and the most accurate among those of the ancients. There are reasons to believe that Aryabhata devised a particular method for finding this value. It is shown with sufficient grounds that Aryabhata himself used it, and several later Indian mathematicians and even the Arabs adopted it. The conjecture that Aryabhata's value of π is of Greek origin is critically examined and is found to be without foundation. Aryabhata discovered this value independently and also realized that π is an irrational number. He had the Indian background, no doubt, but excelled all his predecessors in evaluating π. Thus the credit of discovering this exact value of π may be ascribed to the celebrated mathematician, Aryabhata I.”

We now look at the trigonometry contained in Aryabhata's treatise. He gave a table of sines calculating the approximate values at intervals of 90 /24 = 3 45'. In order to do this he used a formula for sin(n+1)x - sin nx in terms of sin nx and sin (n-1)x. He also introduced the versine (versin = 1 - cosine) into trigonometry.

Other rules given by Aryabhata include that for summing the first n integers, the squares of these integers and also their cubes. Aryabhata gives formulae for the areas of a triangle and of a circle which are correct, but the formulae for the volumes of a sphere and of a pyramid are claimed to be wrong by most historians. For example Ganitanand in [15] describes as "mathematical lapses" the fact that Aryabhata gives the incorrect formula V = Ah/2 for the volume of a pyramid with height ‘h’ and triangular base of area ‘A’. He also appears to give an incorrect expression for the volume of a sphere. However, as is often the case, nothing is as straightforward as it appears and Elfering (see for example [13]) argues that this is not an error but rather the result of an incorrect translation.

This relates to verses 6, 7, and 10 of the second section of the Aryabhatiya and in [13] Elfering produces a translation which yields the correct answer for both the volume of a pyramid and for a sphere. However, in his translation Elfering translates two technical terms in a different way to the meaning which they usually have. Without some supporting evidence that these technical terms have been used with these different meanings in other places it would still appear that Aryabhata did indeed give the incorrect formulae for these volumes.

We have looked at the mathematics contained in the Aryabhatiya but this is an astronomy text so we should say a little regarding the astronomy which it contains. Aryabhata gives a systematic treatment of the position of the planets in space. He gave the circumference of the earth as 4967 yojanas and its diameter as 15811/24 yojanas. Since 1 yojana = 5 miles this gives the circumference as 24 835 miles, which is an excellent approximation to the currently accepted value of 24 902 miles. He believed that the apparent rotation of the heavens was due to the axial rotation of the Earth. This is a quite remarkable view of the nature of the solar system which later commentators could not bring themselves to follow and most changed the text to save Aryabhata from what they thought were stupid errors!

Aryabhata gives the radius of the planetary orbits in terms of the radius of the Earth/Sun orbit as essentially their periods of rotation around the Sun. He believes that the Moon and planets shine by reflected sunlight, incredibly he believes that the orbits of the planets are ellipses. He correctly explains the causes of eclipses of the Sun and the Moon. The Indian belief up to that time was that eclipses were caused by a demon called Rahu. His value for the length of the year at 365 days 6 hours 12 minutes 30 seconds is an overestimate since the true value is less than 365 days 6 hours.

It is in stanza 5 of Aryabhatiya that aryabhata tells of this method:

One should divide the second aghana by three times the square of the cube roots of the preceeding ghana. The square (of the quotient) multiplied by three times the purva (that part of the cube root already found) is to be subtracted from the first aghana and the cube (of the quotient of the above division) is to be subtracted from the ghana.

Certain steps have been left out in Aryabhata's method for claculating the cube root. This may have been due to limitations of the Sanscrit language. It was common at this time to pass on teachings orally, hence, it is understandable that some written methods may be vague.

Here is an example of how Aryabhata solved the cube, taken from

Find the cube of 1860867. Counting from right to left, the first, fourth, seventh and so on places are named ghana(cubic), the second, fifth, eighth and so on are called the first aghana (noncubic), while the third, sixth, ninth places and so on are called the second aghana.

So in this example we start by taking the cube root of 1=1

1-1=0, and you bring down the 8.

08

Three times the square of the root= 3((1)^2)=3

8=3(2)+2, so the first 2=the quotient or next digit of the root. So we have a remainder of 2 and now we bring down the 6.

