rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2010/02/on-indian-mathematics.html
Les Infidèles! Koepfen, koepfen! Brennen! Brennen!
Quote:Tuesday, February 16, 2010
on Indian Mathematics
feb 16th, 2010
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: S. Kalyanaraman
Date: Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 12:05 PM
Subject: Mumford on Indian Mathematics
To:
A very interesting overview of Indian Mathematics by the eminent mathematician David Mumford in his review of the book, Kim Plofker, Mathematics in India Princedton 2008. This has appeared in the March 2010 issue of Notices of AMS.
( ams.org/notices/201003/rtx100300385p.pdf )
docstoc.com/docs/25442539/Mumford---Review-of-Mathematics-in-India (Fullo text)
Excerpt:
"Did you know that Vedic priests were using the so-called Pythagorean theorem to construct their fire altars in 800 BCE?; that the differential equation for the sine function, infinite difference form, was described by Indian mathematician-astronomers in the fifth century CE?; and that 'Gregory's' series PI/4 = 1 -1/3+1/3-ââ¬Â¦ was proven using the power series for arctangent and, with ingenious summation methods, used to accurately compute PI in southwest India in the fourteenth century? If any of this surprises you, Plofker's book is for you. Her book fills a huge gap: a detailed, eminently readable, scholarly survey of the full scope of Indian mathematics and astronomy (the two were inseparable in India) from their Vedic beginnings to roughly 1800."
kalyan
Posted by nizhal yoddha at 2/16/2010 06:55:00 AM
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Les Infidèles! Koepfen, koepfen! Brennen! Brennen!