Guest guest Posted June 18, 2003 Report Share Posted June 18, 2003 "mangesh mugve" max_mugve mugve', arup, arvind, bpunj, chaitaneela, dasathe, devilboy_08, edwardluce, exploreindia, girdari, jmonroe, kees.kemps, vara38, vidhiparikh, vihag0401, vrnparker, whindu Fwd: Why Indian science scores Wed, 18 Jun 2003 17:27:55 +0000 >"Ashok Chowgule" <ashokvc >"Ashok Chowgule" <ashokvc ><Undisclosed-Recipient:@goatelecom.com;> >Why Indian science scores >Thu, 12 Jun 2003 09:55:50 +0530 > > >Why Indian science scores >Author: Shashi Tharoor >Publication: The Hindu >June 8, 2003 >URL: http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/stories/2003060800310300.htm > >Working, as I have been for the last couple of years, on a short >biography of Jawaharlal Nehru, I became conscious of the extent to which >we have taken for granted one vital legacy of his: the creation of an >infrastructure for excellence in science and technology, which has >become a source of great self-confidence and competitive advantage for >the country today. Nehru was always fascinated by science and >scientists. He made it a point to attend the annual Indian Science >Congress every year, and he gave free rein (and taxpayers' money) to >scientists in whom he had confidence to build high-quality institutions. >Men like Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai constructed the platform for >Indian accomplishments in the fields of atomic energy and space >research; they and their successors have given the country a scientific >establishment without peer in the developing world. Jawaharlal's >establishment of the Indian Institutes of Technology (and the spur they >provided to other lesser institutions) have produced many of the finest >minds in America's Silicon Valley. Today, an IIT degree is held in the >same reverence in the U.S. as one from MIT or Caltech, and India's >extraordinary leadership in the software industry is the indirect result >of Jawaharlal Nehru's faith in scientific education. Nehru left India >with the world's second-largest pool of trained scientists and >engineers, integrated into the global intellectual system, to a degree >without parallel outside the developed West. > >And yet the roots of Indian science and technology go far deeper than >Nehru. I was reminded of this yet again by a remarkable new book, Lost >Discoveries, by the American writer Dick Teresi. Teresi's book studies >the ancient non-Western foundations of modern science, and while he >ranges from the Babylonians and Mayans to Egyptians and other Africans, >it is his references to India that caught my eye. And how astonishing >those are! The Rig Veda asserted that gravitation held the universe >together 24 centuries before the apple fell on Newton's head. The Vedic >civilisation d to the idea of a spherical earth at a time when >everyone else, even the Greeks, assumed the earth was flat. By the Fifth >Century A.D. Indians had calculated that the age of the earth was 4.3 >billion years; as late as the 19th Century, English scientists believed >the earth was a hundred million years old, and it is only in the late >20th Century that Western scientists have come to estimate the earth to >be about 4.6 billion years old. > >If I were to focus on just one field in this column, it would be that of >mathematics. India invented modern numerals (known to the world as >"Arabic" numerals because the West got them from the Arabs, who learned >them from us!). It was an Indian who first conceived of the zero, >shunya; the concept of nothingness, shunyata, integral to Hindu and >Buddhist thinking, simply did not exist in the West. ("In the history of >culture," wrote Tobias Dantzig in 1930, "the invention of zero will >always stand out as one of the greatest single achievements of the human >race.") The concept of infinite sets of rational numbers was understood >by Jain thinkers in the Sixth Century B.C. Our forefathers can take >credit for geometry, trigonometry, and calculus; the "Bakhshali >manuscript", 70 leaves of bark dating back to the early centuries of the >Christian era, reveals fractions, simultaneous equations, quadratic >equations, geometric progressions and even calculations of profit and >loss, with interest. > >Indian mathematicians invented negative numbers: the British >mathematician Lancelot Hogben, grudgingly acknowledging this, suggested >ungraciously that "perhaps because the Hindus were in debt more often >than not, it occurred to them that it would also be useful to have a >number which represent the amount of money one owes". (That theory would >no doubt also explain why Indians were the first to understand how to >add, multiply and subtract from zero - because zero was all, in Western >eyes, we ever had.) > >The Sulba Sutras, composed between 800 and 500 B.C., demonstrate that >India had Pythagoras' theorem before the great Greek was born, and a way >of getting the square root of 2 correct to five decimal places. (Vedic >Indians solved square roots in order to build sacrificial altars of the >proper size.) The Kerala mathematician Nilakantha wrote sophisticated >explanations of the irrationality of "pi" before the West had heard of >the concept. The Vedanga Jyotisha, written around 500 B.C., declares: >"Like the crest of a peacock, like the gem on the head of a snake, so is >mathematics at the head of all knowledge." Our mathematicians were poets >too! But one could go back even earlier, to the Harappan civilisation, >for evidence of a highly sophisticated system of weights and measures in >use around 3000 B.C. > >Archaeologists also found a "ruler" made with lines drawn precisely 6.7 >millimeters apart with an astonishing level of accuracy. The "Indus >inch" was a measure in consistent use throughout the area. The Harappans >also invented kiln-fired bricks, less permeable to rain and floodwater >than the mud bricks used by other civilisations of the time. The bricks >contained no straw or other binding material and so turned out to be >usable 5, 000 years later when a British contractor dug them up to >construct a railway line between Multan and Lahore. And while they were >made in 15 different sizes, the Harappan bricks were amazingly >consistent: their length, width and thickness were invariably in the >ratio of 4:2:1. > >"Indian mathematical innovations," writes Teresi, "had a profound effect >on neighbouring cultures." The greatest impact was on Islamic culture, >which borrowed heavily from Indian numerals, trigonometry and analemma. >Indian numbers probably arrived in the Arab world in 773 A.D. with the >diplomatic mission sent by the Hindu ruler of Sind to the court of the >Caliph al-Mansur. This gave rise to the famous arithmetical text of >al-Khwarizmi, written around 820 A.D., which contains a detailed >exposition of Indian mathematics, in particular the usefulness of the >zero. With Islamic civilisation'c rise and spread, knowledge of Indian >mathematics reached as far afield as Central Asia, North Africa and >Spain. "In serving as a conduit for incoming ideas and a catalyst for >influencing others," Teresi adds, "India played a pivotal role." His >research is such a rich lode that I intend to return to ancient Indian >science in a future column. > >Shashi Tharoor is the United Nations Under Secretary-General for >Communications and Public Information and the author of seven books, >most recently Riot and (with M.F. Husain) Kerala: God's Own Country. > > _______________ Attention NRIs! Send money home in a jiffy. http://server1.msn.co.in/msnleads/citibankrca/citibankrca2.asp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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