Famous Indian Mathematicians 8-5-2020M-2C
Famous Indian Mathematicians 8-5-2020M-2C
by
Purusottam Sahoo
Introduction
They say history is written by the conqueror, the Geographically, the Indian subcontinent, is a
vanquished are relegated to the ether of time and their southern region and peninsula of Asia, primarily
footprints are effaced by the chariots of the winners. situated on the Indian Plate and projecting southwards
The great Roman Empire, studied so assiduously by into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. The Indian
schoolchildren all over the world, fades in comparison subcontinent is related to the land mass that rifted
to the great Mongol empire, which at its peak ruled from Gondwana (the ancient supercontinent that
over a territory five times larger. Our knowledge of our broke up 180 million years ago) and merged with
cultural evolution and our progress over millenniums the Eurasian Plate nearly 55 million years ago. In
has been dictated by the written story; stories that are common parlance, the Indian subcontinent includes all
written by the ascendant forces in existence at the or part of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives,
time of writing. When you convert swords to Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The term "Indian
ploughshares, it is the swords of the losers that are subcontinent" is used interchangeably with the term
beaten into ploughshares. Their stories struggle to be "South Asia".
told over the crescendo of the winner’s cannons. So it
is with their intellectual achievements. One common way of demarcating eras of our history,
is into three separate eras or periods: the Ancient
It has been suggested, and rightly so, that Indian Period (3600 BC - 500 AD), the Middle Ages (500 AD -
contributions to mathematics have not been given due 1500 AD), and the Modern Era (1500 AD - present).
acknowledgement in history. Since the last 2000 years, According to this classification, the eras last hundreds
India and China combined constituted between 40- of years, even thousands of years in the case of the
50% of the world population. Their early and thriving
civilizations gave rise to singular achievements in all
areas of human thought. As a result of odious
Eurocentrism, their many discoveries and
inventions are presently culturally attributed to
their Western counterparts.
Raising awareness of Indian and Arabic mathematics is
all too often tempered with dismissive rejections of
their importance compared to Greek mathematics. The
contributions from the great civilizations of India and
China are perceived either as borrowers from Greek
sources or having made only minor contributions to
mainstream mathematical development.
Indian mathematics emerged in the Indian
subcontinent from 1200 BC until the end of the 18th
century. Since this is a story of mathematicians, let us
then, to be mathematically precise (!) clarify what one
means by “Indian subcontinent”.
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Ancient Period. The classical period of Indian tangent) by mathematicians of the Kerala school in the
mathematics straddled the ancient and middle ages 15th century AD. Their remarkable work, completed
(400 AD to 1200 AD). During these eras, important two centuries before the invention of calculus in
contributions were made by scholars Europe, provided what is now considered the first
like Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, Bhaskara II, example of a power series (apart from geometric
and Varāhamihira. series).
The decimal number system, so commonplace There is no doubt that the world today is greatly
today, was first recorded in Indian indebted to the contributions made by Indian
mathematics. Indian mathematicians made early mathematicians. The very foundations of modern
contributions to the study of the concept of zero as a mathematics and the pillars upon which all subsequent
number, negative numbers, arithmetic, and algebra. In leaps and bounds were made rest upon two key
addition, trigonometry was further advanced in India, concepts, both contributions made in the Indian
and, in particular, the modern definitions
subcontinent: the introduction of decimal system and
of sine and cosine were developed there. These
the invention of zero.
mathematical concepts were transmitted to the
Middle East, China, and Europe and led to further As a non-mathematician, I have tried to bring together
developments that now form the foundations of many some vignettes of famous mathematicians of yore and
areas of mathematics. Over time, our Indian now; Indian mathematicians dating back from Indus
subcontinent story became their European story. Valley civilization and Vedas to Modern times. This is
Ancient and medieval Indian mathematical works, by no means a scholarly work or a comprehensive or a
originally composed in Sanskrit, usually consisted of a complete list of who might be considered “famous”; it
section of sutras in which a set of rules or problems is the author’s selection and any errors and omissions
were stated with great economy in verse in order to aid the dear reader finds, I can only attribute to my
memorization by a student. This was followed by a ignorance. Here, then, are their stories and the times
second section consisting of a prose commentary
they lived in.
