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India's contributions to mathematics:
It should come as no surprise that the first recorded use of the number zero, recently discovered to be made as early as the 3rd or 4th century, happened in India. Mathematics on the Indian subcontinent has a rich history going back over 3,000 years and thrived for centuries before similar advances were made in Europe, with its influence meanwhile spreading to China and the Middle East.
As well as giving us the concept of zero, Indian mathematicians made seminal contributions to the study of trigonometry, algebra, arithmetic and negative numbers among other areas. Perhaps most significantly, the decimal system that we still employ worldwide today was first seen in India.
With such a significant technical lead, how did they fall behind?
(Score: -1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @10:15PM (14 children)
"Maths"? This is an American site. We use the American terminology here: "math". There is no trailing "s".
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday September 22 2017, @10:48PM (2 children)
It's Indian Maths, you are not expected to understand.
"If 500000 Dalits die of lack of sanitation at a rate of 50 per day, but they have babies at a rate of 10 per woman, with 23/1000 infant mortality, calculate, using the metric system, after 3 years, how many shits New Delhi will not give."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 23 2017, @01:55AM (1 child)
Am I a bad person if I heard this whole post in Raj's voice (Big Bang Theory)?
(Score: 4, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday September 23 2017, @05:45AM
Yes, for watching Big Bang Theory
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Saturday September 23 2017, @01:54AM (10 children)
Sooooo... me being a Canadian I shouldn't send in my money when my subscription ends?
And have you, an American, sent in yours?
SoylentGreen is Americans!!! (Or is it SoylentOrange now that "What happened?" happened?)
;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 23 2017, @03:06AM (8 children)
The point of abbreviations is to make something as short as possible while retaining recognizability.
The "s" doesn't fit into that.
Can someone identify the "genius" who started with the "s" thing?
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 23 2017, @10:53AM (7 children)
It's a UK thing which has been going on for a while and it's short for mathematics. I think it makes a lot of sense myself though I don't use the expression much.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Sunday September 24 2017, @01:25AM (6 children)
μάθημα in Greek means "studies" or "lessons". No surprising it would be a plural in English. No accounting for what things are in American, however.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Sunday September 24 2017, @01:05PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @01:42PM (4 children)
There are probably a couple million people who give a fuck what μάθημα. Almost all of them live in Greece. Civilized people don't use that shit alphabet, or language. Hail Caesar, barbarian!
(Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Sunday September 24 2017, @07:58PM (3 children)
教訓。 You 白左! 超過十億服務。
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 25 2017, @05:46AM (2 children)
Huh, wut? So, Greece is Islam? More than one billion? Maybe the translator is screwed, or maybe you're just that confused. Whatever, we can all be sure that there aren't a billion Greeks, unless you start counting all of those in their tombs. Oh, don't forget those that were left out for the wolves to eat!!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday September 25 2017, @06:40AM
Are you so sure? We Greeks, genetically speaking, get around. And besides, oh ignoramous who does not relate languages to cultures, that was not the point at all. McDonalds? One billion served? In Fricking Chinese? 你怎麼會這麼蠢？ 為什麼浪費我們的時間？ 為什麼你的氣墊船有鰻魚？ Google翻譯往往是錯誤的。Idiotes, Πώς μπορείς να είσαi τόσο ανόητος; (Oh, since you are illiterate, in several languages, ";" is a question mark in Greek. And unfortunately, I am writing this in Modern Greek, which always grates on me. We will leave it at this, since you are only an Anonymous Coward, and your ignorance cannot be remedied. Anonymously.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Monday September 25 2017, @08:47AM
OH, by the way, tomorrow I shall mod you down. Brace yourself, AC!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 23 2017, @02:30PM
The term is "math" in Canada, too. Canadian English, especially these days, is nearly identical to American English.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @10:26PM (2 children)
Did they fall behind?
Or were we just brainwashed into thinking measuring everything with money is the only valid set of considerations?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @10:52PM (1 child)
They fell behind when the rest of the world invented toilet paper.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 23 2017, @03:56AM
comes from brown hands?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @10:30PM (5 children)
What a fucked article.
