07-21-2009, 05:18 PM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS-In...how/4796583.cms
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century at Taregna village near Danapur in Biharâs Patna district will be an occasion to sing the glory of ancient India and its contribution to mathematics and astronomy.
It is in Taregna, which offers best sight for eclipse, that the celebrated astronomer of ancient India, Aryabhata, had camped to study celestial bodies. Khagaul (present-day Danapur Junction), is said to be the place where he had his observatory.
The word âTaregnaâ perhaps comes from the Sanskrit ââtaraka-gnanaââ (calculating stars). âKhagaulâ is thought to be a variant of ââKhagolââ (astronomy).
Aryabhata was born in Pataliputra (then Kusumpura), in 476 AD (according to some experts on April 13) and at age 23 wrote his monumental work âAryabhatiyamâ. At the same age, Isaac Newton proposed his theory of gravitation in 1665 AD.
Almost 1,000 years before Copernicus (1473-1543 AD) and Galileo (1564-1642), Aryabhata discovered that the earth is round and rotates on its axis. He proposed a theory of his own to explain various planetary motions and accurately predicted the duration of an eclipse and total obscuration of the sun and the moon, as noted by the then Bihar governor R R Diwakar in his book âBihar Through the Agesâ in the 1950s. Aryabhata, sometimes credited with inventing zero, enjoyed the reputation of a mathematician and astronomer non-pareil. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century at Taregna village near Danapur in Biharâs Patna district will be an occasion to sing the glory of ancient India and its contribution to mathematics and astronomy.
It is in Taregna, which offers best sight for eclipse, that the celebrated astronomer of ancient India, Aryabhata, had camped to study celestial bodies. Khagaul (present-day Danapur Junction), is said to be the place where he had his observatory.
The word âTaregnaâ perhaps comes from the Sanskrit ââtaraka-gnanaââ (calculating stars). âKhagaulâ is thought to be a variant of ââKhagolââ (astronomy).
Aryabhata was born in Pataliputra (then Kusumpura), in 476 AD (according to some experts on April 13) and at age 23 wrote his monumental work âAryabhatiyamâ. At the same age, Isaac Newton proposed his theory of gravitation in 1665 AD.
Almost 1,000 years before Copernicus (1473-1543 AD) and Galileo (1564-1642), Aryabhata discovered that the earth is round and rotates on its axis. He proposed a theory of his own to explain various planetary motions and accurately predicted the duration of an eclipse and total obscuration of the sun and the moon, as noted by the then Bihar governor R R Diwakar in his book âBihar Through the Agesâ in the 1950s. Aryabhata, sometimes credited with inventing zero, enjoyed the reputation of a mathematician and astronomer non-pareil. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->