(sometimes multiple commentaries by different
scholars) that explained the problem in more detail
and provided justification for the solution. In the prose
section, the form (and therefore its memorization) was 1. 800 BC– 600 BC (world population ~ 75 million)
not considered as important as the ideas involved. All The great Indus Valley Civilization had begun and
mathematical works were orally transmitted until
ended almost a thousand years ago, having survived
approximately 500 BC; thereafter, they were
two thousand years in the midst of the Bronze age. The
transmitted both orally and in manuscript form. The
Great Pyramid of Giza was completed almost 1350
oldest extant mathematical document produced on
the Indian subcontinent is the birch bark Bakhshali years ago and the mammoth has been extinct for a
Manuscript, discovered in 1881 in the village thousand years. A mere 100 years ago the famous Iliad
of Bakhshali, near Peshawar (modern day Pakistan) and the Odyssey were composed. India witnessed the
and is likely from the 7th century AD. This birch bark birth of the “Great Kingdoms”: the sixteen Maha
documents the use of “zero” as a place-holder - the Janapadas. In short order, The Buddha (563 BC),
earliest known Indian use of a zero symbol. Like many Confucius (551 BC) and Mahavira (549) stride the world
gems of Indian origin, this “document” is in British as the Magadha Empire rises to dominance.
possession. The two Major Epics of India: There is much scholarly debate
A later landmark in Indian mathematics was the regarding the dates of The Ramayana and The Mahabharata
narration. Estimates range from 7th to 3rd centuries BC extending
development of the series expansions up to the 3rd century AD
for trigonometric functions (sine, cosine, and arc
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BAUDHĀYANA
ACHARYA PINGALA
The passage of three millennia since Baudhāyana To him is attributed the authorship of the
composed his sutras has induced the fog of antiquity Chandaḥśāstra (also called Pingala-sutras), the earliest
wherein we are left to interpret very dated texts. His known treatise on Sanskrit prosody.
shrauta sutras comprise a group of Vedic Sanskrit texts The Chandaḥśāstra presents the first known
which cover, in addition to Vedic sacrifices, dharma, description of a binary numeral system in connection
daily ritual, mathematics, etc. The Baudhāyana with the systematic enumeration of meters with fixed
Śulbasûtra is noted for containing several early patterns of short and long syllables. The discussion of
mathematical results, including an approximation of the combinatorics of meter corresponds to
the square root of 2 and the statement of the binomial theorem. Halāyudha's commentary
the Pythagorean Theorem. In addition, another includes a presentation of Pascal's
triangle (called meruprastāra). Pingala's work also
problem he tackled rather successfully was to find a
includes material related to the Fibonacci numbers,
circle whose area is the same as that of a square.
called mātrāmeru, knowledge of which was known in
Pythagoras of Samos lived circa 570 BC – 495 BC, a few India about 1500 years ago. Use of zero is sometimes
decades separating him and our mathematician of ascribed to Pingala due to his discussion of binary
yore, and it is possible that mathematical discoveries in numbers, usually represented using 0 and 1 in modern
India made its way to ancient Greece, and perhaps into discussion. Pingala used the Sanskrit word śūnya
explicitly to refer to zero and some historians attribute
Pythagoras’s study group.
the discovery of the “zero” to him.
His approximation of the square root of 2 is given as:
1 1 The name of Leonardo of Pisa, also known as Fibonacci (1170-
√2 ≈ 1 + + + ≈ 1.41426, 1250) is attached to the sequence: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8…….in which
3 3.4.34
𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑓𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑙𝑠. the nth term is given as:
Un = Un-1 + Un-2
Pascal's triangle is a triangular array of the binomial coefficients.
2. 300 BC – 200 BC (world population ~ 125 million) In much of the Western world, it is named after the French
mathematician Blaise Pascal, although other mathematicians in
India and elsewhere studied it centuries before him.
Momentous events were occurring, both in India and
elsewhere. The evolution of the great literary tradition
of South India, specifically, in Tamil arose now.
Although the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt is more
famous, a bigger pyramid began construction in
Mexico, known as the Great Pyramid of Cholula. In Pascal's triangle, each number is the sum of the two numbers
Ashoka became the Emperor of the great Mauryan directly above it.
HEMACHANDRA
His most significant contribution in mathematics was
After a reign of 700 years, the Three Kingdoms of Korea his initial version of the Fibonacci sequence, some fifty
ends. The great empire that influences Europe in the years before Fibonacci. He was not only a
Middle Ages for 400 years, the Bulgarian Empire, rises mathematician but also a scholar, polymath and poet
and thrives in the shroud of the Dark ages. who wrote on grammar, philosophy and contemporary
BHĀSKARA history. A prodigious writer, Hemachandra wrote
grammars of Sanskrit and Prakrit, poetry, prosody,
lexicons, texts on science and logic and many branches
P a g e 5 | 17
of Indian philosophy. It is said that Hemachandra astronomer. He was born in Bijapur in Karnataka.
composed 35 million verses in total, many of which are Bhāskara and his works represent a significant
now lost. Therefore, his contributions are not only contribution to mathematical and astronomical
restricted to math but over all the various different knowledge in the 12th century. He has been called the
fields that he had mastered over. greatest mathematician of medieval India. His main
work Siddhānta-Śiromani, (Sanskrit for "Crown of
Treatises") is divided into four parts called Līlāvatī,
Bījagaṇita, Grahagaṇita and Golādhyāya, which are
also sometimes considered four independent works.
These four sections deal with arithmetic, algebra,
mathematics of the planets, and spheres respectively.
He also wrote another treatise named Karaṇā
Kautūhala. Bhāskara was the one who declared that
any number divided by zero is infinity and that the sum
of any number and infinity is also infinity. He is also
famous for his book “Siddhanta Siromani”.
Bhāskara's work on calculus predates Newton and
Leibniz by over half a millennium. He is particularly
known in the discovery of the principles of differential
calculus and its application to astronomical problems
and computations. While Newton and Leibniz have
been credited with differential and integral calculus,
there is strong evidence to suggest that Bhāskara was
7 1114 AD– 1185 AD (world population ~ 320
a pioneer in some of the principles of differential
million)
calculus. He was perhaps the first to conceive the
The oldest University in the UK, Oxford University, is differential coefficient and differential calculus. The
founded in 1117 and a mere 18 years later, in which an earliest reference to a perpetual motion machine date
accidental drowning of a royal child occurred, led to an back to 1150, when Bhāskara II described a wheel that
18-year civil war in England. The religious reformer, he claimed would run forever.
Hōnen of Japan founds the Buddhist sectarian
He showed that when a planet is at its farthest from the earth, or
movement in 1175. A mere 18 years later, in 1193, at its closest, the equation of the center (a measure of how far a
Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khilji sacks and burns the planet is from the position in which it is predicted to be, by
assuming it is to move uniformly) vanishes. He therefore concluded
university at Nalanda which is the beginning of the that for some intermediate position the differential of the equation
decline of Buddhism in India. Shortly thereafter, a of the center is equal to zero. In this result, there are traces of the
general mean value theorem, one of the most important theorems
mere score years later, the great Mongol Empire, with in analysis, which today is usually derived from Rolle's Theorem.
Genghis Kahn at its helm, is established. After a brief The mean value theorem was later found by Parameshvara in the
but brutal and world-encompassing attacks and 15th century in the Lilavati Bhasya, a commentary on Bhaskara's
Lilavati.
occupation, the Great Khan will die in 1227.
BHĀSKARA
Also known as Bhāskarācārya ("Bhāskara, the
teacher"), and as Bhāskara II to avoid confusion with
Bhāskara I, was an Indian mathematician and
P a g e 6 | 17
8. 1325 AD – 1400 AD (?) World population: 350 9. c. 1340 AD – c. 1425 AD (world population: ~
Million – 350 million)
The epicenter and capital of the future Aztec Empire is The first modern documented astrarium (also called a
formed in Tenochtitlan that will last for 2 centuries. planetarium) clock was completed. Tamerlane
The Ottoman Empire was just founded a quarter establishes the Timurid Dynasty and will go on to
century ago. The hundred-year war between England ravage the Delhi Sultanate; one of many invasions of
and France that actually lasts for 116 years is about to Indian Territory by foreign occupiers. A French peasant
begin. The Black Death/ Bubonic Plague ravages girl, who goes by the name of Joan of Arc, offers her
Europe and is believed to have wiped out as many as help towards the war effort against England.
50% of the population of Europe by its end. It is the
single biggest human catastrophe known in history. MĀDHAVA
P a g e 7 | 17
10 c. 1380 AD – 1460 AD (world population: ~ 350 Empire is at the height of its power and rule. The
million) recently defiled/ denigrated Christopher Columbus
reaches the New World, new to the Europeans. What
The year 1380 sees Chaucer writes The Canterbury
is really new is Vasco da Gama’s travels from Portugal
Tales which is the precursor to the Modern English
to India by sea. The beginning of the 16th century sees
language. A year later, the Bible is translated into
the beginning of Sikhism by Guru Nanak. Leonardo da
English. From a poor peasant family to a prisoner of
Vinci paints the Mona Lisa and Martin Luther enters St.
war, Joan of Arc will intersect the great arc of history.
Augustine Monastery in Germany in 1505 and begins
Instrumental in helping turn the war in favor of the
his writings on his earth shattering Reformation
French, she will be tried and executed in 1431, still a
articles. Western Christianity will be irrevocably torn
teenager, in British soil as a prisoner of war. It will be
asunder. The feared and revered general, Afonso de
almost 500 years before she will be canonized.
Albuquerque of Portugal conquers Goa in India.
PARAMESHVARA Copernicus proclaims the sun the center of the solar
system. The Mughal Empire will be founded by Babur
Vatasseri Parameshvara Nambudiri was a major Indian
in 1526 and will rule India the next 330 years. Akbar
mathematician and astronomer of the Kerala school of
the Great is born in 1542. In 1543, Copernicus
astronomy and mathematics founded by Madhava of
publishes his theory that the Earth and the other
Sangamagrama. He was also an astrologer.
planets revolve around the Sun. The father of modern
Parameshvara was a proponent of observational
physics, Galileo Galilei, is born on February 15, 1564.
astronomy in medieval India and he himself had made
In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII issues the Gregorian
a series of eclipse observations to verify the accuracy
calendar. The last day of the Julian calendar was
of the computational methods then in use. Based on
Thursday, 4 October 1582 and this was followed by the
his eclipse observations, Parameshvara proposed
first day of the Gregorian calendar, Friday, 15 October
several corrections to the astronomical parameters
1582. Elizabeth I grants a charter to the British East
which had been in use since the times of Aryabhata.
India Company beginning the English advance in Asia in
The computational scheme based on the revised set of
1600.
parameters has come to be known as the Drgganita or
Drig system. KERALA SCHOOL OF ASTRONOMY AND MATHEMATICS
He was the first mathematician to give the radius, R, of a circle
with an inscribed quadrilateral. The expression is sometimes
Instead of a single, singular, individual, India saw an
attributed to [Lhuilier, 1782], 350 years later. With the sides of the explosion of scientific inquiry in the southwestern state
[cyclic quadrilateral] being a, b, c, and d, the radius R of the
of what is now Kerala. So prolific was the yield in pure
circumscribed circle is:
(𝑎𝑏 + 𝑐𝑑)(𝑎𝑐 + 𝑏𝑑)(𝑎𝑑 + 𝑏𝑐)
and abstract mathematics and astronomy by
𝑅= √
(−𝑎 + 𝑏 + 𝑐 + 𝑑)(𝑎 − 𝑏 + 𝑐 + 𝑑)(𝑎 + 𝑏 − 𝑐 + 𝑑)(𝑎 + 𝑏 + 𝑐 − 𝑑) numerous individuals that historians refer to this as the
Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics.
Although it appears that original work in mathematics
ceased in much of Northern India after the Islamic
11 14th – 16th centuries (world population: 350 conquests, Banaras survived as a center for
million to 500 million) mathematical study, and an important school of
One of the greatest inventions of the 14th century, the mathematics blossomed in Kerala. The Kerala School
printing press is invented by Johannes Gutenberg. The of Astronomy and Mathematics was founded by
written worl will change the world - irrevocably. The Madhava of Sangamagrama (see previous notes),
Byzantine Empire ends as does the 100 year war in sometimes called the greatest mathematician-
1453. Under Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman astronomer of medieval India. Some of his
P a g e 8 | 17
contributions to geometry and algebra and his early Ricci who spent two years in Kochi (Cochin) after being
forms of differentiation and integration for simple ordained in Goa in 1580.
