10-07-2011, 10:06 AM
i will be visiting,Delhi, Hyderabad and Visakha in December. This may prove to be the last time that i will travel extensively . I am planning to have a 1/2 day mini-conference in Delhi on Dec 10. I will announce the venue shortly. There will be half a dozen invitees who will lead of the discussion
If there are forum members in Delhi, Hyd or Vsakha I would be happy to to meet them especially if they hae an interest in the hIstory of the sciences anfd its impact on civlizations. if there are youngsters (in Delhi) interested in connecting the dots between seemingly unrelated events and topics , you might want to drop in or better yet volunteer to help in the conference . The topic for discussion will be
The Impact of a massive epistemic rupture and a distorted history on the future of the Indian civilization .
If you google my name you wil find ways of contacting me.
In my book, Ii have tried to answer the question whether there was a connection between the long period where EUROPE made little or no progress in the computational sciences between the time when of the Battle of Actium when Octavius Caesar defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra defeating the last remnants of the EGYPTIAN Pharonic civilization and the fact that the Indian decimal place value made its way despite much opposition , thanks to the efforts of men like Simon Stevin. That the introduction of the decimal place value system let loose a veritable explosion in many subjects i have little doubt, but the question in my mind was WHY did it take EUROPE 1500 years to adopt such an obvious means of counting if it had been adopted so casually by the Indians as the west would have you believe. The Occident was emphatic in denying to india any kind of tradition that facilitated the adoption of such a system even in Vedic times and most Historian's in the occident have dismissed the invention of the DPV in ancient India, as an aberration(1) of which the Indians themselves did not have the slightest clue as to its real significance.
The answer was crystal clear. It had escaped the attention of the greatest scientists in the west , men like Archimedes , because it was a difficult concept to invent, especially for a people who were not used to numbers and who had to use multiplication tables to do even the simplest arithmetical operations.
Obversely (and this is where the lightbulb exploded ) it was not easy for the Indians either and they must have worked at it systematically over thousands of years beginning in the Vedic era to get to where they were during the time of Aryabhata where he makes use of these and other representations in such a facile manner . So comfortable was he with the entire edifice of what we call Number theory today that he developed the concept of a recursive algorithm while analytically developing the first sine difference table in the history of the world . Note that the use of recursion in an algorithm was considered a novelty and the sign of sophistication as late as the second half of the twentieth century. The most well known examples of Recursion are the Fibonacci sequence, the Kalman filter and the use of recursion in language.
But the use of recursion by Aryabhata was a significant indicator for me that the Indic tradition in the computational science was of high antiquity and very robust by the time of Aryabhata.
The name of the book is 'The origins of astronomy , the calendar and time ââ¬Ë The book is now available in many retail outlets including Amazon, . While it is not a demanding book , it requires an inquiring and restless mind that is not afraid of asking the hard questions. But for the person who reads the book in its entirety , I guarantee that it will change your view of the world. In my next post i will expain what i mean by an epistemic rupture
(1) quote from my book "The comment often made in the occident is that there is a general absence of proof in the ancient Indic texts. This reinforces the view that the Indic contributions were borrowed from elsewhere. Typical of such brashness was the remark of Morris Kline , May 1, 1908 ââ¬â June 10, 1992 Professor Emeritus at Courant institute of Mathematical sciencesââ¬Ë As our survey indicates the Hindus were interested in and contributed to the arithmetical and computational activities, rather than to the deductive pattern. Their name for mathematics is Gaá¹â¡ita which means the Science of calculation. There is much good procedure and technical facility but no evidence that they considered Proof at all. They had rules but apparently no logical scruples. Moreover, no general methods or new viewpoints were arrived at in any area of mathematics.ââ¬â¢ As if all this was not bad enough, he delivers the final coup de grace.
It is fairly certain that the Hindus did not appreciate the significance of their own contributions. The few good ideas that they had, such as separate symbols for the numbers from1 to 9 ââ¬â¢, the conversion from positional notation in base 60 to base 10, negative numbers and the recognition of 0 as a number , were introduced casually with no apparent realization that they were valuable innovations. They were not sensitive to mathematical values. The fine ideas that they themselves advanced, they commingled with the crudest ideas of the Egyptians and Babylonians."
