08-24-2007, 10:52 PM
Good point about the irrationality of PI, HH.
There is no question that Nilakanta Somayajin ranks amongst the highest echelon of mathematicians of all time.
There is another point to be made. Namely the emphasis on sidereal measurements in Indian astronomy. The significance of this is not clearly brought out by Indic scholars. While there is no evidence of a clear exposition of t he Laws of motion as set forth by Newton, in the work of Indic mathematicians prior to Newton himself, the germ f the idea of an inertial frame of reference, is present when Indic astronomers introduced the Nakshatra system and integrated sidereal measurements in their calculations. Note that as late as 1530 when Mateo Ricci came to Malabar to learn Indic astronomy, sidereal measurements were unknown in the west. Conceptualization of the inertial frame of reference , a corollary of his laws of motion, was one of the great achievments of isaac Newton
As of now i am willing to accept that Newtons's work was original but we havent seen everything yet and there may be a possibility that Newton got some of his material from the Jesuits who in turn got it from the Kerala astronomers. Of course the Jesuits , who may have gotten the practical art of computation did not have the erudition and scholarship needed to conceptualize the laws until Newton came along.
But Newton when he saw the observations must have recognized the importance of sidereal date and the significance of a frame of reference which for all practical purposes could be considered at rest.
But the point i am making is that the indics were a hop step and a jump away from developing celestial mechanics (as opposed to the purely geometrical / trigonometrical calculations that they developed an immense facility in).
Shambhu, i got your email, will respond.
Bodhi , your remarks re. Newton have a lot of validity and need to be explored further
More later
There is no question that Nilakanta Somayajin ranks amongst the highest echelon of mathematicians of all time.
There is another point to be made. Namely the emphasis on sidereal measurements in Indian astronomy. The significance of this is not clearly brought out by Indic scholars. While there is no evidence of a clear exposition of t he Laws of motion as set forth by Newton, in the work of Indic mathematicians prior to Newton himself, the germ f the idea of an inertial frame of reference, is present when Indic astronomers introduced the Nakshatra system and integrated sidereal measurements in their calculations. Note that as late as 1530 when Mateo Ricci came to Malabar to learn Indic astronomy, sidereal measurements were unknown in the west. Conceptualization of the inertial frame of reference , a corollary of his laws of motion, was one of the great achievments of isaac Newton
As of now i am willing to accept that Newtons's work was original but we havent seen everything yet and there may be a possibility that Newton got some of his material from the Jesuits who in turn got it from the Kerala astronomers. Of course the Jesuits , who may have gotten the practical art of computation did not have the erudition and scholarship needed to conceptualize the laws until Newton came along.
But Newton when he saw the observations must have recognized the importance of sidereal date and the significance of a frame of reference which for all practical purposes could be considered at rest.
But the point i am making is that the indics were a hop step and a jump away from developing celestial mechanics (as opposed to the purely geometrical / trigonometrical calculations that they developed an immense facility in).
Shambhu, i got your email, will respond.
Bodhi , your remarks re. Newton have a lot of validity and need to be explored further
More later