25-08-2017, 09:32 PM
Mathematical Methods
PAST
In ancient time, mathematics was mainly used in an auxiliary or applied role. Thus, mathematical methods were used to solve problems in architecture and construction (as in the public works of the Harappan civilization) in astronomy and astrology (as in the words of the Jain mathematicians) and in the construction of Vedic altars (as in the case of the Shulba Sutras of Baudhayana and his successors). By the sixth or fifth century BCE, mathematics was being studied for its own sake, as well as for its applications in other fields of knowledge.
Supplementary to the Vedas are the Shulba Sutras. These texts are considered to date from 800 to 200 BCE. Four in number, they are named after their authors: Baudhayana (600 BCE), Manava (750 BCE), Apastamba (600 BCE), and Katyayana (200 BCE ). The sutras contain the famous theorem commonly attributed to Pythagoras. Some scholars (such as Seidenberg) feel that this theorem as opposed to the geometric proof that the Greeks, and possibly the Chinese, were aware of.
The Shulba Sutras introduce the concept of irrational numbers, numbers that are not the ratio of two whole numbers. For example, the square root of 2 is one such number. The sutras give a way of approximating the square root of number using rational numbers through a recursive procedure which in modern language would be a ‘series expansion’. This predates, by far, the European use of Taylor series.
Jain Mathematics (600 BCE to 500 CE)
Jain cosmology led to ideas of the infinite. This in turn, led to the development of the notion of orders of infinity as a mathematical concept. By orders of infinity, we mean a theory by which one set could be deemed to be ‘more infinite’ than another. In modern language, this corresponds to the notion of cardinality. For a finite set, its cardinality is the number of elements it contains. However, we need a more sophisticated notion to measure the size of an infinite set. In Europe, it was not until Cantors work in the nineteenth century that a proper concept of cardinality was established.
No account of Indian mathematics would be complete without a discussion of Indian numerals, the place-value system, and the concept of zero. The numerals that we use even today can be traced to the Brahmi numerals that seem to have made their appearance in 300 BCE. But Brahmi numerals were not part of a place value system. They evolved into the Gupta numerals around 400 CE and subsequently into the Devnagari numerals, which developed slowly between 600 and 1000 CE.
By 600 CE, a place-value decimal system was well in use in India. This means that when a number is written down, each symbol that is used has an absolute value, but also a value relative to its position. For example, the numbers 1 and 5 have a value on their own, but also have a value relative to their position in the number 15. The importance of a place-value system need hardly be emphasized. It would suffice to cite an often-quoted remark by La-place: ‘It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by means of ten symbols, each symbol receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value; a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity and the great ease which it has lent to computations put our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions; and we shall appreciate the grandeur of the achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity.