Aryabhata

Statue of Aryabhata on the grounds of IUCAA, Pune. As there is no known information regarding his appearance, any image of Aryabhata originates from an artist's conception. Aryabhata (IAST: ryabhaa; Sanskrit: ) (476550 CE) was the first in the line of great mathematician-astronomers from the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy. His most famous works are the Aryabhatiya (499 CE, when he was 23 years old) and the Aryasiddhanta.

Biography
Name
While there is a tendency to misspell his name as "Aryabhatta" by analogy with other names having the "bhatta" suffix, his name is properly spelled Aryabhata: every astronomical text spells his name thus,[1] including Brahmagupta's references to him "in more than a hundred places by name".[2] Furthermore, in most instances "Aryabhatta" does not fit the metre either.[1]

Birth
Aryabhata mentions in the Aryabhatiya that it was composed 3,600 years into the Kali Yuga, when he was 23 years old. This corresponds to 499 CE, and implies that he was born in 476 CE.[1] Aryabhata provides no information about his place of birth. The only information comes from Bhskara I, who describes Aryabhata as makya, "one belonging to the amaka country." While amaka was originally situated in the northwest of India, it is widely attested that, during the Buddha's time, a branch of the Amaka people settled in the region between the Narmada and Godavari rivers, in the South GujaratNorth Maharashtra region of central India. Aryabhata is believed to have been born there.[1][3] However, early Buddhist texts describe Ashmaka as being further south, in dakshinapath or the Deccan, while other texts describe the Ashmakas as having fought Alexander, which would put them further north.[3]

Work
It is fairly certain that, at some point, he went to Kusumapura for advanced studies and that he lived there for some time.[4] Both Hindu and Buddhist tradition, as well as Bhskara I (CE 629), identify Kusumapura as Paliputra, modern Patna.[1] A verse mentions that Aryabhata was the head of an institution (kulapa) at Kusumapura, and, because the university of Nalanda was in Pataliputra at the time and had an astronomical observatory, it is speculated that Aryabhata might have been the head of the Nalanda university as well.[1]

Kerala hypothesis
It has also been suggested that amaka (Sanskrit for "stone") might be the region in Kerala that is now known as Kouallr, based on the belief that it was earlier known as Koum-Kal-l-r ("city of hard stones"); however, old records show that the city was actually Ko um-kol-r ("city of strict governance").[1] It is also claimed that the fact that several commentaries on the Aryabhatiya have come from Kerala suggest that it was Aryabhata's main place of life and activity. But K. V. Sarma, the authority on Kerala's astronomical tradition,[5] disagrees and cites many commentaries that have come from outside Kerala and the Aryasiddhanta's being completely unknown in Kerala.[1] In recent (2007) papers, K. Chandra Hari uses a discrepancy in Aryabhata's astronomical values to deduce that he carried out his calculations from a place in Kerala at the same meridian as Ujjayini, possibly Chamravattam (10N51, 75E45) in central Kerala. He further hypothesizes that Asmaka was the Jain country surrounding Shravanabelagola, taking its name from the stone monoliths there.[5][6][7] Aryabhata mentions "Lanka" on several occasions in the Aryabhatiya, but his "Lanka" is an abstraction, standing for a point on the equator at the same longitude as his Ujjayini.[8][9][10][11][12][13]

Works
Aryabhata is the author of several treatises on mathematics and astronomy, some of which are lost. His major work, Aryabhatiya, a compendium of mathematics and astronomy, was extensively referred to in the Indian mathematical literature and has survived to modern times. The mathematical part of the Aryabhatiya covers arithmetic, algebra, plane trigonometry, and spherical trigonometry. It also contains continued fractions, quadratic equations, sums-of-power series, and a table of sines. The Arya-siddhanta, a lost work on astronomical computations, is known through the writings of Aryabhata's contemporary, Varahamihira, and later mathematicians and commentators, including Brahmagupta and Bhaskara I. This work appears to be based on the older Surya Siddhanta and uses the midnight-day reckoning, as opposed to sunrise in Aryabhatiya. It also contained a description of several astronomical instruments: the gnomon (shanku-yantra), a shadow instrument (chhAyA-yantra), possibly angle-measuring devices, semicircular and circular (dhanur-yantra / chakra-yantra), a cylindrical stick yasti-yantra, an umbrella-shaped device called the chhatra-yantra, and water clocks of at least two types, bow-shaped and cylindrical.[3] A third text, which may have survived in the Arabic translation, is Al ntf or Al-nanf. It claims that it is a translation by Aryabhata, but the Sanskrit name of this work is not known. Probably dating from the 9th century, it is mentioned by the Persian scholar and chronicler of India, Ab Rayhn al-Brn.[3]

