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posted by Fnord666 on Friday September 22 2017, @10:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-about-the-Greeks? dept.

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?


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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by aristarchus on Friday September 22 2017, @11:09PM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Friday September 22 2017, @11:09PM (#571884) Journal

    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

    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)!

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