functions may have been transmitted to Europe via
Jesuit missionaries, and it is possible that the later 12. 1800 AD– 1850 AD (world population: 1 billion
European development of calculus was influenced by to 1.2 billion)
his work to some extent. In our historical march ‘till now, we are about to go off
Nilkantha (15th C, Tirur, Kerala) extended and on a tangent. Instead of a single supreme
elaborated upon the results of Madhava while mathematician, we will digress on an astounding
Jyesthadeva (16th C, Kerala) provided detailed proofs achievement made possible by the mathematics of
of the theorems and derivations of the rules contained that time and a mathematician of great talent. Shortly
in the works of Madhava and Nilkantha. It is also after the British, with the aid of the Marathas, defeated
notable that Jyesthadeva’s Yuktibhasa which Tipu Sultan, they set out to map India and the newly
contained commentaries on Nilkantha’s acquired territories.
Tantrasamgraha included elaborations on planetary THE GREAT INDIAN ARC OF THE MERIDIAN
theory later adopted by Tycho Brahe, and mathematics
that anticipated work by later Europeans.
Chitrabhanu (16th C, Kerala) gave integer solutions to
twenty-one types of systems of two algebraic
equations, using both algebraic and geometric
methods in developing his results. Important
discoveries by the Kerala mathematicians included the
Newton-Gauss interpolation formula, the formula for
the sum of an infinite series, and a series notation for
pi (π).
Charles Whish (1835) was one of the first Westerners
to recognize that the Kerala school had anticipated by
almost 300 years many European developments in the
field. He and Hyne – two European mathematicians
obtained their copies of works by the Kerala
mathematicians from Thrissur, and it is not
The Great Trigonometric Survey – it was the most
inconceivable that Jesuit monks may have also taken
ground-breaking and technically complex undertaking
copies to Pisa (where Galileo, Cavalieri and Wallis spent
at that time, the year 1800. Conceived by the elusive
time), or Padau (where James Gregory studied) or Paris
genius William Lambton and brought to its epic ending
(where Mersenne who was in touch with Fermat and
by George Everest, it set out to map the entire length
Pascal, acted as an agent for the transmission of
of the subcontinent to an inch-accuracy over 1600
mathematical ideas). In his illuminating book (The
miles. While the more famous Lewis and Clark of North
Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of
America had yet to set out across the NA continent, our
Mathematics), George Gheverghese Joseph suggests
intrepid individuals set out to measure India, and in the
that Indian mathematical manuscripts may have been
process, measure the precise curvature of the earth.
brought to Europe by Jesuit priests such as Matteo
The scientific world was amazed at that time and hailed
it as “one of the most stupendous works in the whole
P a g e 9 | 17
history of science”. Unlike the “pure” mathematicians protesting against an English magistrate who was
we have been discussing here, we must now introduce beating unfairly an Indian porter. He was articulate
a teenaged “computer” - Radhanath Sikdar. against all types of discrimination. He was opposed to
child marriage and polygamy. He also worked for the
Hired by Everest at a salary of 30 rupees a month, he
re-marriage of widows and the education of women.
was the mathematical star on this 50 year odyssey to
ultimately discover and determine the highest peak in
the world, which would then be named in honor of his
13 1894 AD – 1974 AD (world population ~ 1.6
boss, who had neither seen nor observed, let alone
billion – 4 billion)
climbed his namesake mountain!
X-rays was discovered by German physicist Wilhelm
Using a theodolite, a precision optical instrument for
Roentgen in 1895. The telephone and the electric light
measuring angles between designated visible points in
bulb have been patented by Bell and Edison,
the horizontal and vertical planes, and simple
respectively. In 1903 the Wright brothers fly the first
trigonometry it was applied to mapping the entire
powered plane and travel will never be the same. Two
subcontinent. To achieve the highest possible
World Wars have been fought with uncountable death
accuracy a number of corrections were applied to all
and destruction. In 1905, a little known 26 year old
distances calculated from simple trigonometry: and
patent clerk in Switzerland, who goes by the name of
these included the curvature of the earth, the non-
Albert Einstein, published 4 papers in a German physics
spherical nature of the curvature of the earth, the
journal – the global scientific community is stupefied.
gravitational influence of mountains on pendulums
Humanity’s concept of space and time will change
and plumb lines, refraction and the height above sea
forever. In 1921 he is awarded the Nobel Prize in
level. The mathematical equations involved in its
Physics. In 1947 India gains Independence and the
computation filled volumes and Babu Radhanath
Father of the Nation is assassinated a year later. The
Sikdar’s prodigious talents in calculations were
Father of the “God Particle” will make a splash on the
necessary for the precision required.
world stage dominated by the likes of Einstein, Dirac,
RADHANATH SIKDAR and Curie. In 1969, a human voice from moon
transmits the immortal words “the eagle has landed”.