It has this in it
but shortly after that it contradicts itself
So, no, Indian mathematicians should not be credited with "giving us the concept of zero" when earlier cultures had the concept of zero well before then Indian mathematicians did.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @10:57PM (3 children)
Placeholder zero is different from a zero in integer line. The ancient Sumerians knew to use zero as place holder, but the ancient Indians came up with the zero as ... zero, empty, null. How do you think they came up with Siddartha budda?
I don't think they came up with negative numbers, though.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday September 22 2017, @11:47PM (2 children)
Agreed - the number zero is a revolutionary mathematical concept, one which actually saw significant resistance to its adoption (how can *nothing* be a value?), but without which modern mathematics would not be possible.
In comparison there's nothing special about a placeholder - it's just a typographic convention that simplifies position-based numerical representations.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 23 2017, @05:58AM (1 child)
Zero is not null, guys. Elementary set theory... I don't think the Indians gave us that tho ;)
{}
{0}
{0,{0}}
etc.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday September 26 2017, @06:44PM
Who suggested it was? But set theory, much less null, is not particularly relevant to bookkeeping, geometry, or any of the applied maths that existed at the time.
Mathematics grew out of counting, and while it makes perfect sense to have three apples, eat one and have two apples, eat one and have one apple... it makes far less sense to eat that and say you now have zero apples. At that point you have nothing, assigning a number to the amount of apples you still have is a very strange concept. Even negative numbers were developed several centuries beforehand.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday September 23 2017, @01:56AM
#1 is per
#2 is poo
#0 is squatting over a hole waiting to do #1 or #2
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @10:50PM (6 children)
Zero was indeed invented in India. I don't mean as a place holder for positional numeric system (that Sumerians thought to have accomplished already), but a real zero, null, empty.
"Arabic numerals?" Arabs adopted the Indian numerals, with some visual modification, and passed onto the West. In truth, it's Indian numerals with Arab contribution, not to take anything away from the Arabs' role in the event.
This is a good book into this matter:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/329336.Zero [goodreads.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 23 2017, @02:31AM (4 children)
Son, I got news for you. Your history is bogus.
There's entire ancient temples in India with columns made in lathes & molten stone working technology. [youtube.com]
Have a look a the sea floor sometime. [vimeo.com] What set India back was the same cataclysm that set back the entire world: A massive flood at the abrupt end of the last ice age, as all religions recall.
Check out this video where the footprints of many pyramids like the one at Giza are found all over the world. [vimeo.com] The remnants of our ancient civilization litter the earth, and state funded Archaeological propagandists ignore it. So "smart" people think that "there's no way they could keep something like that a secret", because they don't admit that they themselves haven't done a lick of research of their own, and like most everyone else, differ to corrupt authority for a historical narrative. That history Issac Netwton called BS, by the way, as it was brought to you by religious zealots who rewrote all records to match their religious version of events. [youtube.com] Scholars were burned as witches.
Here's where our numerals came from, including zero. [kek.gg]
I don't give a fuck about your bullshit propaganda books. I have flown in small air craft over the land itself and seen the proof that your history is obviously bullshit.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday September 23 2017, @11:26AM (3 children)
If we all dumped video links, it'd quickly reach the point where people couldn't fully watch the videos. For example, if SN puts a new story in every hour and several hours of video are linked per story, we wouldn't physically be able to keep up even if we did absolutely nothing else but watch video.
If you have to invoke conspiracy to explain the lack of evidence for an archeological theory, then you need a new theory. Smart people are right.
Third, I see you can't be bothered to explain what your theory is in the first place. Vague allusions to "footprints of pyramids" (where did the pyramids themselves go then?), the conspiracy of state-sponsored archeologists, and some vague flooding disaster that supposedly set back the entire world. Rational people would start with what the actual theory is. What is the extent of the civilization(s)? Is this a global civilization(s)? When was it in existence and what sort of history did it have? Why would flooding (presumably the slow sea level rise after the end of the last ice age) end this? Why are artifacts of the civilization(s) so hard to find? Is pyramid building a characteristic of the civilization(s)? Etc. I'm not watching two and a half hours of video when you can just tell me.
(Score: 3, Informative) by nishi.b on Saturday September 23 2017, @12:17PM (2 children)
It's bullshit anyway, I tried to look at one video, it just shows what seem to be regular shapes on the sea floor from google earth... But there is no explanation about where the data comes from, and what those shapes are.