26

Square of the quotient multiplied by three times the purva=((2)^2)(3)(1)=12.

26-12=14, now bring down the 0

140

The cube of the quotient is (2)^3=8

140-8=132, now bring down the 8.

1328

Three times the square of the root=3((12)^2)=432

1328= 432(3) + 32, so 3 is the quotient or next digit of the root.

We have a remainder of 32, and we bring down the 6.

326

Square of the quotient multiplied by 3 times the purva =((3)^2)(3)(12)=324

326-324=2, bring down the 7.

27

cube of the quotient =(3)^3=27

27-27=0, therefore the cube root of 1860867 is 123.

The following identities occur for the first time in Aryabhata's work, the Aryabhatiya.

Stanza 22:

The sixth part of the product of three quantities consisting of the number of terms, the number of terms plus one and twice the number of terms plus one, is the sum of squares. The square of the sums of the original series is the sum of the cubes.

This can be written as:

Sn^2 = 1^2 + 2^2 + 3^2 +...+ n^2 = (n(n+1)(2n+1))/6



Sn^3 = 1^3 + 2^3 + 3^3 +...+ n^3 = (1 + 2 +...+ n)^2



How Aryabhata arrived at these identities is unknown.
2007-04-21 08:09:51 UTC
The word "mathematics" comes from the Greek μάθημα (máthema) which means "science, knowledge, or learning"; (mathematikós) means "fond of learning". Today, the term refers to a specific body of knowledge -- the deductive study of quantity, structure, space, and change. The area of study known as the history of mathematics is primarily an investigation into the origin of new discoveries in mathematics, to a lesser extent an investigation into the standard mathematical methods and notation of the past.



Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples of new mathematical developments have come to light only in a few locales. The most ancient mathematical texts available are from ancient India circa 1500BC-500 BC (Rigveda - Sulba Sutras), ancient Egypt in the Middle Kingdom period circa 1300-1200 BC (Berlin 6619), and Mesopotamia circa 1800 BC (Plimpton 322). All of these texts concern the so-called Pythagorean theorem, which seems to be the most ancient and widespread mathematical development after basic arithmetic and geometry.



The ancient Greek contribution to mathematics, generally considered to be one of the most important, greatly expanded both the method and the subject matter of mathematics. [1]



One striking feature of the history of ancient and medieval mathematics is that bursts of mathematical development were often followed by centuries of stagnation. Beginning in Renaissance Italy in the 16th century, new mathematical developments, interacting with new scientific discoveries, were made at an ever increasing pace, and this continues to the present day.



Long before the earliest written records, there are drawings that indicate a knowledge of mathematics and of measurement of time based on the stars. For example, paleontologists have discovered ochre rocks in a cave in South Africa adorned with scratched geometric patterns dating back to c. 70,000 BC.[2] Also prehistoric artifacts discovered in Africa and France, dated between 35,000 BC and 20,000 BC,[3] indicate early attempts to quantify time.[4]



Evidence exists that early counting involved women who kept records of their monthly biological cycles; twenty-eight, twenty-nine, or thirty scratches on bone or stone, followed by a distinctive scratching on the bone or stone, for example. Moreover, hunters had the concepts of one, two, and many, as well as the idea of none or zero, when considering herds of animals.[5][6]



The Ishango Bone, found in the area of the headwaters of the Nile River (northeastern Congo), dates as early as 20,000 BC. One common interpretation is that the bone is the earliest known demonstration[7] of sequences of prime numbers and Ancient Egyptian multiplication. Predynastic Egyptians of the 5th millennium BC pictorially represented geometric spatial designs. It has been claimed that Megalithic monuments in England and Scotland from the 3rd millennium BC, incorporate geometric ideas such as circles, ellipses, and Pythagorean triples in their design.[8]



