The Indic Mathematical Tradition 6000 BCE To ?

[Husky]

Guess the west's earlier attempt to pass zero off as a Chinese invention has ended, as something's come up to make them feel confident now to admit the following.



usatoday.com/videos/news/world/2017/09/14/-earliest-evidence-number-zero-found-ancient-manuscript/105608872/

Video's transcript:

Experts at Oxford University believe they have discovered the origin of the zero in an Indian Bakshali manuscript, a mathematical text that was discovered in 1881. Researchers conducted the first ever radiocarbon dating on the Bakshali manuscript and reveal that it dates from as early as the 3rd century, five centuries older than previously thought. Carbon dating indicates that the manuscript is the world's oldest recorded origin of the zero symbol, predating a 9th century inscription of zero on the wall of a temple in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. "We now know that it was early as the 3rd century that mathematicians in India planted the seed of the idea that would later become so fundamental to the modern world," said one of the researchers. While the use of zero as a placeholder was seen in several different ancient cultures, including the Mayans, the symbol in the Bakshali manuscript is significant because it was only in India that zero developed into a number in its own right, when an Indian astronomer named Brahmagupta wrote a text called brAhma-spUTa-siddhAnta in the 6th century.

And

www.theguardian.com/science/2017/sep/14/much-ado-about-nothing-ancient-indian-text-contains-earliest-zero-symbol

Much ado about nothing: ancient Indian text contains earliest zero symbol



Exclusive: one of the greatest conceptual breakthroughs in mathematics has been traced to the Bakhshali manuscript, dating from the 3rd or 4th century

In this close-up image you can see the use of a dot as a placeholder in the bottom line. This dot evolved into the use of zero as a number in its own right. Photograph: Courtesy of Bodleian Libraries/ University of Oxford



Hannah Devlin Science correspondent

@hannahdev



Thursday 14 September 2017 00.01 BST



Nowt, nada, zilch: there is nothing new about nothingness. But the moment that the absence of stuff became zero, a number in its own right, is regarded as one of the greatest breakthroughs in the history of mathematics.



Now scientists have traced the origins of this conceptual leap to an ancient Indian text, known as the Bakhshali manuscript – a text which has been housed in the UK since 1902.



Radiocarbon dating reveals the fragmentary text, which is inscribed on 70 pieces of birch bark and contains hundreds of zeroes, dates to as early as the 3rd or 4th century – about 500 years older than scholars previously believed. This makes it the world’s oldest recorded origin of the zero symbol that we use today.



The ‘front’ page (recto) of folio 16 which dates to 224-383 AD. Photograph: Courtesy of Bodleian Libraries/ University of Oxford



Marcus du Sautoy, professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford, said: “Today we take it for granted that the concept of zero is used across the globe and our whole digital world is based on nothing or something. But there was a moment when there wasn’t this number.”



The Bakhshali manuscript was found in 1881, buried in a field in a village called Bakhshali, near Peshawar, in what is now a region of Pakistan. It was discovered by a local farmer and later acquired by the Bodleian Library in Oxford.



Translations of the text, which is written in a form of Sanskrit, suggest it was a form of training manual for merchants trading across the Silk Road, and it includes practical arithmetic exercises and something approaching algebra. “There’s a lot of ‘If someone buys this and sells this how much have they got left?’” said Du Sautoy.



In the fragile document, zero does not yet feature as a number in its own right, but as a placeholder in a number system, just as the “0” in “101” indicates no tens. It features a problem to which the answer is zero, but here the answer is left blank.



Several ancient cultures independently came up with similar placeholder symbols. The Babylonians used a double wedge for nothing as part of cuneiform symbols dating back 5,000 years, while the Mayans used a shell to denote absence in their complex calendar system.



However the dot symbol in the Bakhshali script is the one that ultimately evolved into the hollow-centred version of the symbol that we use today. It also sowed the seed for zero as a number, which is first described in a text called Brahmasphutasiddhanta, written by the Indian astronomer and mathematician Brahmagupta in 628AD.



