Indian Numbers – History of Mathematics

As in Babylonia, Indian scientists made a lot of progress in geometry as a result of interest in astronomy. By 1300 BC the Indian astronomer Lagadha used geometry to write a book of rules to predict the movement of the sun and moon as they seemed to move around the earth. (Nobody knew yet that the earth goes around the sun.) Did Lagadha work these rules out on his own? Or did he learn about them from the Babylonians? Nobody knows.

By about 400 BC, a little after the time of the Buddha, Indian mathematicians were doing more work on the idea of infinity. The Surya Prajinapti defines five kinds of infinity: an infinite line beginning from an endpoint, an infinite line going both directions, an infinite plane, an infinite universe, and the infinity of time.

Around 300 BC, when Chandragupta was ruling India, Indian mathematicians began working on the mathematical idea of combinations. This is the study of how many combinations you can make out of the same group of things. For example, how many different poker hands can you make out of a pack of cards? Or, what are the chances that in any class of thirty kids, some of them will share the same birthday? Indian mathematicians worked on how you could figure that out. They published their ideas in a book called the Bhagabati Sutra.

Indian mathematicians’ biggest contribution was the use of zero as a placeholder. Zero made it easier to add and multiply numbers. Our word “zero” comes from the Sanskrit word meaning “nothing.” Chinese mathematicians had already been using a blank space to mean “zero” for several hundred years, but Indian mathematicians created the empty circle to be clearer. In 458 AD, Indian mathematicians wrote a book, the Lokavibhaaga, that uses zero in this way.

Newly discovered planet

Named K2-229b, the planet is almost 20% larger than Earth but has a mass which is over two-and-a-half times greater -and reaches a dayside temperature of over 2000°C (2330 Kelvin).

It finds itself very close to its host star (0.012 AU, around a hundredth of the distance between Earth and the Sun), which itself is a medium-sized active K dwarf in the Virgo Constellation. K2-229b orbits this star every fourteen hours.

Dr David Armstrong from the University of Warwick's Astronomy and Astrophysics Group, commented: "Mercury stands out from the other Solar System terrestrial planets, showing a very high fraction of iron and implying it formed in a different way. We were surprised to see an exoplanet with the same high density, showing that Mercury-like planets are perhaps not as rare as we thought.

Interestingly K2-229b is also the innermost planet in a system of at least 3 planets, though all three orbit much closer to their star than Mercury. More discoveries like this will help us shed light on the formation of these unusual planets, as well as Mercury itself.

Discovering details about far-flung planets across the universe gives us more clues as to how planets in our own solar system formed. As K2-229b is similar to Mercury, knowing more about the former can potentially reveal more about the latter.

The Newfound 'organ'

Published March 27 in Scientific Reports, a new study co-led by an NYU School of Medicine pathologist reveals that layers of the body long thought to be dense, connective tissues -- below the skin's surface, lining the digestive tract, lungs and urinary systems, and surrounding arteries, veins, and the fascia between muscles -- are instead interconnected, fluid-filled compartments.

This series of spaces, supported by a meshwork of strongand flexible connective tissue proteins, may act like shock absorbers that keep tissues from tearing as organs, muscles, and vessels squeeze, pump, and pulse as part of daily function.

Importantly, the finding that this layer is a highway of moving fluid may explain why cancer that invades it becomes much more likely to spread. Draining into the lymphatic system, the newfound network is the source of lymph, the fluid vital to the functioning of immune cells that generate inflammation. 

Its interesting  that even till date we do not the complete anatomy of human structure and body.Science is making advancements and so are we.

Mathematical mystery of ancient Babylonian clay tablet

Scientists have discovered the purpose of a famous 3,700-year old Babylonian clay tablet, revealing it is the world's oldest and most accurate trigonometric table, possibly used by ancient mathematical scribes to calculate how to construct palaces and temples and build canals. The new research shows the Babylonians beat the Greeks to the invention of trigonometry - the study of triangles - by more than 1,000 years.

It has four columns and 15 rows of numbers written on it in the cuneiform script of the time using a base 60, or sexagesimal, system.The 15 rows on the tablet describe a sequence of 15 right-angle triangles, which are steadily decreasing in inclination.

The left-hand edge of the tablet is broken and the UNSW researchers build on previous research to present new mathematical evidence that there were originally 6 columns and that the tablet was meant to be completed with 38 rows.

It is interesting to know that it also demonstrate how the ancient scribes, who used a base 60 numerical arithmetic similar to our time clock, rather than the base 10 number system we use, could have generated the numbers on the tablet using their mathematical techniques.

The mathematical world is only waking up to the fact that this ancient but very sophisticated mathematical culture has much to teach us.