The earliest known mathematics in ancient India dates back to circa 3000-2600 BC in the Indus Valley Civilization (Harappan civilization) of North India and Pakistan, which developed a system of uniform weights and measures that used the decimal system, a surprisingly advanced brick technology which utilised ratios, streets laid out in perfect right angles, and a number of geometrical shapes and designs, including cuboids, barrels, cones, cylinders, and drawings of concentric and intersecting circles and triangles. Mathematical instruments discovered include an accurate decimal ruler with small and precise subdivisions, a shell instrument that served as a compass to measure angles on plane surfaces or in horizon in multiples of 40–360 degrees, a shell instrument used to measure 8–12 whole sections of the horizon and sky, and an instrument for measuring the positions of stars for navigational purposes. The Indus script has not yet been deciphered; hence very little is known about the written forms of Harappan mathematics. Archeological evidence has led some historians to believe that this civilization used a base 8 numeral system and possessed knowledge of the ratio of the length of the circumference of the circle to its diameter, thus a value of π.[9]





[edit] Ancient Egyptian mathematics (c. 1850—600 BC)

Main article: Egyptian mathematics

Egyptian mathematics refers to mathematics written in the Egyptian language. From the Hellenistic period, Greek replaced Egyptian as the written language of Egyptian scholars, and from this point Egyptian mathematics merged with Greek and Babylonian mathematics to give rise to Hellenistic mathematics. Mathematical study in Egypt later continued under the Islamic Caliphate as part of Islamic mathematics, when Arabic became the written language of Egyptian scholars.



The oldest mathematical text discovered so far is the Moscow papyrus, which is an Egyptian Middle Kingdom papyrus dated c. 2000—1800 BC.[citations needed] Like many ancient mathematical texts, it consists of what are today called "word problems" or "story problems", which were apparently intended as entertainment. One problem is considered to be of particular importance because it gives a method for finding the volume of a frustum: "If you are told: A truncated pyramid of 6 for the vertical height by 4 on the base by 2 on the top. You are to square this 4, result 16. You are to double 4, result 8. You are to square 2, result 4. You are to add the 16, the 8, and the 4, result 28. You are to take one third of 6, result 2. Your are to take 28 twice, result 56. See, it is 56. You will find it right."



The Rhind papyrus (c. 1650 BC [1]) is another major Egyptian mathematical text, an instruction manual in arithmetic and geometry. In addition to giving area formulas and methods for multiplication, division and working with unit fractions, it also contains evidence of other mathematical knowledge (see [2]), including composite and prime numbers; arithmetic, geometric and harmonic means; and simplistic understandings of both the Sieve of Eratosthenes and perfect number theory (namely, that of the number 6)[3]. It also shows how to solve first order linear equations [4] as well as arithmetic and geometric series [5].



Also, three geometric elements contained in the Rhind papyrus suggest the simplest of underpinnings to analytical geometry: (1) first and foremost, how to obtain an approximation of π accurate to within less than one percent; (2) second, an ancient attempt at squaring the circle; and (3) third, the earliest known use of a kind of cotangent.



Finally, the Berlin papyrus (c. 1300 BC [6] [7]) shows that ancient Egyptians could solve a second-order algebraic equation [8].





[edit] Ancient Babylonian mathematics (c. 1800—550 BC)

Main article: Babylonian mathematics

Babylonian mathematics refers to any mathematics of the peoples of Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) from the days of the early Sumerians until the beginning of the Hellenistic period. It is named Babylonian mathematics due to the central role of Babylon as a place of study, which ceased to exist during the Hellenistic period. From this point, Babylonian mathematics merged with Greek and Egyptian mathematics to give rise to Hellenistic mathematics.



In contrast to the sparsity of sources in Egyptian mathematics, our knowledge of Babylonian mathematics is derived from more than 400 clay tablets unearthed since the 1850s. Written in Cuneiform script, tablets were inscribed whilst the clay was moist, and baked hard in an oven or by the heat of the sun. Some of these appear to be graded homework. The majority of recovered clay tablets date from 1800 to 1600 BC, and cover topics which include fractions, algebra, quadratic and cubic equations, and the calculation of Pythagorean triples (see Plimpton 322).[10] The tablets also include multiplication tables, trigonometry tables and methods for solving linear and quadratic equations. The Babylonian tablet YBC 7289 gives an approximation to √2 accurate to five decimal places.



Babylonian mathematics was written using a sexagesimal (base-60) numeral system. From this we derive the modern day usage of 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 360 (60 x 6) degrees in a circle. Babylonian advances in mathematics were facilitated by the fact that 60 has many divisors. Also, unlike the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, the Babylonians had a true place-value system, where digits written in the left column represented larger values, much as in the decimal system. They lacked, however, an equivalent of the decimal point, and so the place value of a symbol often had to be inferred from the context.