“This becomes the birth of the concept of zero in it’s own right and this is a total revolution that happens out of India,” said Du Sautoy.

(Interesting choice of words by Monsieur Du Sautoy.)



The development of zero as a mathematical concept may have been inspired by the region’s long philosophical tradition of contemplating the void and may explain why the concept took so long to catch on in Europe, which lacked the same cultural reference points.



“This is coming out of a culture that is quite happy to conceive of the void, to conceive of the infinite,” said Du Sautoy. “That is exciting to recognise, that culture is important in making big mathematical breakthroughs.”

(Usual repackaging of religion as culture.)



Despite developing sophisticated maths and geometry, the ancient Greeks had no symbol for zero, for instance, showing that while the concept zero may now feel familiar, it is not an obvious one.



“The Europeans, even when it was introduced to them, were like ‘Why would we need a number for nothing?’” said Du Sautoy. “It’s a very abstract leap.”



Carbon dating reveals Bakhshali manuscript is centuries older than scholars believed and is formed of multiple leaves nearly 500 years different in age. Photograph: Courtesy of Bodleian Libraries/ University of Oxford



In the latest study, three samples were extracted from the manuscript and analysed at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit. The results revealed that the three samples tested date from three different centuries, one from 224-383 AD, another from 680-779 AD and another from 885-993 AD, raising further questions about how the manuscript came to be packaged together as a single document.



The development of zero in mathematics underpins an incredible range of further work, including the notion of infinity, the modern notion of the vacuum in quantum physics, and some of the deepest questions in cosmology of how the Universe arose – and how it might disappear from existence in some unimaginable future scenario.



Richard Ovenden, head of the Bodleian Library, said the results highlight a Western bias that has often seen the contributions of South Asian scholars being overlooked. “These surprising research results testify to the subcontinent’s rich and longstanding scientific tradition,” he said.



The manuscript will be on public display on 4 October, as part of a major exhibition, Illuminating India: 5000 Years of Science and Innovation (sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/exhibitions/illuminating-india), at the Science Museum in London.

Hmmm, they're now mentioning 5000 years of Indian science and Innovation. <- "Wonder what led to that admission." And how long they knew the above among themselves and withheld it until just this particular timing. It's a rhetorical question. I suspect I know the answer to it, the answer to why they feel confident to admit 5000 years of Indian science and innovation at all. (And when they say "Indian" here, 5000 years ago there was no Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Ajeevikas, Charvakans or other assorted. Those didn't get invented until around half that time ago. Only heathen Hindoos existed all the way. And that's where the Indian scientific tradition traces to, it's why it's a tradition. These things need to be stated nowadays, considering that christoislamania isn't the only missionising religion trying to inculturate and poach on Hindu heathenism.)



Oh and the other text mentioned - the 6th century brAhma-spUTa-siddhAnta - is by the Shaiva i.e. the Hindoo Brahmagupta. <- Mentioning this before wikipedia gets defaced by the usual Buddhists/Jainists etc trying to pretend that he was a Buddhist/Jain/whatever and his text too, although I suppose that will happen next (and to the manuscript found in Bakshali too) and then the Buddhist plug Rajeev Srinivasan will be propagating that Brahmagupta and his text were Buddhist all over the internet. Any minute now.



Before that happens, I'll archive wikipedia's current admission that Brahmagupta is a Vedic Hindoo (specifically of the Shaiva variety).



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C4%81hmasphu%E1%B9%ADasiddh%C4%81nta

Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a full view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (December 2016)



The Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta ("Correctly Established Doctrine of Brahma", abbreviated BSS) is the main work of Brahmagupta, written[citation needed] c. 628. Τhis text of mathematical astronomy contains significant mathematical content, including a good understanding of the role of zero, rules for manipulating both negative and positive numbers, a method for computing square roots, methods of solving linear and quadratic equations, and rules for summing series, Brahmagupta's identity, and Brahmagupta’s theorem.



