Mathematics in India
Mathematics in India

Author: Kim Plofker

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2009-01-18

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 9780691120676

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Based on extensive research in Sanskrit sources, Mathematics in India chronicles the development of mathematical techniques and texts in South Asia from antiquity to the early modern period. Kim Plofker reexamines the few facts about Indian mathematics that have become common knowledge--such as the Indian origin of Arabic numerals--and she sets them in a larger textual and cultural framework. The book details aspects of the subject that have been largely passed over in the past, including the relationships between Indian mathematics and astronomy, and their cross-fertilizations with Islamic scientific traditions. Plofker shows that Indian mathematics appears not as a disconnected set of discoveries, but as a lively, diverse, yet strongly unified discipline, intimately linked to other Indian forms of learning. Far more than in other areas of the history of mathematics, the literature on Indian mathematics reveals huge discrepancies between what researchers generally agree on and what general readers pick up from popular ideas. This book explains with candor the chief controversies causing these discrepancies--both the flaws in many popular claims, and the uncertainties underlying many scholarly conclusions. Supplementing the main narrative are biographical resources for dozens of Indian mathematicians; a guide to key features of Sanskrit for the non-Indologist; and illustrations of manuscripts, inscriptions, and artifacts. Mathematics in India provides a rich and complex understanding of the Indian mathematical tradition. **Author's note: The concept of "computational positivism" in Indian mathematical science, mentioned on p. 120, is due to Prof. Roddam Narasimha and is explored in more detail in some of his works, including "The Indian half of Needham's question: some thoughts on axioms, models, algorithms, and computational positivism" (Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 28, 2003, 1-13).

Expounding the Mathematical Seed. Vol. 1: The Translation
Expounding the Mathematical Seed. Vol. 1: The Translation

Author: Agathe Keller

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2006-06-22

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 3764375922

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In the 5th century, the Indian mathematician Aryabhata wrote a small but famous work on astronomy in 118 verses called the Aryabhatiya. Its second chapter gives a summary of Hindu mathematics up to that point, and 200 years later, the Indian astronomer Bhaskara glossed that chapter. This volume is a literal English translation of Bhaskara’s commentary complete with an introduction.

Studies in the History of Indian Mathematics
Studies in the History of Indian Mathematics

Author: C. S. Seshadri

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2010-08-15

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 9386279495

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This volume is the outcome of a seminar on the history of mathematics held at the Chennai Mathematical Institute during January-February 2008 and contains articles based on the talks of distinguished scholars both from the West and from India. The topics covered include: (1) geometry in the oulvasatras; (2) the origins of zero (which can be traced to ideas of lopa in Paoini's grammar); (3) combinatorial methods in Indian music (which were developed in the context of prosody and subsequently applied to the study of tonal and rhythmic patterns in music); (4) a cross-cultural view of the development of negative numbers (from Brahmagupta (c. 628 CE) to John Wallis (1685 CE); (5) Kunnaka, Bhavana and Cakravala (the techniques developed by Indian mathematicians for the solution of indeterminate equations); (6) the development of calculus in India (covering the millennium-long history of discoveries culminating in the work of the Kerala school giving a complete analysis of the basic calculus of polynomial and trigonometrical functions); (7) recursive methods in Indian mathematics (going back to Paoini's grammar and culminating in the recursive proofs found in the Malayalam text Yuktibhaua (1530 CE)); and (8) planetary and lunar models developed by the Kerala School of Astronomy. The articles in this volume cover a substantial portion of the history of Indian mathematics and astronomy. This book will serve the dual purpose of bringing to the international community a better perspective of the mathematical heritage of India and conveying the message that much work remains to be done, namely the study of many unexplored manuscripts still available in libraries in India and abroad.

After Virtue
After Virtue

Author: Alasdair MacIntyre

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2013-10-21

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 1623569818

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Highly controversial when it was first published in 1981, Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue has since established itself as a landmark work in contemporary moral philosophy. In this book, MacIntyre sought to address a crisis in moral language that he traced back to a European Enlightenment that had made the formulation of moral principles increasingly difficult. In the search for a way out of this impasse, MacIntyre returns to an earlier strand of ethical thinking, that of Aristotle, who emphasised the importance of 'virtue' to the ethical life. More than thirty years after its original publication, After Virtue remains a work that is impossible to ignore for anyone interested in our understanding of ethics and morality today.

Vedic Mathematics, 'Vedic' or 'Mathematics': A Fuzzy & Neutrosophic Analysis
Vedic Mathematics, 'Vedic' or 'Mathematics': A Fuzzy & Neutrosophic Analysis

Author: W. B. Vasantha Kandasamy

Publisher: Infinite Study

Published: 2006-12

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 1599730049

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The ?Vedas? are considered ?divine? in origin and are assumed to be revelations from God. In traditional Hinduism, the Vedas were to be learnt only by the ?upper? caste Hindus. The ?lower castes? (Sudras) and so-called ?untouchables? (who were outside the Hindu social order) were forbidden from even hearing to its recitation. In recent years, there have been claims that the Vedas contain the cure to AIDS and the production of electricity.Here the authors probe into Vedic Mathematics (that gained renown during the revivalist Hindutva rule in India and was introduced into school syllabus in several states); and explore if it is really ?Vedic? in origin or ?Mathematics? in content. To gain a better understanding of its imposition, we interviewed students, teachers, parents, educationists and activists. We analyze this problem using models like Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM), Fuzzy Relational Maps (FRM) and newly constructed Fuzzy Dynamical System (and their Neutrosophic Analogues). The issue of imposition of Vedic Mathematics into the school curriculum involves religious politics, caste supremacy, apart from elementary arithmetic ? so we use fuzzy and neutrosophic techniques to gain acute insight into how students have been affected because of this politically motivated syllabus revision.