In fact, this just shows what happens when you mix radar data (to have global coverage) with local, ship-acquired sonar data : on the combined data you see the local data as lines on the sea floor because the ships mapping the zone are moving in straight lines and turning at 90° angles... I did not even try to look at the rest, it seems on the same level of this shitty everything-comes-from-aliens tv show...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 23 2017, @04:29PM (1 child)
i think the problem is that hiding behind handles and anonymity regarding scientific pursuits none of us can reasonably claim to have any claims to (being anonymous and all that) means the only way we can convince others is to
a: not use some bizzare ancient histories of mystery complete with spectacular claims to draw in the advertising revenue
b: use actual referenceable and cataloged data
c: avoid religion except for context; cultures may build similar pyramids to worship different gods or i guess store grain (but that is afoul of rule a and really so is he)
d: dont sound stupid
it is hard to do all of that and remain objective and professional, whilst presenting so in a dignified manner.
I prefer to believe that there was an ancient flood, many glaciers did melt and tip the climate beyond a point of no return due to regular natural cycles or volcanic eruptions or a mix of reasons that trapped heat,, which totally were not at the time enhanced by the burning of fossil fuels or ozone depleting chemicals, no gods were involved, but it damn near scared the pants off everybody enough to write it down and conserve it in oral histories.
There was no ark, lots of civilizations perished if they couldn't get to higher ground. but it makes some religions look good if they can say only they had someone within enough good graces of their god to save their people. Of course, it doesn't really reference what about everyone else that survived who never even heard of the religion making these claims (not until modern times at least--or at the end of a weapon) but those people simply just have strayed and need to convert back, I guess.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 24 2017, @10:53PM
I disagree. Floods are a universal human experience, even in the driest parts of the world (such as the Atacama Desert [wikipedia.org]). Oral tales frequently exaggerate events good and bad that humans experience. For example, there are a number of stories of Coyote stealing/eating the Sun and Moon. Should we then look for planet or star-sized canines?
Further, while we know that sea level rise has happened over the past 14k years, it has happened slowly. I doubt, aside from flooding events like the flooding of the Black Sea, that anyone has cared much about such things. They certainly wouldn't have much trouble staying ahead of the water, which might rise a centimeter a year for ten thousand years.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by number11 on Saturday September 23 2017, @03:23AM
And, if I recall correctly, in Arabic the term for the numbers means "Hindu numbers". They don't claim credit for that invention.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jelizondo on Friday September 22 2017, @10:55PM (3 children)
We tend to think that once a level is achieved there is no going back, but history shows that societies do slide back. We went from knowing the Earth is round and Eratosthenes [wikipedia.org] measuring its circumference to believing it is flat. The Arabs went from a great height in Mathematics and other sciences to being basically ignorant.
We run the same risk. Democracy, Freedom and Knowledge are not simply achieved, they must be guarded and tended with care, otherwise future generations may ask themselves: how did they fall behind?
One guy told me a few days ago that exact sciences were not that exact, because 1 and 1 is not always 2 and every theory is later supplanted by a different one. I could not quite grasp his explanation about 1 plus 1 not always being 2, something to do with mystical shit but I could see his confusion about the development of science.
Multiply this college-educated man by millions and you can see the dark ages coming: scientists incarcerated or killed, science books destroyed for being heretic and all that good stuff.
I’m not saying that is the case with ancient India but I’ll bet dollars to donuts something like that happened at some point.
(Score: 4, Funny) by aristarchus on Friday September 22 2017, @11:09PM
Run!!! It is a Pythagorean! He will tell you that the monad (one) added to itself (the same one), can never be two (the dyad), and he is right. But for large values of one (the monad+), it can be two. Pythagoreans! Always trying to grow a pair! Think what they could have done with zero (nought)!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @11:20PM
> We went from knowing the Earth is round and Eratosthenes [wikipedia.org] measuring its circumference to believing it is flat.
The only group in history who beleved in a flat earth were late 19th century Amerians.
They made up stories sniggering about people laughing at how Columbus thought the world was round and somehow ended up beleveing that themselves.