Aryabhatiya
Direct details of Aryabhata's work are therefore known only from the Aryabhatiya. The name "Aryabhatiya" is due to later commentators. Aryabhata himself may not have given it a name. His disciple Bhaskara I calls it Ashmakatantra (or the treatise from the Ashmaka). It is also occasionally referred to as Arya-shatas-aShTa (literally, Aryabhata's 108), because there are 108 verses in the text. It is written in the very terse style typical of sutra literature, in which each line is an aid to memory for a complex system. Thus, the explication of meaning is due to commentators. The text consists of the 108 verses and 13 introductory verses, and is divided into four pdas or chapters: 1. Gitikapada: (13 verses): large units of timekalpa, manvantra, and yugawhich present a cosmology different from earlier texts such as Lagadha's Vedanga Jyotisha(ca. 1st century BCE). There is also a table of sines (jya), given in a single verse. The duration of the planetary revolutions during a mahayuga is given as 4.32 million years. 2. Ganitapada (33 verses): covering mensuration (ketra vyvahra), arithmetic and geometric progressions, gnomon / shadows (shanku-chhAyA), simple, quadratic, simultaneous, and indeterminate equations (kuTTaka)

3. Kalakriyapada (25 verses): different units of time and a method for determining the positions of planets for a given day, calculations concerning the intercalary month (adhikamAsa), kShaya-tithis, and a seven-day week with names for the days of week. 4. Golapada (50 verses): Geometric/trigonometric aspects of the celestial sphere, features of the ecliptic, celestial equator, node, shape of the earth, cause of day and night, rising of zodiacal signs on horizon, etc. In addition, some versions cite a few colophons added at the end, extolling the virtues of the work, etc. The Aryabhatiya presented a number of innovations in mathematics and astronomy in verse form, which were influential for many centuries. The extreme brevity of the text was elaborated in commentaries by his disciple Bhaskara I (Bhashya, ca. 600 CE) and by Nilakantha Somayaji in his Aryabhatiya Bhasya, (1465 CE).

Mathematics
Place value system and zero
The place-value system, first seen in the 3rd century Bakhshali Manuscript, was clearly in place in his work.[14] ; he certainly did not use the symbol, but French mathematician Georges Ifrah argues that knowledge of zero was implicit in Aryabhata's place-value system as a place holder for the powers of ten with null coefficients[15] However, Aryabhata did not use the brahmi numerals. Continuing the Sanskritic tradition from Vedic times, he used letters of the alphabet to denote numbers, expressing quantities, such as the table of sines in a mnemonic form.[16]

Pi as irrational
Aryabhata worked on the approximation for Pi (), and may have come to the conclusion that is irrational. In the second part of the Aryabhatiyam (gaitapda 10), he writes:
chaturadhikam atamaaguam dvaistath sahasrm Ayutadvayavikambhasysanno vrttapariaha. "Add four to 100, multiply by eight, and then add 62,000. By this rule the circumference of a circle with a diameter of 20,000 can be approached."

This implies that the ratio of the circumference to the diameter is ((4+100)8+62000)/20000 = 3.1416, which is accurate to five significant figures. It is speculated that Aryabhata used the word sanna (approaching), to mean that not only is this an approximation but that the value is incommensurable (or irrational). If this is correct, it is quite a sophisticated insight, because the irrationality of pi was proved in Europe only in 1761 by Lambert).[17]

After Aryabhatiya was translated into Arabic (ca. 820 CE) this approximation was mentioned in Al-Khwarizmi's book on algebra.[3]