Radhanath (1813-1870) a mathematician and the
discoverer of Mount Everest, was born in Jorasanko in
Kolkata. Besides his vernacular Bangla, he acquired
proficiency in Sanskrit, English, Greek and Latin. He
studied mathematics with Titler, an authority in
mathematics. In Radhanath Sikdar, Titler found a
mathematical genius and taught him trigonometric
functions. He wrote two important essays: 'Auxiliary
Table' in 1815 and 'The Manual of Surveying'.
The race for space is on.
Radhanath Sikdar was one of the founders of the
Calcutta Art and Craft Society in 1854. Together with SATYENDRA NATH BOSE
Peary Chand Mitra, he edited and published a
Known for his collaboration with Albert Einstein,
magazine called Masik Patrika (the monthly magazine)
Satyendra Nath Bose established modern theoretical
in Bangla for the women of Bengal. Radhanath was a
physics in India. Bose made significant advances in
liberal activist, way ahead of his time in social mores.
statistical mechanics and quantum statistics, the
He was once fined by a court 220 rupees (1843) for
P a g e 10 | 17
description of all forces by single field theory, x-ray SRINIVASA RAMANUJAN
diffraction and the interaction of electromagnetic
Immortalized in numerous books and films, Srinivasa
waves with the ionosphere. He is best known for his
Ramanujan was one of India’s greatest and highly
work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, celebrated mathematical geniuses. He made
providing the foundation for Bose–Einstein statistics substantial contributions to Hardy-Ramanujan
and the theory of the Bose–Einstein condensate. In Littlewood circle method in number theory and
modern times, Bose is probably the most famous worked on elliptic functions, continued fractions,
Indian mathematician, specifically due to his partial sums, products of hypergeometric series and
association with the ingenious Albert Einstein. After infinite series His important contributions to the field
being rejected by an English journal, Bose sent his include Hardy-Ramanujan-Littlewood circle method in
mathematical researches to Einstein and this led to the number theory, Roger-Ramanujan’s identities in
discovery of the Bose-Einstein condensate partition of numbers, work on algebra of inequalities,
elliptic functions, continued fractions, partial sums and
Bose-Einstein statistics: one of two possible ways in which a
collection of indistinguishable particles may occupy a set of
products of hypergeometric series.
available discrete energy states. The aggregation of particles in the
same state, which is characteristic of particles obeying Bose-
Einstein statistics, accounts for the cohesive streaming of laser
light and the frictionless creeping of superfluid helium. The theory
of this behavior recognized that a collection of identical and
indistinguishable particles can be distributed in this way.
phenomenon. The boson will carry his name in
eternity, and he is recognized as the father of the “God
Particle”.
starvation. A decade later New Delhi becomes the Though then unproven, Gosper used this equation for the
capital of British India. Niels Bohr formulates the first computation of a then-record 17 million digits of π in 1985—
cohesive model of the atomic nucleus, and in the thereby completing the first proof.
process paves the way to quantum mechanics, in 1913. His acquaintance, colleague and co-author of
The Spanish flu, also known as the 1918 flu pandemic, numerous groundbreaking papers, G.H.
caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus infected 500 Hardy, summed up his achievement in the following
million people–about a third of the world's population words: “The limitations of his knowledge were as
startling as its profundity. Here was a man who could
at the time–in four successive waves. The death toll is
work out modular equations and theorems…to orders
typically estimated to have been somewhere between
unheard of, whose mastery of continued fraction was…
17 million and 50 million, making it one of the deadliest beyond that of any mathematician in the world, who
pandemics in human history. In 1920 Mahatma Gandhi had found for himself the functional equation of zeta
launches the Non-cooperation movement. function and the dominant terms of many of the most
famous problems in analytical theory of numbers; and
P a g e 11 | 17
yet he had never heard of a doubly periodic function or comparison between two data sets that is now known
of Cauchy’s theorem, and had indeed but the vaguest as the Mahalanobis distance. He introduced innovative
idea of what a function of complex variable was…” techniques for conducting large-scale sample surveys
He made in depth analysis in order to solve various and calculated acreages and crop yields by using the
mathematical problems by bringing to light new and method of random sampling. . Besides these, he had
novel ideas that gave impetus to the progress of game also made pioneering studies in the field of
theory. Such was his mathematical genius that he
anthropometry. He devised a statistical method called
discovered his own theorems. After World War I,
fractile graphical analysis, which could be used to
which began when he was at Cambridge, ended and it
was safe to travel, he returned to India, now very sick
but still doing mathematics. On April 26, 1920, at the
age of 32, and three days after the last entry in his
famous notebook, he died.
