MORNING MUSINGS ON THIS MONDAY 27/8/2018
I'm not going to talk about the beginnings or the heights of Indian mathematics, that start in the hoary past shrouded in the mists of time that can, in the present time, be taken to 10,000 BC. I am just going to talk about ONE MAN celebrated by the West as the father of many things, in common use, in India a thousand years before him – at least – in all cases even before his birth.
Issac Newton - 1643 - 1727 and calculus is attributed to him. He could not have developed calculus as a young man, so let’s put it t the turn of 17-18 century. Earliest, by 1780. He is attributed with the development of calculus, the laws of Motion, concept of gravity et al. Did he do all that?
I will not go into laws of motion but refer to Kanada aka Kashyapa, Uluka, Kananda and Kanabhuk who lived between 6th and 2nd Century BC. That’s at least a 1000 years before Newton. On his atom pricipl and first atomic table I will deal separately.
Same thing with Gravity expounded the theory of gravity by Bhaskaracharya of Bhaskara II in 1150 CE in Siddhantha shiromani . That’s more than 700 years before Newton. These will be dealt with in later musings.
Kanada stated in his Vaisheshika Siddantha
१) वेगः निमित्तविशेषात् कर्मणो जायते ।
1) vegaH nimittavisheShAt karmaNo jAyate |
Meaning : Change of motion is due to impressed force.
(The law stated that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.)
२) वेगः निमित्तापेक्षात् कर्मणो जायते नियतदिक क्रियाप्रबन्धहेतु ।
2) vegaH nimittApekShAt karmaNo jAyate niyatadika kriyAprabandhahetu |
Meaning : Change of motion is proportional to the impressed force and is in the direction of the force.
3) वेगः संयोगविशेषविरोधी
3) vegaH saMyogavisheShavirodhI
Just look at the wording and Newton's laws'wording. It is obvious where he got it all.
The Mathematicians of Sangamagrama – Irinjalakkuda in Trichur District of Kerala, India flourished from 1350 to 1666. Starts with Madhava and ends with Malpathoor Narayana Bhattathiri. The last name surprises you? Yes!! it is indeed the author of Narayaneeyam. He was no poet alone. He was a great mathematician who gave us the infinite series. Maybe Narayaneeyam itself maybe a great mathematical treatise waiting to be deciphered!!
Neelakanta Somayaji wrote series expansion for trigonometric functions in his Tantrasamgraha completed in 1501.. Jyeshtadeva, one among the 9 gems, wrote Yukthi Bhaha to Tantrasamgraha and the theorems were stated without proof, but proofs for the series for sine, cosine, and inverse tangent were provided a century later in the work Yukthi Bhasha (c. 1500 – c. 1610).
Most of these happened mostly BEFORE Newton was even born.
Now let us take Newton’s age. Islamic influence was great. The Muslims had vast contacts in India and Indian sciences were absorbed by the Muslims, treatises were translated into Arabic. The Europeans learned Arabic to read these and assimilate these.
The Jesuits were everywhere. In India, massacring and converting and conquering. Before conquest Jesuits pretended to be students and it is said that they came as students to Irinjalakkuda and copied the mathematics texts. The story that I heard was that 4 came and stayed and studied and copied the texts and took them back to Vatican. I remember a Cardinal telling me those texts are in Vatican and three sets were sent to other European centers like London, Paris, Vienna etc. And hey!! Presto fully developed Calculus, Algebra and Trigonometry were born.
res ipsa loquitur
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