[edit] Mensuration and trigonometry

In Ganitapada 6, Aryabhata gives the area of a triangle as tribhujasya phalashariram samadalakoti bhujardhasamvargah that translates to: "for a triangle, the result of a perpendicular with the half-side is the area."[18] Aryabhata discussed the concept of sine in his work by the name of ardha-jya. Literally, it means "half-chord". For simplicity, people started calling it jya. When Arabic writers translated his works from Sanskrit into Arabic, they referred it as jiba. However, in Arabic writings, vowels are omitted, and it was abbreviated as jb. Later writers substituted it with jiab, meaning "cove" or "bay." (In Arabic, jiba is a meaningless word.) Later in the 12th century, when Gherardo of Cremona translated these writings from Arabic into Latin, he replaced the Arabic jiab with its Latin counterpart, sinus, which means "cove" or "bay". And after that, the sinus became sine in English

C. P. Ramanujam
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search Chakravarthi Padmanabhan Ramanujam (January 9, 1938 October 27, 1974) was an Indian mathematician who worked in the fields of Number theory and Algebraic geometry. He got elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1973. Like Srinivasa Ramanujan, his namesake, Ramanujam also had a very short life. As David Mumford put it, Ramanujam felt that the spirit of mathematics demanded of him not merely routine developments but the right theorem on any given topic. "He wanted mathematics to be beautiful and to be clear and simple. He was sometimes tormented by the difficulty of these high standards, but in retrospect, it is clear to us how often he succeeded in adding to our knowledge, results both new, beautiful and with a genuinely original stamp".

[edit] Child hood

Ramanujam was born on 9th Jan. 1938 in Chennai, India, as the eldest of seven, to Chakravarthi Srinivasa Padmanabhan. He exhibited an intense curiosity at an early age. At the age of 10 he was building large complex mechanical gadgets with his Lego set. At 12 he had a small chemistry lab in his room and was constantly tinkering with different chemicals,trying out different experiments. His curiosity and yen for learning was unbelievable. He gained a reputation for embarrassing his teachers with difficult questions. He finished his schooling and joined Loyola College in Chennai in 1952. His specialization was to be mathematics and he set out to master it with vigour and passion. His teacher and friend at this time was Father Racine. Father Racine was a missionary who had obtained his doctorate under the supervision of Elie Cartan, one of the great mathematicians of the first half of the twentieth century. Father Racine quickly realised that he had a talented student on his hands. On Father Racine's encouragement and recommendation, Ramanujam applied to the graduate school at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay and was admitted to TIFR. His father had wanted him to join the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata as he had passed the entrance exam meritoriously.

[edit] Early career

He set out for Mumbai at the age of eighteen to pursue his interest in mathematics. He and his friend and schoolmate Raghavan Narasimhan, and S. Ramanan joined TIFR together in 1957. At the Tata Institute there was a stream of first rate visiting mathematicians from all over the world. It was a tradition for some graduate student to write up the notes of each course of lectures. Accordingly, Ramanujam wrote up in his first year, the notes of Max Deuring's lectures on Algebraic functions of one variable. It was a nontrivial effort and the notes were written clearly and were well received. The analytical mind was much in evidence in this effort as he could simplify and extend the notes within a short time period. "He could reduce difficult solutions to

be simple and elegant due to his deep knowledge of the subject matter" states Ramanan. "Max Deuring's lectures gave him a taste for Algebraic Number Theory. He studied not only algebraic geometry and analytical number theory of which he displayed a deep knowledge but he became an expert in several other allied subjects as well". His Ph.D guide, K. G. Ramanathan[1] states that Ramanujam displayed within two years of his stay, versatility and depth in mathematics which was rare and somewhat frightening. However, there were no concrete results commensurate with his mathematical breadth and depth and this soon led to frustration. His wide foray into a variety of topics led to a dispersed knowledge but it did not have 'big cash value' states Ramanathan. Ramanujam was frustrated and felt that he was not worthy of staying on in the Institute. "He applied to different universities to teach mathematics and fortunately for him he was not accepted anywhere" states Ramanathan. On his guide's suggestion he began working on a problem relating to the work of the great German number theorist C. L. Siegel. His insight and knowledge finally bore fruit and he solved the long outstanding problem in a remarkably short time. In the course of proving the main result [2] to the effect that every cubic form in 54 variables over any algebraic number field K had a non-trivial zero over that field, he had also simplified the earlier method of Siegel. Although he felt that with a little more effort, it could be reduced even to Davenport's 29, valid for the rational number field, Ramanujam was not interested in pursuing it. He wanted to move on and tackle more exciting problems. He took up Waring's problem in algebraic number fields and got interesting results. In recognition of his work and his contribution to Number Theory, the Institute promoted him as Associate Professor. He protested against this promotion as 'undeserved', and had to be persuaded to accept the position. He proceeded to write his thesis in 1966 and took his Doctoral examination in 1967. Dr. Siegel who was one of the examiners was highly impressed with the young man's depth of knowledge and his great mathematical abilities. Ramanujam was a scribe for Shafarevich's course of lectures in 1965 on minimal models and birational transformation of two dimensional schemes. Professor Shafarevich[3] subsequently wrote to say that Ramanujam not only corrected his mistakes but complemented the proofs of many results. The same was the case with Mumford's lectures on abelian varieties which was delivered at TIFR around 1967. Mumford wrote in the preface to his book that the notes improved upon his work and that his current work on abelian varieties was a joint effort between him and Ramanujam. A little known fact is that during this time he started teaching himself German, Italian, Russian and French so that he could study mathematical works in their original form. His personal library contained quite a few non-English mathematical works.