The book was written completely in verse and does not contain any kind of mathematical notation. Nevertheless, it contained the first clear description of the quadratic formula (the solution of the quadratic equation).[1][2]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmagupta

Brahmagupta

Born c. 598 CE

Died after 665 CE

Bhillamāla[1]

Ujjain



Known for

Zero

Modern number system

Brahmagupta's theorem

Brahmagupta's identity

Brahmagupta's problem

Brahmagupta-Fibonacci identity

Brahmagupta's interpolation formula

Brahmagupta's formula



Scientific career

Fields Mathematics, astronomy



Brahmagupta (About this sound listen (help·info)) (born c. 598, died after 665) was an Indian mathematician and astronomer. He is the author of two early works on mathematics and astronomy: the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta (BSS, "correctly established doctrine of Brahma", dated 628), a theoretical treatise, and the Khaṇḍakhādyaka ("edible bite", dated 665), a more practical text.



Brahmagupta was the first to give rules to compute with zero. The texts composed by Brahmagupta were composed in elliptic verse in Sanskrit, as was common practice in Indian mathematics. As no proofs are given, it is not known how Brahmagupta's results were derived.[2]

Life and career



Brahmagupta was born in 598 CE according to his own statement. He lived in Bhillamala (modern Bhinmal) during the reign of the Chapa dynasty ruler, Vyagrahamukha. He was the son of Jishnugupta and was a Shaivite by religion.[3] Even though most scholars assume that Brahmagupta was born in Bhillamala, there is no conclusive evidence for it. However, he lived and worked there for a good part of his life. Prithudaka Svamin, a later commentator, called him Bhillamalacharya, the teacher from Bhillamala.[4] Sociologist G. S. Ghurye believed that he might have been from the Multan or Abu region.[5]



Bhillamala, called pi-lo-mo-lo by Xuanzang, was the apparent capital of the Gurjaradesa, the second largest kingdom of Western India, comprising southern Rajasthan and northern Gujarat in modern-day India. It was also a centre of learning for mathematics and astronomy. Brahmagupta became an astronomer of the Brahmapaksha school, one of the four major schools of Indian astronomy during this period. He studied the five traditional siddhanthas on Indian astronomy as well as the work of other astronomers including Aryabhata I, Latadeva, Pradyumna, Varahamihira, Simha, Srisena, Vijayanandin and Vishnuchandra.[4]



In the year 628, at an age of 30, he composed the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta (the improved treatise of Brahma) which is believed to be a revised version of the received siddhanta of the Brahmapaksha school. Scholars state that he incorporated a great deal of originality to his revision, adding a considerable amount of new material. The book consists of 24 chapters with 1008 verses in the ārya metre. A good deal of it is astronomy, but it also contains key chapters on mathematics, including algebra, geometry, trigonometry and algorithmics, which are believed to contain new insights due to Brahmagupta himself.[4][6][7]



Later, Brahmagupta moved to Ujjain, which was also a major centre for astronomy. At the age of 67, he composed his next well known work Khanda-khādyaka, a practical manual of Indian astronomy in the karana category meant to be used by students.[8]



Brahmagupta lived beyond 665 CE. He is believed to have died in Ujjain.[citation needed]

Anyway, the zero goes back earlier of course, to the Vedas. E.g. it was already known in the Devi atharvasheerSham of Vedic text. Not to be confused with dabblers in Buddhism's recent attempts to subsume this Hindoo text into Buddhism on account of the mention of shUnya therein. (Which is a particularly Hindoo reference to Shoonya and retains its original Hindoo meaning. Shoonya is Hindoo. Not Buddhist. Like Buddhism/Jainism/etc encroached on other Vaidika=Hindoo terms like dharma, Buddhists also encroached on Shunya, and then made a Bauddhicised clone of it, with whole new subverted meaning etc. Doesn't make any of these terms originally Buddhist. They remain Hindoo, and the original Hindoo concepts associated with the terms remain the originals too.)