HARISH CHANDRA
19. 1932 AD– 2020 AD (world population ~ 2 billion topic that he virtually engendered is the so-called
– 7.8 billion) standard monomial theory. His work in establishing the
Chennai Mathematical Institute (CMI), literally brick by
Gujarat attracts death and destruction; an earthquake brick, is as noteworthy as his scientific pursuits. Along
in 2001 that leaves more than 20,000 dead followed a with his contributions in geometry he also invented the
year later by riots and mass killings in 2002. Between Seshadri constant and the Naraisham-Seshadri
these two events, the iPod is introduced to the masses
Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics, classically
and listening to music will forever be changed. A billion
studying zeros of multivariate polynomials. Modern algebraic
faces can now be viewed, in 2004, from the privacy of geometry is based on the use of abstract algebraic techniques,
your computer on Facebook; and a year later a billion mainly from commutative algebra, for solving geometrical
videos can be viewed on YouTube. The infamous problems about these sets of zeros. This Togliatti
Mumbai terrorist attacks of 2008 will live in infamy.
Apple continues its technological advance with the
disruptive introduction of the iPhone and then the
iPad. India revokes the special status of Jammu and
Kashmir in 2019. 2020 will forever be remembered for
the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to global social surface is an algebraic surface of degree
five. The picture represents a portion of its real locus.
and economic disruption including a major economic
recession. When history is written, it will find no constant.
winners.
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Epilogue Acknowledgements
I hope you have enjoyed taking this walk some of our This endeavor was a family love affair.
forefathers; a journey through ingenious minds and The author is forever indebted to his father, Balarama
discoveries. Mathematics is defined as “the study of Sahoo, a famous Chemist in his days as a professor at
relationships among quantities, magnitudes and I.I.T Kharagpur and a prolific writer for inculcating in
properties, and also of the logical operations by which me a love of mathematics since childhood. He
unknown quantities, magnitudes, and properties may continues to inspire countless children in his
be deduced” (according to Microsoft Encarta retirement in Odisha. I have, however feebly, tried to
Encyclopedia) or “the study of quantity, structure, carry on the family tradition with my own son, Joshua
space and change” (Wikipedia). Rakesh, who knows more mathematics than I will ever
Prior to the early era of the Modern Era, it was understand.
regarded as the science of quantity, whether of To my mother, Nishamani, who has always encouraged
magnitudes (as in geometry) or of numbers (as in me to follow the unbeaten path and fortified me with
arithmetic) or of the generalization of these two fields food for thought.
(as in algebra). Some tend to see it in terms as simple My sister Minoti Sahu, a bright engineer, who proof-
as a search for patterns. During the 19th Century, reads all my scribblings, reviewed this manuscript in its
however, mathematics broadened to encompass draft form.
mathematical or symbolic logic, and thus came to be Our dear family friend, Jagruti Sarkar, part of my focus
regarded increasingly as the science of relations. group, who proposed the title to this article.
The discipline of mathematics now covers – in addition Lastly, but certainly not the least, I owe a debt of
to the standard fields of number theory, algebra, gratitude to my lovely and patient wife, Laureen, who
geometry, analysis (calculus), mathematical logic and makes sure that my writings in my second language are
set theory, and more applied mathematics such as not afflicted with vernacularisms.
probability theory and statistics – a bewildering array
of specialized areas and fields of study, including group The reader is encouraged to email the author
theory, order theory, knot theory, sheaf theory, ([email protected]) with any error or omissions
topology, differential geometry, fractal geometry, they have detected.
graph theory, functional analysis, complex analysis,
singularity theory, catastrophe theory, chaos theory,
measure theory, model theory, category theory,
control theory, game theory, complexity theory and
many more.
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