[edit] Ancient Indian mathematics (c. 1500 BC—AD 200)

Main article: Indian mathematics

The chronology of Indian mathematics spans from the Indus Valley civilization (3300-1500 BCE) and Vedic civilization (1500-500 BCE) to modern India (21st century CE).



The first appearance of evidence of the use of mathematics in the Indian subcontinent was in the Indus Valley Civilization, which dates back to around 3300 BC. Excavations at Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and the surrounding area of the Indus River, have uncovered much evidence of the use of basic mathematics.



The geometry in Vedic mathematics was used for elaborate construction of religious and astronomical sites. Many aspects of practical mathematics are found in Vedic mathematics.[11]



The Shatapatha Brahmana (c. 9th century BC) approximates the value of π to 2 decimal places.[9] The Sulba Sutras (c. 800-500 BC) were geometry texts that used irrational numbers, prime numbers, the rule of three and cube roots; computed the square root of 2 to five decimal places; gave the method for squaring the circle; solved linear equations and quadratic equations; developed Pythagorean triples algebraically and gave a statement and numerical proof of the Pythagorean theorem.



Pāṇini (c. 5th century BC) formulated the grammar rules for Sanskrit. His notation was similar to modern mathematical notation, and used metarules, transformations, and recursions with such sophistication that his grammar had the computing power equivalent to a Turing machine. Panini's work is also the forerunner to the modern theory of formal grammars (important in computing), while the Panini-Backus form used by most modern programming languages is also significantly similar to Panini's grammar rules. Pingala (roughly 3rd-1st centuries BC) in his treatise of prosody uses a device corresponding to a binary numeral system. His discussion of the combinatorics of meters, corresponds to the binomial theorem. Pingala's work also contains the basic ideas of Fibonacci numbers (called mātrāmeru). The Brāhmī script was developed at least from the Maurya dynasty in the 4th century BC, with recent archeological evidence appearing to push back that date to around 600 BC. The Brahmi numerals date to the 3rd century BC.



Between 400 BC and AD 200, Jaina mathematicians began studying mathematics for the sole purpose of mathematics. They were the first to develop transfinite numbers, set theory, logarithms, fundamental laws of indices, cubic equations, quartic equations, sequences and progressions, permutations and combinations, squaring and extracting square roots, and finite and infinite powers. The Bakshali Manuscript written between 200 BC and AD 200 included solutions of linear equations with up to five unknowns, the solution of the quadratic equation, arithmetic and geometric progressions, compound series, quadratic indeterminate equations, simultaneous equations, and the use of zero and negative numbers. Accurate computations for irrational numbers could be found, which includes computing square roots of numbers as large as a million to at least 11 decimal places.





[edit] Ancient Chinese mathematics (c. 1300 BC—AD 200)

Main article: Chinese mathematics

Dating from the Shang period (1600—1046 BC), the earliest extant Chinese mathematics consists of numbers scratched on tortoise shell [10] [11]. These numbers use a decimal system, so that the number 123 is written (from top to bottom) as the symbol for 1 followed by the symbol for a hundred, then the symbol for 2 followed by the symbol for ten, then the symbol for 3. This was the most advanced number system in the world at the time and allowed calculations to be carried out on the suan pan or Chinese abacus. The date of the invention of the suan pan is not certain, but the earliest written reference was in AD 190 in the Supplementary Notes on the Art of Figures written by Xu Yue. The suan pan was most likely in use earlier than this date.



In China, in 212 BC, the Emperor Qin Shi Huang (Shi Huang-ti) commanded that all books be burned. While this order was not universally obeyed, as a consequence little is known with certainty about ancient Chinese mathematics.



From the Western Zhou Dynasty (from 1046 BC), the oldest mathematical work to survive the book burning is the I Ching, which uses the 64 binary 6-tuples for philosophical or mystical purposes. The tuples are depicted as hexagrams made out of broken and solid lines, representing yin and yang.



After the book burning, the Han dynasty (206 BC—AD 221) produced works of mathematics which presumably expand on works that are now lost. The most important of these is The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art. It consists of 246 word problems, involving agriculture, business and engineering and includes material on right triangles and π.



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