If there are forum members in Delhi, Hyd or Vsakha I would be happy to to meet them especially if they hae an interest in the hIstory of the sciences anfd its impact on civlizations. if there are youngsters (in Delhi) interested in connecting the dots between seemingly unrelated events and topics , you might want to drop in or better yet volunteer to help in the conference . The topic for discussion will be
The Impact of a massive epistemic rupture and a distorted history on the future of the Indian civilization .
If you google my name you wil find ways of contacting me.
In my book, Ii have tried to answer the question whether there was a connection between the long period where EUROPE made little or no progress in the computational sciences between the time when of the Battle of Actium when Octavius Caesar defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra defeating the last remnants of the EGYPTIAN Pharonic civilization and the fact that the Indian decimal place value made its way despite much opposition , thanks to the efforts of men like Simon Stevin. That the introduction of the decimal place value system let loose a veritable explosion in many subjects i have little doubt, but the question in my mind was WHY did it take EUROPE 1500 years to adopt such an obvious means of counting if it had been adopted so casually by the Indians as the west would have you believe. The Occident was emphatic in denying to india any kind of tradition that facilitated the adoption of such a system even in Vedic times and most Historian's in the occident have dismissed the invention of the DPV in ancient India, as an aberration(1) of which the Indians themselves did not have the slightest clue as to its real significance.
The answer was crystal clear. It had escaped the attention of the greatest scientists in the west , men like Archimedes , because it was a difficult concept to invent, especially for a people who were not used to numbers and who had to use multiplication tables to do even the simplest arithmetical operations.
Obversely (and this is where the lightbulb exploded ) it was not easy for the Indians either and they must have worked at it systematically over thousands of years beginning in the Vedic era to get to where they were during the time of Aryabhata where he makes use of these and other representations in such a facile manner . So comfortable was he with the entire edifice of what we call Number theory today that he developed the concept of a recursive algorithm while analytically developing the first sine difference table in the history of the world . Note that the use of recursion in an algorithm was considered a novelty and the sign of sophistication as late as the second half of the twentieth century. The most well known examples of Recursion are the Fibonacci sequence, the Kalman filter and the use of recursion in language.
But the use of recursion by Aryabhata was a significant indicator for me that the Indic tradition in the computational science was of high antiquity and very robust by the time of Aryabhata.
The name of the book is 'The origins of astronomy , the calendar and time ââ¬Ë The book is now available in many retail outlets including Amazon, . While it is not a demanding book , it requires an inquiring and restless mind that is not afraid of asking the hard questions. But for the person who reads the book in its entirety , I guarantee that it will change your view of the world. In my next post i will expain what i mean by an epistemic rupture
(1) quote from my book "The comment often made in the occident is that there is a general absence of proof in the ancient Indic texts. This reinforces the view that the Indic contributions were borrowed from elsewhere. Typical of such brashness was the remark of Morris Kline , May 1, 1908 ââ¬â June 10, 1992 Professor Emeritus at Courant institute of Mathematical sciencesââ¬Ë As our survey indicates the Hindus were interested in and contributed to the arithmetical and computational activities, rather than to the deductive pattern. Their name for mathematics is Gaá¹â¡ita which means the Science of calculation. There is much good procedure and technical facility but no evidence that they considered Proof at all. They had rules but apparently no logical scruples. Moreover, no general methods or new viewpoints were arrived at in any area of mathematics.ââ¬â¢ As if all this was not bad enough, he delivers the final coup de grace.
It is fairly certain that the Hindus did not appreciate the significance of their own contributions. The few good ideas that they had, such as separate symbols for the numbers from1 to 9 ââ¬â¢, the conversion from positional notation in base 60 to base 10, negative numbers and the recognition of 0 as a number , were introduced casually with no apparent realization that they were valuable innovations. They were not sensitive to mathematical values. The fine ideas that they themselves advanced, they commingled with the crudest ideas of the Egyptians and Babylonians."