[edit] Personality and other interests

He could quickly enthuse others with his passion for maths and freely gave of his time and knowledge to whoever sought him out. He did not just speak the language of mathematics. His finer sensibilities led him to appreciate fine pieces of literary work, both fiction and nonfiction.He always loved reading and gifting books to others. He had a fine ear for music and it was his second passion after mathematics. His favorite musician was Dr. M. D. Ramanathan, a maverick concert musician who was not very popular because of his classicalism. Ramanujam would invariably attend his concerts when he was in Chennai. During his early thirties he wanted to learn music and bought himself a pipe and learned how to play it.He sought out people with

whom he could discuss music and loved their company. Like many a connoisseur of arts, he loved good food. In his early years he took to smoking and later discovered the joy of smoking a pipe. His other hobbies were chess, tennis, carrom and Go. He would however resume his mathematical scribblings on any scrap of paper that was available whenever an idea came to him. His mathematical mind was effortlessly clicking away even when he was relaxing and enjoying himself. Ramanujam was extremely large hearted and generous to a fault and was known time and again to empty out his wallet to anyone in the street who approached him.

[edit] Illness and death

Between 1964 and 1968, he was making great strides in Number theory and his contacts with Shafarevich and Mumford led him on to Algebraic Geometry. According to Ramanathan and other colleagues, his progress and deep understanding of Algebraic Geometry was phenomenal. Mumford highly commended his work in this area. Ramanujam gained such a deep understanding of his specialization, that he was sought after by his colleagues and was a source of inspiration to them. In 1964, based on his participation in the International Colloquim on Differential Analysis, he earned the respect of Grothendieck and Mumford who invited him to Paris and Harvard. He accepted the invitation and was in Paris, but for a brief period. Things would not be the same. He was burning the candle at both ends and it would take its toll. He was diagnosed in 1964 with schizophrenia with severe depression and left Paris for Chennai. He felt very strongly that he was not suited for mathematical research and decided to quit his position at TIFR. His resignation was however not accepted by the Institute.It will always be a mystery as to whether his unassuming, humble demeanour and modesty in some ways contributed to his illness. A true savant,imbued with a rare modesty and humility, he felt that what he had achieved did not deserve recognition. He quit his post at Mumbai in 1965 after a bout of illness and secured a tenured position as a Professor in Chandigarh, Punjab. There he met the young student Chitikila Musili, who was from a very humble background. Though Musili knew little mathematics at that time, Ramanujam spent a lot of time with him, teaching him and encouraging him. He suggested to the Institute that he was a bright student and could be directly taken as a graduate student without the ritual of an interview. Musili was later to prove interesting results in the geometry connected with the theory of Lie groups and wrote good expository books. Ramanujam stayed in Chandigarh only 8 months and he had to return to Chennai again for treatment. TIFR was his real home and he was back there again in June 1965. Around this time he accepted an invitation from Insitut Des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, near Paris. He was barely there before he was flown back to Chennai. Unfortunately schizophrenia, a highly treatable condition today, was not properly diagnosed and treated at that time. Thus he continued until the end of his life - to be highly creative for short periods before the recurrent illness overtook him. Again, in 1970, he sent his resignation letter to TIFR but the institute would not take it seriously. Around this time, Mumford invited him to Warwick as a visiting professor during the Algebraic Geometry year. Mumford writes that he spent many delightful evenings with him and that his presence contributed importantly to the success of the Algebraic Geometry year [2]. A famous paper written during this time, by Mike Artin and David Mumford acknowledges Ramanujam's suggestions and help.He also had a short tenure at Turin where he was widely appreciated and