(Score: 2) by number11 on Saturday September 23 2017, @03:27AM
True. And those concepts have very little to do with each other.
Not that it matters. Doesn't the world end tomorrow? Though if it doesn't, the "Knowledge" part of that quote will have been proven.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @11:14PM (2 children)
"With such a significant technical lead, how did they fall behind?"
They have no toilet. You know, if you don't have total and complete control over your porcelain throne in the morning, shit hits the ... whatever/wherever you dump on.
Toilet, the cornerstone of civilization. Even dogs and cats know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @11:25PM (1 child)
AC, you seem to have poopy issues. Did your toilet training not go so well? Does your own personal backsliding leave skid marks? Do you not know that everybody poops, and that when poop goes "away", well, there actually is no away. Some of the food you eat today is composed of atoms that were poop in the past. Dino poop, batshit poop, in-the-woods bear poop, human and possibly even Indian poop. And you ate it! You poor copraphobic bastard!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @11:44PM
It doesn't go completely away. But it goes far enough away that you aren't walking around in your own shit every day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @11:27PM (2 children)
Didn't the Babylonians count in base 12 ? one for each knuckle head or was I misinformed?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @11:49PM
This [wikipedia.org] leads me to believe it was base 60. The composition of the written numerals appears to be an extension of a base 10 writing system, but the article clarifies that the arithmetic system itself was base 60.
60 and 12 are very good bases. As much as it pains me to say so, better than base 16. It's the only reason I still use feet and inches. 10 is a pretty lousy base all in all, only marginally better than a prime number imho. If I were the dictator of the world, I would re-formulate metric as base 12.
People would freak out, but moving the decimal point around works just as well whether or not the system includes A and B as numerals (though probably would need to formulate two new characters just for clarity in mass adoption).
Counting with each digit on the hand has the advantage of being able to extend successive (anatomical) digits while tallying. Perhaps turning the palm up could be our missing two (arithmetic) digits. Index, middle, ring, pinkie, thumb, palm, then other hand index, middle, ring, pinkie, thumb, palm. (Some people start tallying with the thumb but hey.) I've heard the story about using knuckle heads, but I'm not certain how that would enable easy communication of a simple quantity with one's hands. Though my proposal might leave ambiguity between 5 and 6 depending on how the palm is turned when communicating quantities non-verbally.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Immerman on Friday September 22 2017, @11:53PM
Babylonians used base 60, at least in part because it was easily divisible in so many ways: 2,3,4,5,6,10,12,15,20...
It still survives today in our measurement of time, angles, and geographic coordinates.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Friday September 22 2017, @11:44PM
Just a guess, but being between the imperial chinese empire (western han) and the persian empire had something to do with this?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 23 2017, @01:54AM (2 children)
The decimal system sucks. 10 is a lousy base because it divides poorly. Base 12 would have been better, although doesn't match fingers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 23 2017, @06:07AM (1 child)
And then we invented fractions and all that nonsense about base 12 went away. Base fucking 12.... my GOD!
(Score: 2) by rleigh on Saturday September 23 2017, @09:08AM
You can have fractions in any base. Nothing is particularly special about base 10 other than convention.
(Score: 2, Funny) by maggotbrain on Saturday September 23 2017, @03:31AM (3 children)
From an historical perspective, it is definitely interesting learning where concepts originated. However, cultures come and go and ascribing a breakthrough like the concept of zero, or the fundamentals of algebra to one particular culture or nation seems like a petty waste. It's like rooting for your favorite football team on Sunday. *shrug*.
To answer the OPs banal question, they probably didn't allocate enough resources to libraries and spent too much on building wonders while weakening their infrastructure and military. Thanks Sid Meier. :-/
(Score: 4, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday September 23 2017, @05:50AM (2 children)
No, someone pissed Gandhi off and he went all thermonuclear (thanks for that too, Sid!).
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 23 2017, @11:38AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 23 2017, @04:40PM
Admittedly, being SO friendly and warm and fuzzy... sort of spells out what a nuclear family is, right?
Besides, if you turn your neighbors into fallout, you can't really have any disputes with them if they have moved on to irradiate some unoccupied territory.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 23 2017, @07:49AM
Kudos for using a sane citation style on this one. You can do it again!