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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: 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.