accepted. Just after his death a commemorative hall was named after him in the former Istituto di Matematica (Institute of Mathematics) of the university of Genoa. Back in India after his year at the University of Warwick, Ramanujam requested for a Professorship at the Tata Institute but to be made tenable in their Bangalore campus. The Tata Institute had an applied mathematics wing in Bangalore. Although Ramanjuam had nothing to do with this area, the Institute, wishing him to continue his research, made a special arrangement by which he could stay and work there. By this time he was deeply affected and depressed by his illness and wanted to try magical cures. He was put in charge of a new branch dealing with applied mathematics. He settled down in Bangalore but again in the depths of depression caused by his illness, he tried to leave the Institute and obtain a university teaching post. During one of the attacks, he tried to take his life, but was rescued in time. However, late one evening on October 27 1974, after a lively discussion with a visiting foreign professor he took his life with an overdose of barbiturates. He was barely thirty seven.

Baudhayana
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search Baudhyana, (fl. ca. 800 BCE)[1] was an Indian mathematician, who was most likely also a priest. He is noted as the author of the earliest Sulba Sutra appendices to the Vedas giving rules for the construction of altars called the Baudhyana ulbastra, which contained several important mathematical results. He is older than other famous mathematician Apastambha. He belongs to Yajurveda school.

[edit] The sutras of Baudhayana

The Stras of Baudhyana are associated with the Taittiriya kh (branch) of Krishna (black) Yajurveda. The sutras of Baudhyana have six sections, 1. the rautastra, probably in 19 Pranas (chapters), 2. the Karmntastra in 20 Adhyyas (chapters), 3. the Dvaidhastra in 4 Pranas, 4. the Grihyasutra in 4 Pranas, 5. the Dharmastra in 4 Pranas and 6. the ulbastra in 3 Adhyyas[2].

[edit] The Shrautasutra

Main article: Baudhayana Shrauta Sutra His shrauta sutras related to performing to Vedic sacrifices has followers in some Smartha brahmins (Iyers)And some Iyengars of Tamil Nadu, Yajurvedis or Namboothiris of Kerala, Gurukkal brahmins, among others. The followers of this sutra follow different method and do 24 Thilatharpanam which his because of Lord Krishna who had done Tharpanam on the day before Amavasaya and they call themself as Baudhayana Amavasya.

[edit] The Dharmasutra

The Vivarana of Govindasvami is an important commentary on the Dharmastra.

[edit] The mathematics in Shulbasutra

[edit] Pythagorean theorem
The now known Pythagorean theorem is believed to have been invented by Baudhayana. This theorem is used to calculate the sides of a right angle triangle. There is evidence to this fact exists all over India.[citation needed]

[edit] Circling the Square

Another problem tackled by Baudhayana is that of finding a circle whose area is the same as that of a square (the reverse of squaring the circle). His sutra i.58 gives this construction: Draw half its diagonal about the centre towards the East-West line; then describe a circle together with a third part of that which lies outside the square. Explanation:

Draw the half-diagonal of the square, which is larger than the half-side by . Then draw a circle with radius , or , which equals . Now , so the area .

[edit] Square root of 2

Baudhayana i.61-2 (elaborated in Apastamba Sulbasutra i.6) gives this formula for square root of two: samasya dvikara. prama tachchaturthntma chatusastrishenena savisheSha. Translation Requested which is correct to five decimals. Other theorems include: diagonals of rectangle bisect each other, diagonals of rhombus bisect at right angles, area of a square formed by joining the middle points of a square is half of original, the midpoints of a rectangle joined forms a rhombus whose area is half the rectangle, etc. Note the emphasis on rectangles and squares; this arises from the need to specify yaja bhmiksi.e. the altar on which a rituals were conducted, including fire offerings (yaja). Apastamba (c. 600 BC) and Katyayana (c. 200 BC), authors of other sulba sutras, extend some of Baudhayana's ideas. Apastamba provides a more general proof[citation needed] of the Pythagorean theorem. ttyena vardhayet